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Lennon and McCartney are credited, McCartney principally; Lennon later called it a rewrite of "Lady Madonna" and said McCartney looked at Yoko Ono on the chorus, and the early improvised lyrics parodied anti-immigrant rhetoric of the time. It grew out of jamming at Twickenham on 7 January 1969 and was recorded on 27 and 28 January at Apple Studios in London, with McCartney on lead vocal and bass, Lennon on harmony vocal and lead guitar, Harrison on rhythm guitar, Starr on drums and Preston on electric piano. Glyn Johns and George Martin produced the single version, which runs 3:13 and ends with a coda after a false ending; the Let It Be album version is Phil Spector's mix with studio chatter and no coda. Apple and Parlophone released it in Britain on 11 April 1969 as R 5777 with "Don't Let Me Down" on the B-side, and in the United States on 5 May as 2490. The credit to Preston was at the band's request.

It entered the UK chart at number one, the only Beatles single to do so, and stayed six weeks; in the United States it was number one for five weeks, their seventeenth, and it topped the chart in about 14 countries, going double platinum in America and gold in Britain. The Beatles played it three times on the Apple rooftop on 30 January 1969, the last of them stopped by the police, their final live performance. Rod Stewart took a cover to 11 in Britain in 1976 and Preston's own 1978 version from the Sgt. Pepper film reached 86 in America. The single version is on 1967-1970, Past Masters and 1, and remixes appear on Let It Be... Naked and Love. Our upload is the single version on Preston's own Topic channel; the compilation it comes from is not identified.