By the end of his time with The Beatles, George Harrison had started to grow restless. The official story pins the songwriter as one of the hit-making machine’s most frustrated cogs. While Paul McCartney and John Lennon continued to dominate the Liverpudlian group’s recording sessions, Harrison grew increasingly disillusioned with his place in the band.
It’s hard not to side with the spiritually inclined guitarist. A whole range of songs that would later appear on his best-selling album All Things Must Pass were being routinely knocked back by the songwriting partnership, and that’s if they even bothered to listen to them. This fact, and the anecdotes of the time, paint Harrison as a disagreeable part of the team during their later years.
The reality, however, is a little further from this apparent truth. While it is true that Harrison’s songs were being knocked back more fervently than ever, that is largely because the guitarist was writing more than ever. His increase in anger towards the band’s song selection process was also increasing thanks to the improvement in the calibre of his tunes. These two factors met head-on with the Lennon-McCartney establishment and, therefore, frustration ensued.
But to believe that Harrison wasn’t happy to still be in The Beatles and that these last few years were not his most fruitful as a songwriter for the foursome is to believe in a false narrative. Abbey Road would hold the opportunity for Harrison to get a larger share of the songwriting credits than ever, with his seminal hits ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ — arguably his best moments with the band.
It is perhaps because of this reason, or simply owing to his understanding of the promotion trail, that Harrison happily sat down in 1969 to discuss the LP track by track. During the conversation, Harrison would speak about ‘Something’ and, perhaps, the album’s most infamous song ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. However, being the consummate professional he was, Harrison avoided his later criticism of the track and said that “some people will hate and some people will really love it”. Harrison compared it to ‘Honey Pie’ and called the song “fun”, which is probably the nicest thing any of the members not named Paul McCartney has ever said about the tune.
With this comment in mind, it’s worth remembering that Harrison was undoubtedly trying to sell the album, so a hefty pin of salt is likely needed for his comments. However, there was one song that the guitarist seemed to genuinely enjoy. He picked out ‘Because’ and heaped massive praise on the track, labelling it the band’s “most beautiful”. Considering the unfathomable range of beauty in The Beatles’ catalogue, this is no small praise.
The track was composed by Lennon when listening to Yoko Ono play Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’. “I said, ‘Can you play those chords backward?’ and wrote ‘Because’ around them,” confirmed Lennon to David Sheff. “The lyrics speak for themselves; they’re clear. No bullshit. No imagery, no obscure references.”
“John wrote this tune,” noted Harrison in 1969. “The backing is a bit like Beethoven. And three-part harmony right throughout. Paul usually writes the sweeter tunes, and John writes the, sort of, more the rave-up things, or the freakier things. But John’s getting to where he doesn’t want to. He just wants to write twelve-bars. But you can’t deny it, I think this is possibly my favourite one on the album.” Later, asserting that ‘Because’ is “one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever done”.
Listen to ‘Because’ belo
