The title came from an article in The American Rifleman, a magazine published by the National Rifle Association. The story was titled "Happiness Is A Warm Gun." In it, the author recalls the special time when he took his 7-year-old son shooting for the first time. It struck John Lennon as "fantastic, insane… a warm gun means you've just shot something." Said Lennon, "I thought it was so crazy that I made a song out of it."
This complicated song, which involved various different time signatures, (the 6/8 middle section was made more convoluted by Ringo continuing to drum in 4/4), took 15 hours and over 100 takes to nail. The first half of one take was combined with the second half of another to form the complete song.
Like the composer Wagner, Lennon felt that a song must have increasing excitement, climax and redemption. The song is built from pieces of several different little songs, with different melodies and rhythms, and one after another, the excitement is increasing. The climax is the falsetto, and finally the redemption is in the continuing call and answer. When The White Album was released in 1968, it was not commonly known that Lennon was a composer, as many people thought that he was only a lyric writer. After The Beatles broke up, their individual songwriting contributions were revealed in greater detail.
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