Something (Beatles song)

Template:Short description Template:Featured article Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox song "Something" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 studio album Abbey Road. It was written by George Harrison, the band's lead guitarist. Together with his second contribution to Abbey Road, "Here Comes the Sun", it is widely viewed by music historians as having marked Harrison's ascendancy as a composer to the level of the Beatles' principal songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb: "[Harrison] would finally achieve equal songwriting status alongside Lennon and McCartney with his two classic contributions to the final Beatles LP, Abbey Road"; Template:Harvnb: "[By 1968] Harrison began to produce songs that many considered equal to some of Lennon and McCartney's best compositions. This became even more evident onTemplate:Nbsp... Abbey Road, which contained two masterpieces by Harrison: 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'Something'."</ref><ref>Unterberger, Richie. "The Beatles 'Here Comes the Sun'. AllMusic. Retrieved 22 May 2021: "After years of residing in the heavy shadow of the awesome Lennon–McCartney writing partnership, George Harrison obtained equal recognition for his songwriting on the Beatles' final album, Abbey Road, with both 'Something' and 'Here Comes the Sun'."</ref> Two weeks after the album's release, the song was issued on a double A-side single, coupled with "Come Together", making it the first Harrison composition to become a Beatles A-side. The pairing was also the first time in the United Kingdom that the Beatles issued a single containing tracks already available on an album. While the single's commercial performance was lessened by this, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States as well as charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and West Germany, and peaked at number 4 in the UK.

The track is generally considered a love song to Pattie Boyd, Harrison's first wife, although Harrison offered alternative sources of inspiration in later interviews. Owing to the difficulty he faced in getting more than two of his compositions onto each Beatles album, Harrison first offered the song to Joe Cocker. As recorded by the Beatles, the track features a guitar solo that several music critics identify among Harrison's finest playing. The song also drew praise from the other Beatles and their producer, George Martin, with Lennon stating that it was the best song on Abbey Road. The promotional film for the single combined footage of each of the Beatles with his respective wife, reflecting the estrangement in the band during the months preceding their break-up in April 1970. Harrison subsequently performed the song at his Concert for Bangladesh shows in 1971 and throughout the two tours he made as a solo artist.

"Something" received the Ivor Novello Award for the "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" of 1969. By the late 1970s, it had been covered by over 150 artists, making it the second-most covered Beatles composition after "Yesterday". Shirley Bassey had a top-five UK hit with her 1970 recording, and Frank Sinatra regularly performed the song, calling it "the greatest love song of the past 50 years." Other artists who have covered it include Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, James Brown, Smokey Robinson and Johnny Rodriguez. In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated named "Something" 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"; it was ranked 110th on Rolling StoneTemplate:'s 2021 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 2002, a year after Harrison's death, McCartney and Eric Clapton performed it at the Concert for George tribute at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Background and inspiration

Harrison identified Ray Charles as one of his sources of inspiration for the song.

George Harrison began writing "Something" in September 1968, during a session for the Beatles' self-titled double album, also known as "the White Album".<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years">Mark Lewisohn, "Something Else", in Mojo Special Limited Edition, p. 118.</ref> In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he recalls working on the melody on a piano, at the same time as Paul McCartney recorded overdubs in a neighbouring studio at London's Abbey Road Studios.Template:Sfn Harrison suspended work on the song,<ref name="bbc">Template:Cite web</ref> believing that with the tune having come to him so easily, it might have been a melody from another song.Template:Sfn In I, Me, Mine, he wrote that the middle eight "took some time to sort out".Template:Sfn

The opening lyric was taken from the title of "Something in the Way She Moves", a track by James Taylor, another Apple Records artist.Template:Sfn<ref name="pauldunoyer">Template:Cite magazine</ref> While Harrison imagined the composition in the style of Ray Charles,Template:Sfn his inspiration for "Something" was his wife, Pattie Boyd.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news Available at Rock's Backpages Template:Webarchive (subscription required).</ref> In her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Today, Boyd recalls: "He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me. I thought it was beautiful ..." 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."Template:Sfn

