Something (Beatles song)

• 1. Songwriting Origins And Inspiration

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  George Harrison began writing Something in September 1968 during a session for the Beatles' self-titled double album. He worked on the melody at a piano while Paul McCartney recorded overdubs in a neighboring studio at London's Abbey Road Studios. Harrison suspended work on the song, believing that with the tune having come to him so easily, it might have been a melody from another song. The opening lyric was taken from the title of Something in the Way She Moves, a track by James Taylor. In his autobiography I, Me, Mine, he recalls working on the middle eight which took some time to sort out. Available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required). Boyd discusses the song's popularity among other recording artists and concludes: My favourite version was the one by George Harrison, which he played to me in the kitchen at Kinfauns. Having begun to write love songs that were directed at both God and a woman, with his White Album track Long, Long, Long, Harrison later cited alternative sources for his inspiration for Something. In early 1969, according to author Joshua Greene, Harrison told his friends from the Hare Krishna Movement that the song was about the Hindu deity Krishna. By 1996, Harrison had denied writing Something for Boyd. That year, he told a music journalist that everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie because of the promotional film accompanying the release of the Beatles' recording.

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• 2. Recording Sessions And Production Techniques

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  The group recorded Something on the 16th of April before Harrison decided to redo the song. A new basic track for which was then completed at Abbey Road on the 2nd of May. The line-up included Harrison on Leslie-effected rhythm guitar, Lennon on piano, McCartney on bass, Ringo Starr on drums, and guest musician Billy Preston playing Hammond organ. On the 5th of May, at Olympic Sound Studios, McCartney re-recorded his bass part and Harrison added lead guitar. According to EMI engineer Geoff Emerick, Harrison asked McCartney to simplify his playing, but McCartney refused. At this point, the song ran to eight minutes due to the inclusion of an extended jam-like coda led by Lennon's piano. After taking a break from recording, the band returned to Something on the 11th of July when Harrison overdubbed what would turn out to be a temporary vocal. With the resulting reduction mix, much of the coda along with almost all of Lennon's playing on the main part of the song was cut from the recording. Martin-arranged string orchestration was overdubbed on the 15th of August as Harrison re-recorded his lead guitar part live. Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, David Fricke described the Beatles' version of Something as actually two moods in one: the pillowy yearning of the verses and the golden thunder of the bridge driven by Ringo Starr's military flourish on a high-hat cymbal.

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• 3. Single Release And Chart Performance

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  Apple Records issued Abbey Road on the 26th of September 1969 with Something sequenced as the second track following Lennon's Come Together. Coupled with Come Together, the single was issued on the 6th of October in America and the 31st of October in Britain. The release marked the first time that a Harrison composition had been afforded A-side treatment on a Beatles single. It also became the only time during their career that a single was issued in the UK featuring tracks already available on an album. Although its commercial impact was lessened by the ongoing success of the parent album, Something / Come Together was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on the 27th of October. During the single's chart run on Billboard in the US, Something peaked at number 3 until the magazine changed its practice of counting sales and airplay separately for each song. Following this change on the 29th of November, the single topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week. Come Together / Something became the Beatles' eighteenth number 1 single in Billboard surpassing Elvis Presley's record of seventeen. As the preferred side, Something was number 1 in Canada for five weeks, Australia for five weeks, West Germany for two weeks, New Zealand and Singapore. The combined sides reached number 4 in Britain where the release was highly unusual given the traditional preference for non-album singles.

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• 4. Critical Reception And Awards History

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  Time magazine declared Something to be the best track on Abbey Road while John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone: George's vocal containing less adenoids and more grainy Paul tunefulness than ever before is one of many highlights on his Something. Writing in Saturday Review magazine, Ellen Sander described Something as certainly one of the most beautiful songs George Harrison has ever written. According to Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner, Something showed Harrison following McCartney's populist approach and some long-haired music critics were repelled by the song's use of lush MOR-style orchestration. An outspoken critic of Abbey Road, The New York Times Nik Cohn derided it and Here Comes the Sun as mediocrity incarnate. In July 1970, Something received the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically of 1969. In 2005, the British Broadcasting Corporation named it as the 64th-greatest song ever. According to the BBC, the song shows more clearly than any other song in The Beatles' canon that there were three great songwriters in the band rather than just two. The Beatles' official website states that Something underlined the ascendance of George Harrison as a major songwriting force.

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• 5. Legacy And Cultural Impact

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  Along with Here Comes the Sun, the song established Harrison as a composer to match Lennon and McCartney. Writing in his book Revolution in the Head, author and critic Ian MacDonald described Something as the acme of Harrison's achievement as a writer. Like Lennon, both McCartney and Starr held the song in high regard. In the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology, Starr paired Something with While My Guitar Gently Weeps as Two of the finest love songs ever written. McCartney said it was George's greatest track with Here Comes the Sun and While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Among Harrison's other peers, Paul Simon described Something as a masterpiece and Elton John said: Something is probably one of the best love songs ever, ever, written. It's better than Yesterday, much better. It's like the song I've been chasing for the last thirty-five years. In July 1970, Something received the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically of 1969. In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated named it as the 17th-most performed song of the twentieth century with 5 million performances. In 2000, Mojo ranked Something at number 14 in the magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Songs of All Time.

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• 6. Notable Cover Versions By Other Artists

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  Among the song's many cover versions, Welsh singer Shirley Bassey recorded a successful version of Something released in 1970 as the title track to her album of the same name. Also issued as a single, it became Bassey's first top-ten hit in the UK since I Who Have Nothing in 1963 peaking at number 4 and spending 22 weeks on the chart. Frank Sinatra was particularly impressed with Something calling it the greatest love song of the past 50 years despite having long disapproved of the Beatles. He especially admired the way the lyric evokes a girl who isn't even present. During his live performances, Sinatra was known to mistakenly introduce Something as a Lennon-McCartney composition. By 1978, he had begun correctly crediting Harrison as its author. Harrison went on to adopt Sinatra's minor lyrical change in the song's middle eight singing You stick around Jack in his live performances over 1991-92. Elvis Presley performed it on his 1973 Aloha from Hawaii TV special the recording from which appeared on the accompanying bestselling album. A version from Presley's August 1970 Las Vegas concert season subsequently appeared on the box sets Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters and Live in Las Vegas.

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