The break-up of The Beatles inevitably resulted in the silver lining of some stellar solo material. While the glory days of the eponymous four-piece may have proved that the parts were not greater than their sum, who could begrudge Ringo Starr his ‘Back off Boogaloo’ day in the sun?
Their former Promethean feat may have proved impossible to recapture, but aside from the fact that their solo careers offered up some truly brilliant tracks, it also had the added benefit of adding depth to the band’s back catalogue by proxy. When the dust had settled on the sadness of the split, there was fevered anticipation to see which way each of the Fab Four would go.
Within this melee of excitement, the direction of George Harrison, the quiet Beatle, remained the most enigmatic. Ringo was always going to be fun, he simply had no choice in the matter, Paul McCartney was likely to stay poppy and personable, while it seemed inevitable that John Lennon would stray towards darker material. Harrison, on the other hand, remained a mystery.
What furthered the solo excitement was the notion of what the ex-bandmates thought of each other’s new material and their former contributions. Comments from Lennon were pretty easy to come by as he dealt out a “granny music” blow to his old writing buddy. But when McCartney finally answered a fan’s question regarding his favourite George Harrison track, the answer came as a bit of a revelation, given that he had largely swerved analysis of the guitarist’s work in the years following the split.
“‘Here Comes The Sun’. It is a brilliant song and the kind of song that’s really good in times like these,” he said while promoting McCartney III in amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, the sanguine hue in which the track was basked, made it the perfect slice of hope to assail the lockdown blues. It’s humble yet soaring spirit embodied Harrison in every which way.
In Anthology, Harrison describes the inception of the track. “‘Here Comes The Sun’ was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: ‘Sign this’ and ‘Sign that’. Anyway,” he explains. He was disillusioned by the state of the player, weary from the fraught years that had gone before, but in typical Harrison fashion, still clinging to hope.
“It seems as if winter in England goes on forever; by the time spring comes you really deserve it,” he said, delving into the song’s constitution. “So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton’s house. The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric’s acoustic guitars and wrote ‘Here Comes The Sun’.”
Harrison’s song is one of 22 tracks that he wrote for The Beatles, and it features on their 1969 album Abbey Road. ‘Here Comes The Sun’ is the most streamed Beatles track on Spotify globally, with well over a billion plays, nearly double that of ‘Twist and Shout’ in second. It has also received an array of cover versions, including a particularly gorgeous take put forward by Nina Simone.
The song is an offering of sorts, fitting of the ever-selfless Harrison. His songwriting talents weren’t always recognised in The Beatles, but with empathy, it is easy to see how that happened despite his evident brilliance; as Bob Dylan put it: “George got stuck with being the Beatle that had to fight to get songs on records because of Lennon and McCartney. Well, who wouldn’t get stuck? If George had had his own group and was writing his own songs back then, he’d have been probably just as big as anybody.”
In retrospect, McCarney did not realise that himself, but it took the golden ray that is ‘Here Comes the Sun’ to break through at the time. While the relationship between McCartney and Harrison may not always have been rosy, after the initial tempestuous post-break-up period during which Harrison wrote to young fans and asked them to smash up Paul’s car, they were able to patch things up. Both Beatles had tremendous respect for each other’s solo careers and the friendship endured until the end.