Having begun to write love songs that were directed at both God and a woman, with his White Album track "Long, Long, Long",Template:Sfn Harrison later cited alternative sources for his inspiration for "Something".Template:Sfn 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;Template:Sfn in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1976, he said of his approach to writing love songs: "all love is part of a universal love. When you love a woman, it's the God in her that you see."Template:Sfn By 1996, Harrison had denied writing "Something" for Boyd.<ref name="pauldunoyer" /> 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, which showed the couple together.<ref name="pauldunoyer" /> Template:Clear

Composition

In the version issued on the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road, which was the first release for the song,Template:Sfn "Something" runs at a speed of around 66 beats per minute and is in common time throughout. It begins with a guitar figure, which functions as the song's chorus, since it is repeated before each of the verses and also closes the track.Template:Sfn The melody is in the key of C major until the eight-measure-long bridge, or middle eight, which is in the key of A major.<ref name="Pollack/Something" />Template:Sfn Harrison biographer Simon Leng identifies "harmonic interest ... [in] almost every line" of the song, as the melody follows a series of descending half-steps from the tonic over the verses, a structure that is then mirrored in the new key, through the middle eight.Template:Sfn The melody returns to C major for the guitar solo, the third verse, and the outro.<ref name="Pollack/Something">Template:Cite web</ref>

Leng considers that, lyrically and musically, "Something" reflects "doubt and striving to attain an uncertain goal".Template:Sfn Author Ian Inglis writes of the confident statements that Harrison makes throughout regarding his feelings for Boyd.Template:Sfn Referring to lines in the song's verses,Template:Sfn Inglis writes: "there is a clear and mutual confidence in the reciprocal nature of their love; he muses that [Boyd] 'attracts me like no other lover' and 'all I have to do is think of her,' but he is equally aware that she feels the same, that 'somewhere in her smile, she knows.Template:'"Template:Sfn Similarly, when Harrison sings in the middle eight that "You're asking me will my love grow / I don't know, I don't know",Template:Sfn Inglis interprets the words as "not an indication of uncertainty, but a wry reflection that his love is already so complete that it may simply be impossible for it to become any greater".Template:Sfn Richie Unterberger of AllMusic describes "Something" as "an unabashedly straightforward and sentimental love song" written at a time "when most of the Beatles' songs were dealing with non-romantic topics or presenting cryptic and allusive lyrics even when they were writing about love".<ref name="Unterberger/AM" />

Pre-Abbey Road recording history

The Beatles' Get Back/Let It Be rehearsals

Harrison introduced "Something" at a Beatles session on 19 September 1968, when he played it to George Martin's stand-in as producer of The Beatles, Chris Thomas, while the latter was working out the harpsichord part for Harrison's track "Piggies".<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> Despite Thomas's enthusiasm for the new composition, Harrison chose to focus on "Piggies".Template:Sfn He told Thomas that he intended to offer "Something" to singer Jackie Lomax,<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> whose debut album Harrison was producing for Apple Records.Template:Sfn "Something" was not among the tracks released on Lomax's album,Template:Sfn much of which was recorded in Los Angeles after The Beatles was completed.Template:Sfn

After Harrison rejoined the Beatles in January 1969 for their Get Back film project (later released as Let It Be), "Something" was one of many recent compositions that he offered to the group.<ref>Martin O'Gorman, "Film on Four", in Mojo Special Limited Edition, p. 73.</ref> Leng describes this period as a prolific one for Harrison as a songwriter, comparing it with John Lennon's peak of creativity over 1963–64,Template:Sfn yet Harrison's songs received little interest from Lennon and McCartney amid the tense, uncooperative atmosphere within the band.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Martin was also unimpressed by "Something" at first, considering it "too weak and derivative", according to music journalist Mikal Gilmore.Template:Sfn

The Beatles rehearsed the song at Apple Studio on 28 January.Template:Sfn With the proceedings being recorded by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the planned documentary film,<ref>Martin O'Gorman, "Film on Four", in Mojo Special Limited Edition, pp. 70–71.</ref> tapes reveal Harrison discussing his unfinished lyrics for "Something" with Lennon and McCartney, since he had been unable to complete the song's second line, which begins "Attracts me ..."Template:Sfn To serve as a temporary filler, Lennon suggested "like a cauliflower", which Harrison then altered to "like a pomegranate".<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" />Template:Sfn In their study of the available tapes, Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt write that the Beatles gave the song two run-throughs that day, which was the only occasion that they attempted it during the Get Back/Let It Be project.Template:Sfn

