Whereas selling the brand new Beatles album, Abbey Street, in 1969, John Lennon described George Harrison’s “Something” as “about the best track on the album” – excessive reward, certainly. Launched as a single in October that yr (October 6 within the US and October 31 within the UK), “Something” could be George’s first (and solely) Beatles A-side within the UK.
“George never wrote a song till much later”
It hadn’t been simple for George to get his songs onto Beatles information. As John famous in 1974: “Paul and I really carved up the empire between us, because we were the singers… George never wrote a song till much later.”
George’s first composition, “Don’t Bother Me,” appeared on With The Beatles, the group’s second album, launched in time for Christmas 1963. By the point of “The White Album,” 5 years later, his quota had risen to 4 songs out of 30.
George Martin defined the issues George confronted: “I think the trouble with George was that he was never treated on the same level as having the same quality of songwriting, by anyone – by John, by Paul or by me. I’m as guilty in that respect. I was the guy who used to say: ‘If he’s got a song, we’ll let him have it on the album’ – very condescendingly. I know he must have felt really bad about that. Gradually he kept persevering, and his songs did get better – until eventually, they got extremely good. ‘Something’ is a wonderful song.”
“Do you really think it’s good?”
“Something” had its origins in “The White Album” classes. George himself mentioned that he wrote it on the piano throughout a break whereas Paul continued with some overdubs in one other studio. Producer Chris Thomas remembers sitting on the harpsichord whereas engaged on George’s music “Piggies” at EMI’s studios on Abbey Street. “While George and I were tinkling away on this harpsichord, he started playing another new song to me, which later turned out to be ‘Something’. I said, ‘That’s great! Why don’t we do that one instead?’ and he replied, ‘Do you like it, do you really think it’s good?’”
Across the time of the “Piggies” session, George had been to see Ray Charles in live performance, and has mentioned that, in his thoughts, he heard the legendary R&B singer tackling “Something.” “That’s the feel I imagined, but because I’m not Ray Charles, you know, I’m sort of much more limited in what I can do, then it came out like this.”
Inspiration for the music’s opening line could have unwittingly come from James Taylor, who at the moment was an unknown artist engaged on his first album for Apple Information. “I could never think of words for it… There was a James Taylor song called ‘Something In The Way She Moves’, which is the first line of that. And so then I thought of trying to change the words, but they were the words that came when I first wrote it. So in the end I just left it as that and just called it ‘Something.’”
“I never thought for a second that George intended to do that,” Taylor later commented. “I don’t think he intentionally ripped anything off, and all music is borrowed from other music. So, completely, I let it pass… If George either consciously or unconsciously took a line from one of my songs then I find it very flattering.”
“A lot of time and effort went into ‘Something’”
Although George wrote a lot of the music in a short time, he put it on ice for a couple of months whereas mulling over end the lyrics. Throughout a session at their very own Apple Studios in January 1969, George casually requested his bandmates for assist with the phrases. On the tapes of these classes he might be heard asking, “What could it be, Paul? ‘Something in the way she moves,’ something like that, ‘Attracts me like…’ I couldn’t think of what attracted me at all!” At this level, John interjects: “Just say whatever comes into your head each time, ‘Attracts me like a cauliflower,’ until you get the word.” Taking John actually, George urged, “attracts me like a pomegranate.”
George minimize a demo of “Something” at Abbey Street on February 25, 1969 – his twenty sixth birthday – earlier than returning to the music on April 16, with George himself on guitar, John on bass, Paul on drums (Ringo was away filming), and George Martin on piano. A few weeks later, they began a brand new recording beneath the route of Chris Thomas, this time with Ringo again on the drum stool, Paul enjoying bass, and John on piano. Because the takes wore on, a prolonged improvised coda was added, which, by take 36, had reached almost 5 minutes. Over the subsequent few months, the group returned to the music numerous instances so as to add overdubs – together with an organ half by Billy Preston.
“A lot of time and effort went into ‘Something’,” recalled engineer Geoff Emerick. “Everyone seemed aware of just how good a song it was, even though nobody went out of his way to say so. That’s just the way The Beatles were: compliments were few and far between – you could always tell more about the way they were thinking by the expressions on their faces.”
“Oh, you wrote that? I thought it was a Lennon/McCartney”
“Something” would go on to be lined by extra artists than some other Beatles music, excluding ”Yesterday.” George received his want when Ray Charles lined it in 1971. Different notable artists to have lined it embody Smokey Robinson, Elvis Presley, James Brown, and Frank Sinatra. As Paul famous in Anthology, “Frank Sinatra used to introduce ‘Something’ as his favorite Lennon/McCartney song. Thanks, Frank!”
Sinatra wasn’t the one one. “I realize that the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions,” Harrison later mentioned. “I met Michael Jackson somewhere at the BBC. The fellow interviewing us made a comment about ‘Something,’ and Michael said: ‘Oh, you wrote that? I thought it was a Lennon/McCartney’.”
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