"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is a song by The Beatles that first appeared on the 1965 album Rubber Soul. Credited to Lennon/McCartney, it was written primarily by John Lennon, with Paul McCartney contributing to the middle eight section. It is the first example of a rock band actually playing the sitar in one of their songs; it was played by George Harrison. The song is a lilting acoustic ballad featuring Lennon's lead vocal and signature Beatle harmonies in the middle eight.
Harrison - who would later be strongly influenced by Indian culture and become a practitioner of transcendental meditation - decided on using a sitar when The Beatles recorded the song on 12 and 21 October 1965.
Peter Asher [brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend Jane Asher] had his room done out in wood, a lot of people were decorating their places in wood. Norwegian wood. It was pine, really, cheap pine. But it's not as good a title, "Cheap Pine", baby. So it was a little parody really on those kind of girls who when you'd go to their flat there would be a lot of Norwegian wood. It was completely imaginary from my point of view but in John's it was based on an affair he had. This wasn't the decor of someone's house, we made that up. So she makes him sleep in the bath and then finally in the last verse I had this idea to set the Norwegian wood on fire as revenge, so we did it very tongue in cheek. She led him on, then said, "You'd better sleep in the bath." In our world the guy had to have some sort of revenge ... so it meant I burned the place down.