Harrison solo demo

Following the Beatles' brief efforts with "Something" on 28 January,Template:Sfn Harrison talked with Lennon and Yoko Ono about recording a solo album of his unused songs, since he had already stockpiled enough compositions "for the next ten years", given his usual allocation of two tracks per album,Template:Sfn and to "preserve this, the Beatle bit, more".Template:Sfn Lennon offered his support for the idea,Template:Sfn similarly keen that his and Ono's recording projects outside the Beatles could continue without jeopardising the band's future.Template:Sfn On 25 February 1969 – his 26th birthday – Harrison entered Abbey Road Studios and taped solo demos of "Something", "Old Brown Shoe" and "All Things Must Pass",Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn the last two of which had also been rejected recently by Lennon and McCartney.Template:Sfn

With Ken Scott serving as his engineer,Template:Sfn he recorded a live take of "Something", featuring electric guitar and vocal.<ref>Mark Lewisohn, liner notes in booklet accompanying the Beatles' Anthology 3 CD (Apple Records, 1996; produced by George Martin), p. 37.</ref>Template:Sfn By this point, Harrison had completed the lyrics, although he included an extra verse, sung to a counter-melody, over the section that would comprise his guitar solo on the Beatles' subsequent official recording.Template:Sfn This demo version of "Something" remained unreleased until its inclusion on the Beatles' outtake collection Anthology 3 in 1996.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn

Joe Cocker demo

In March 1969, Harrison gave "Something" to Joe Cocker to record,Template:Sfn having decided that it was more likely to become a hit with Cocker than with Lomax.Template:Sfn Referring to this and similar examples where Harrison placed his overlooked songs with other recording artists, Ken Scott has rebutted the idea that he lacked confidence as a songwriter in the Beatles, saying:

I think he was totally confident about the songs. The insecurity may have been, if the Beatles kept going, "How many songs am I going to be able to get on each album?", and with the backlog sort of mounting up ... [to] get it out there, and get something from it.<ref>Ken Scott, in George Harrison: Living in the Material World DVD. Village Roadshow, 2011. (Directed by Martin Scorsese; produced by Olivia Harrison, Nigel Sinclair, Martin Scorsese.) Disc 2: event occurs between 6:26 and 6:57.</ref>

Assisted by Harrison, Cocker recorded a demo of the song at Apple.<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> While musicologist Walter Everett suggests that this was the same recording of "Something" that appeared on the Joe Cocker! album in November 1969,Template:Sfn Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn writes that Cocker subsequently remade the track.<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" />

Recording and production

Template:Main Template:Quote box The Beatles undertook the recording of Abbey Road with a sense of discipline and cooperation that had largely been absent while making the White Album and Let It Be.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Having temporarily left the group in January 1969, partly as a result of McCartney's criticism of his musicianship, Harrison exhibited a greater level of assertiveness regarding his place in the band, particularly while they worked on his compositions "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun".Template:Sfn In addition, like Lennon and McCartney, Martin had come to fully appreciate Harrison as a songwriter, later saying: "I first recognised that he really had a great talent when we did 'Here Comes the Sun.' But when he brought in 'Something,' it was something else ... It was a tremendous work – and so simple."Template:Sfn

The group recorded "Something" on 16 April before Harrison decided to redo the song, a new basic track for which was then completed at Abbey Road on 2 May. The line-up was 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 5 May, at Olympic Sound Studios, McCartney re-recorded his bass part and Harrison added lead guitar.Template:Sfn According to EMI engineer Geoff Emerick, Harrison asked McCartney to simplify his playing, but McCartney refused.Template:Sfn At this point, the song ran to eight minutes, due to the inclusion of an extended, jam-like coda led by Lennon's piano.Template:Sfn

After taking a break from recording,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn the band returned to "Something" on 11 July, when Harrison overdubbed what would turn out to be a temporary vocal.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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. The piano can be heard only in the middle eight, specifically during the descending run that follows each pair of "I don't know" vocal lines.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn On 16 July, Harrison recorded a new vocal,Template:Sfn with McCartney overdubbing his harmony vocal over the middle eight and Starr adding both a second hi-hat part and a cymbal.Template:Sfn

