While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a song written by George Harrison of The Beatles which is from the double album simply titled "The Beatles" . The song was released on the 22nd of November, 1968.

Recently the song was ranked at #135 of the Rolling Stone Top 500 songs of all time and #7 on their list of top 100 Beatles songs. Inspiration for the song came to Harrison while he was reading the book "I Ching".  He was inspired by the book's Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else and he was opposed to the western view that things were merely coincidental.   Taking this idea of relativism, Harrison committed to write a song based on the first words he saw upon opening a random book. Those words were “gently weeps”, and he immediately began the song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk3Sez9TC9E&feature=related 

On 29 November 2001, the date of Harrison's death, NBC Nightly News used this song instead of their traditional lead in drumming for the introductory background music to the newscast. 

In The News

• U.S. presidential election, 1968: Republican challenger Richard M. Nixon defeats Vice President Hubert Humphrey and American Independent Party candidate George C. Wallace.
• Vietnam War: Eleven men comprising a Long Range Patrol team from F Company, 58th Infantry, 101st_Airborne are surrounded and nearly wiped out by North_Vietnamese_Army regulars from the 4th and 5th Regiment. The seven wounded survivors and their fallen brothers are rescued after several hours by an impromptu force made of other men from their unit
• The Beatles release The White Album.
• Yale University opens its doors to admit female students for the first time. 

Movies

• The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.

Sports

• The "Heidi Game": NBC cuts off the final minute of an Oakland Raiders vs New York Jets football game to broadcast the pre-scheduled movie "Heidi". Fans are unable to see Oakland  score 2 late touchdowns to win 43–32. Thousands of outraged football fans flood the NBC switchboards to protest.

 Television

Top 15 shows for the 1968 season 

1. Lucy Show
2. Andy Griffith
3. Gomer Pyle
4. Gunsmoke
5. Family Affair
6. Bonanza
7. Red Skelton
8. Dean Martin
9. Jackie Gleason
10. Saturday Night Movies
11. Bewitched
12. Beverly Hillbillies
13. Ed Sullivan
14. The Virginian
15. Green Acres

And that is what was happening in November of 1968...