While The Beatles were always known as the Fab Four, most of their songs are attributed to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, arguably the most successful songwriting partnerships in music history. The Beatles were only active for a decade, but due to their writing abilities, they were able to pen copious timeless classics, making them the biggest band in the world.
After many creative and personal differences tore the band apart, leading to their split in 1970, each member honed a solo career. While each member’s post-Beatles work has its own merits, it was George Harrison who thrived best now that he was able to have greater creative control. While he had released two solo records during his time with The Beatles – Wonderwall Music and Electric Sound – these were predominantly instrumental and experimental albums.
The same year that The Beatles ended, Harrison released his magnum opus, All Things Must Pass, which contained some of his greatest songs, like ‘My Sweet Lord’, ‘Wah-Wah’ and ‘What Is Life’. These tracks proved his stellar ability when it came to songwriting, something he’d only briefly been given the chance to demonstrate in The Beatles.
The musician wrote his first song for The Beatles, ‘Don’t Bother Me’, in 1963. As the years progressed, he was allowed slightly more creative license, penning tracks such as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Something’, and ‘Here Comes the Sun’. It took a while for Lennon and McCartney to take Harrison’s contributions seriously. In fact, it was his lack of autonomy and McCartney’s creative authoritarianism that led Harrison to temporarily quit the band in 1969.
However, when the band were still in their infancy, they penned the track ‘And I Love Her’, which remains one of their best-known songs, having since been covered by many artists, such as Kurt Cobain. The track was a turning point for several of the members, with McCartney recalling to Mojo how Harrison’s contributions really stood out to him. For the first time, Harrison had donated a riff that McCartney and the rest of the band really thought was incredibly special.
He explained: “I would think immediately of my song ‘And I Love Her’, which I brought in pretty much as a finished song. But George put on do-do-do-do, which is very much a part of the song. Y’know, the opening riff. That, to me, made a stunning difference to the song, and whenever I play the song now, I remember the moment George came up with it. That song would not be the same without it.”
The song appeared on their third album, A Hard Day’s Night, with McCartney singing the vocals. It contains tender lyrics inspired by his girlfriend Jane Asher, such as “A love like ours/ Could never die/ As long as I/ Have you near me.”
In Barry Miles’ book Many Years From Now, McCartney recalls, “It was the first ballad I impressed myself with,” adding, “It still holds up and George played really good guitar on it. It worked very well.”
Revisit the song below.