Following another reduction mix, at which point the remainder of the coda was excised from the track, Martin-arranged string orchestration was overdubbed on 15 August, as Harrison, working in the adjacent studio at Abbey Road, re-recorded his lead guitar part live.Template:Sfn 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, the latter driven by Ringo Starr's military flourish on a high-hat cymbal".Template:Sfn Leng highlights Harrison's guitar solo on the recording as "a performance that is widely regarded as one of the great guitar solos", and one in which Harrison incorporates the gamaks associated with Indian classical music, following his study of the sitar in 1965–68, while also foreshadowing the expressive style he would adopt on slide guitar as a solo artist.Template:Sfn

Release

Selection for single release

Template:Quote box Apple Records issued Abbey Road on 26 September 1969,Template:Sfn with "Something" sequenced as the second track, following Lennon's "Come Together".Template:Sfn Lennon considered "Something" to be the best song on the album.<ref name="pauldunoyer" />Template:Sfn Having ensured that "Old Brown Shoe" was chosen as the B-side for the Beatles' single "The Ballad of John and Yoko", according to his later recollection,Template:Sfn Lennon now pushed Allen Klein to release "Something" as a single from Abbey Road. Coupled with "Come Together", the single was issued on 6 October in America (as Apple 2654) and 31 October in Britain (as Apple R5814).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The release marked the first time that a Harrison composition had been afforded A-side treatment on a Beatles single,Template:Sfn as well as the only time during their career that a single was issued in the UK featuring tracks already available on an album.Template:Sfn In a 1990 letter to Mark Lewisohn, Klein rebutted a claim made by Lewisohn in his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, that the single was intended as a money-making exercise: Klein said it was purely a mark of Lennon's regard for "Something" and "to point out George as a writer, and give him courage to go in and do his own LP. Which he did."<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" />Template:Refn Following the Beatles' break-up in April 1970, Harrison's ascendancy as a songwriter would continue with his triple album All Things Must Pass,<ref>Adrian Thrills, "Ten Years After: George", in Hunt, p. 22.</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages Template:Webarchive (subscription required).</ref> building on the promise of White Album tracks such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"Template:Sfn and his two contributions to Abbey Road.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Promotional film

File:Harrison and boyd in promotinal video.jpg

Harrison and Boyd in the "Something" film clip

The promotional film for "Something" was shot in late October 1969, not long after Lennon privately announced that he was leaving the band. By this time, the band members had grown apart. As a result, the film consisted of separate clips, edited together, featuring the Beatles walking around the grounds of their homes with their respective wives.Template:Sfn Harrison's segment shows him and Boyd together in the garden at Kinfauns; in author John Winn's description, Harrison appears "solemn" while Boyd is seen "smiling sweetly" and "sporting leather and fur coats". Winn also comments on the attractiveness of all the wives in contrast to the unkempt appearance of McCartney, especially, who had sunk into depression at the realisation that the Beatles were over.Template:Sfn The four segments were edited and compiled into a single film clip by Neil Aspinall.<ref name="Kozinn/NYT">Template:Cite news</ref> Writing in The New York Times following Aspinall's death in 2008, Allan Kozinn said: "What Mr. Aspinall's idyllic film avoided showing was that the Beatles were at that point barely on speaking terms. In the film, no two Beatles are seen together."<ref name="Kozinn/NYT" />

In 2015, following restoration overseen by Apple's Jonathan Clyde,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the "Something" promo film was included in the Beatles' video compilation 1 and its expanded edition, 1+.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield comments on the significance of the clip, with regard to the band's history:

[E]ach couple projects a totally different vibe – George and Patti peacocking in their hippie-royalty finery, Paul and Linda on the farm in Scotland with Martha the sheepdog, Ringo and Maureen goofing around on motorbikes, John and Yoko serene in their matching black robes. Each Beatle looks like he's found what he was looking for – but they're heading for four separate futures.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In her review of 1+, for Paste, Gillian Gaar says that with the Beatles' promotional films of their singles, from "Love Me Do" to "Something" (the last one they made during their career), "you can see the development of the promo clip, progressing from a short film that simply served up a straight performance to a piece of work that was striving to be something more artistic."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Time magazine declared "Something" to be the best track on Abbey Road,Template:Sfn 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,' some of the others being more excellent drum work, a dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued strings, and an unusually nice melody. Both his and Joe Cocker's version will suffice nicely until Ray Charles gets around to it."<ref name="Mendelsohn">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Writing in Saturday Review magazine, Ellen Sander described "Something" as "certainly one of the most beautiful songs George Harrison has ever written" and added: "He feels his way through the song, instinctively cutting through its body and into the core, emoting so clearly and so gracefully that at the moment he peals 'I don't know, I don't know,' it is shown that even what is not known can be understood."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

