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Across the Universe by The Beatles | acoustic

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An acoustic guitar lesson on how to play “Across the Universe” by The Beatles | John Lennon from the album “Let It Be” released in 1970.

A different version of the song was released in 1969 on a record called “No One's Gonna Change Our World” a charity album released in the UK for the benefit of the World Wildlife Fund.

​Check that out here.

I think this may be John Lennon’s best song. The lyrics are amazing and the melody is beautiful. A lot of people say they don’t like what Phil Spector did to the tune on the Let It Be record, but I love what he did! I think it’s the best version.

Here’s a quote from John Lennon on how he wrote the lyrics, it’s from the Wikipedia article on the song:

“I was lying next to my first wife in bed, you know, and I was irritated. and I was thinking. She must have been going on and on about something and she'd gone to sleep and I kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream.

I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than an irritated song, rather than a "Why are you always mouthing off at me?".[1] [The words] were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom!. I don't own it you know; it came through like that.”


Other than the intro, the guitar part is fairly straight forward. It’s just strumming the chords. I really liked the version that Rufus Wainwright did, where he added harmonies to the chorus and the “Jai guru deva” part.

So I tried to cover that with the guitar part by adding the melody and harmony in those sections. If you’re a beginner and it’s too tough you can just stick with the strumming.

I really enjoyed making this video. It’s such a beautiful song, it put me in a great space the whole time I was working on it! Cheers
Andy

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