piano-based ballad, with conventional chord changes. McCartney described the chords as "slightly jazzy" and in keeping with Charles' style. The song's home key is E-flat major but it also uses the relative C minor. The opening theme is repeated throughout. The song lacks a traditional chorus, and the melody and lyrics are ambiguous about the opening stanza's position in the piece. In this way, according to musicologist Alan Pollack, it is unclear whether the song has just begun, is in the verse, or is in the bridge. In an interview in 1994, McCartney said of "The Long and Winding Road": "It's rather a sad song. I like writing sad songs, it's a good bag to get into because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it. It's a good vehicle, it saves having to go to a psychiatrist." He also told his biographer Barry Miles in the 1990s that the song was "all about the unattainable; the door you never quite reach ... the road that you never get to the end of". Recording January 1969 McCartney premiered "The Long and Winding Road" on 7 January 1969 during the Beatles' filmed rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios. After they abandoned thoughts of returning to public performance, and instead decided to make a new album, the band recorded several takes of the song at their Apple Studio in central London on 26 January and again on 31 January. The line-up was McCartney on lead vocals and piano, John Lennon on six-string bass guitar, George Harrison on electric guitar played with a Leslie speaker effect, Ringo Starr on drums, and guest keyboardist Billy Preston on electric piano. Lennon, who rarely played bass, made several mistakes on the recording. As seen in the Get Back documentary, following the 26 January recording session, the band discussed the possibility of adding an orchestral accompaniment to the song. "The only way I've ever heard it in my head," McCartney said, "is like Ray Charles's band.... We were planning to do it anyway for a couple of numbers, just to have a bit of brass and a bit of strings." George Harrison supported the idea of a brass accompaniment: "It would be nice with some brass just doing the sustaining chord thing, moving and just holding notes." In May 1969, Glyn Johns, who had been asked by the Beatles to compile