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.Template:Sfn An outspoken critic of Abbey Road, The New York TimesTemplate:'s Nik Cohn derided it and "Here Comes the Sun" as "mediocrity incarnate".Template:Sfn By contrast, Lon Goddard of Record Mirror described the song as "another beautiful Harrison composition" in the style of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", saying that "It leaps scales in its heavy orchestral arrangement, then drifts down to George's simple but effective guitar style."<ref>Template:Cite magazine Available at Rock's Backpages Template:Webarchive (subscription required).</ref>

In his review of the single, Derek Johnson of the NME lauded the track as "a real quality hunk of pop" with a "strident lead guitar which exudes a mean and moody quality". Johnson stated his regret that Harrison "isn't featured more regularly as a singer", and concluded of "Something": "It's a song that grows on you, and mark my words, it will – in a big way!"<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As guest singles reviewer for Melody Maker, Keef Hartley said it was "probably the best track" on Abbey Road, adding: "What I was waiting for was that guitar solo because George Harrison is just about the only guitar player I know of who can plan a solo so it doesn't sound as though it is planned."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Commercial performance

Although its commercial impact was lessened by the ongoing success of the parent album,Template:Sfn "Something" / "Come Together" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 27 October.Template:Sfn 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 29 November,Template:Sfn the single topped the Billboard Hot 100,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="Mapes/BB">Template:Cite web</ref> for one week.Template:Sfn "Come Together" / "Something" became the Beatles' eighteenth number 1 single in Billboard, surpassing Elvis Presley's record of seventeen.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the other US national charts, Record World listed "Something" / "Come Together" at number 1 for two weeks and "Come Together" / "Something" for the remaining three weeks at number 1,Template:Sfn while in Cash Box magazine, which continued to rank each song separately, "Something" peaked at number 2 and "Come Together" spent three weeks at number 1.Template:Sfn

As the preferred side, "Something" was number 1 in Canada (for five weeks), Australia (five weeks), West Germany (two weeks), New Zealand and Singapore.Template:Sfn The combined sides reached number 4 in Britain.<ref name="UKchart">Template:Cite web</ref> There, the release was highly unusual,<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> given the traditional preference for non-album singles.Template:Sfn In addition, according to former Mojo editor Paul Du Noyer, "so enormous were sales of Abbey Road that demand for the single was inevitably dampened."<ref name="pauldunoyer" />

Along with "Here Comes the Sun", "Something" was included on the Beatles' 1973 compilation album 1967–1970,Template:Sfn thereby giving Harrison two of the four tracks representing Abbey Road.Template:Sfn In 1976, Capitol sequenced it as the opening track of The Best of George Harrison, a compilation that, against Harrison's wishes, combined his best-known compositions from the Beatles era with his hits as a solo artist.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The song was subsequently included on the band's themed compilations Love Songs and The Beatles Ballads.Template:Sfn

On 17 February 1999, "Something" was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.<ref name="RIAA"/> In its 2014 list titled "The Beatles' 50 Biggest Billboard Hits", Billboard places the double A-side single in sixth place, immediately after "Let It Be" and ahead of "Hello, Goodbye".<ref name="BB50Biggest" />Template:Refn

Retrospective assessments and legacy

Template:Quote box Along with "Here Comes the Sun", the song established Harrison as a composer to match Lennon and McCartney.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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". MacDonald highlighted the song's "key-structure of classical grace and panoramic effect", and cited the lyrics to verse two as "its author's finest lines – at once deeper and more elegant than almost anything his colleagues ever wrote".Template:Sfn

