By the mid-1980s, George Harrison didn’t really need hits anymore. After being a part of one of the biggest bands of all time, there comes a moment when you’re going to want a break from public life and spend some time living a life at home. Harrison still had a few hits left in him…but when the record company thought they weren’t good enough, ‘Teardrops’ turned into one of the biggest fumbles in rock history.
Throughout the recording of his album Somewhere in England, Harrison seemed to be making the album that he wanted to make. A natural progression from his self-titled album in 1979, most of the songs didn’t really fit with the sonic palette of punk but rather the kind of yacht rock music that was becoming much more prevalent around this time.
It looked like Harrison would just keep on doing what he does best, but that’s not what his label thought would sell. After trying their best to wrap their head around the album, Warner Bros was convinced that this kind of spiritualism that Harrison was droning on about wasn’t hip with the kids these days anymore.
According to Harrison, he felt that his label had hung him out to dry, telling Creem, “People were saying, ‘Now, look, radio stations are having all these polls done in the street to find out what constitutes a hit single and they’ve decided a hit single is a song of love gained or lost directed at 14-to-20-year-olds’”.
Harrison’s orders to re-record the album also came with some tragic timing. In the time it took to record the new songs, John Lennon’s murder led to Harrison penning a song for his old mate entitled ‘All Those Years Ago’, which works as a fitting tribute to their friendship. It almost invites you to buy the album, thinking it will be a return to form, only for ‘Teardrops’ to knock you over the head.
Nixing songs like ‘Flying Hour’ and ‘Tears of the World’, ‘Teardrops’ was one of the new songs Harrison wrote for the album, with most of the lyrics dealing with the kind of “love lost” sentiment that his higher-ups were droning on about. Although the song is not good by a long shot, it’s actually so cheesy that it ends up looping back around into being funny.
From the kitschy synths that kick the song off, the song practically feels like Harrison listened to the kind of music that plays over the background of a 1980s workout instructional and figured that would be his new sound. It’s also weird to hear Harrison doing a strange voice, putting a lot more nasality into his delivery and sounding like he has some sort of strange throat condition.
That’s far from the goofiest that the album gets, though. Whereas most of the original track listing was fine, hearing ‘Save the World’ is also a trip, including strange sound effects used in the midsection that completely kneecaps a serious song about how we treat our planet.
While Harrison intended it to be the kind of soulful number that he was used to doing on albums like Thirty-Three and ⅓, it ends up sounding like a parody of what 1980s music is supposed to sound like. If he meant it to be intentionally bad, it’s hilarious, but considering Gone Troppo was up next, Harrison probably just wanted to be done with the music business.