Like Lennon, both McCartney and Starr held the song in high regard.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Sfn 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", adding, "they're really on a par with what John and Paul or anyone else of that time wrote"; McCartney said it was "George's greatest track – with 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'While My Guitar Gently WeepsTemplate:'".Template:Sfn Among Harrison's other peers, Paul Simon described "Something" as a "masterpiece" and Elton John said: Template:"'Something' is probably one of the best love songs ever, ever, Template:Em written ... It's better than 'Yesterday,' much better ... It's like the song I've been chasing for the last thirty-five years."Template:Sfn

In a 2002 article for The Morning News, Kenneth Womack included Harrison's guitar solo on the track among his "Ten Great Beatles Moments".Template:Sfn Describing the instrumental break as "the song's greatest lyrical feature – even more lyrical, interestingly enough, than the lyrics themselves", Womack concluded: "A masterpiece in simplicity, Harrison's solo reaches toward the sublime, wrestles with it in a bouquet of downward syncopation, and hoists it yet again in a moment of supreme grace."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn Guitar World included the performance as the magazine's featured solo in June 2011.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Later that year, "Something" was one of the two "key tracks" highlighted by Rolling Stone when the magazine placed Harrison at number 11 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Refn

In July 1970, "Something" received the Ivor Novello Award for "Best Song Musically and Lyrically" of 1969.Template:Sfn In 2005, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 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".<ref name="bbc"/> The Beatles' official website states that "Something" "underlined the ascendance of George Harrison as a major songwriting force".<ref name="something">Template:Cite web</ref>

"Something" became the second most covered Beatles song after "Yesterday".Template:Sfn<ref name=RollingStone100 /><ref name="Time">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) named it as the 17th-most performed song of the twentieth century,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with 5 million performances.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2000, Mojo ranked "Something" at number 14 in the magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Songs of All Time".Template:Sfn It was ranked 273rd on Rolling StoneTemplate:'s 2004 list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time",Template:CN 278th on the magazine's revised list in 2010,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 110th in 2021.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2006, Mojo placed it 7th in the list of "The 101 Greatest Beatles Songs",<ref name="Mojo/101 Greatest">Template:Cite magazine</ref> while four years later, the track appeared at number 6 on a similar list compiled by Rolling Stone.Template:Sfn<ref name=RollingStone100>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2019, the staff of Entertainment Weekly ranked "Something" at number 5 in their list of the Beatles' best songs.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Cover versions

Shirley Bassey

Template:Infobox song Among the song's many cover versions, Welsh singer Shirley Bassey recorded a successful version of "Something".Template:Sfn It was released in 1970 as the title track to her album of the same name.<ref name="Bassey/AM">Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref name="Bassey UK" /> The single also reached the top twenty in other European countries<ref name="Bassey EUR" /> and peaked at number 6 on BillboardTemplate:'s Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary) chart.<ref name="Bassey US" />

Bassey said she had been unaware of the song's origins when recording "Something".<ref name="Bassey/AM" /> She later suggested that she and Harrison could become a singer-and-songwriter pairing on the scale of Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach.<ref name="pauldunoyer" /> After reading these comments in 1970,Template:Sfn Harrison wrote "When Every Song Is Sung" with Bassey in mind, although she never recorded the composition.Template:Sfn

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra was particularly impressed with "Something", calling it "the greatest love song of the past 50 years",<ref name="bbc" />Template:Sfn despite having long disapproved of the Beatles.<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> According to Du Noyer, he "especially admired the way the lyric evokes a girl who isn't even present".<ref name="pauldunoyer" /> Aside from performing "Something" numerous times in concert,Template:Sfn Sinatra recorded the song for a single in October 1970<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and then for his 1980 triple album Trilogy: Past Present Future.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

During his live performances, Sinatra was known to mistakenly introduce "Something" as a Lennon–McCartney composition.Template:Sfn By 1978, he had begun correctly crediting Harrison as its author.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Refn 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.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In The Beatles Anthology, Harrison says he viewed Sinatra as being part of "the generation before me" and so only later came to appreciate the American singer's adoption of the song.Template:Sfn

Other artists

James Brown's recording was Harrison's favourite cover version of "Something".

Harrison's composition began accumulating cover versions almost immediately after the release of Abbey Road, starting with Joe Cocker's recording.Template:Sfn The song became a standard and was readily adapted by artists in a wide range of styles, including easy-listening and instrumental jazz.<ref name="Unterberger/AM" /> In Nicholas Schaffner's description, the many interpretations made the song ubiquitous "from the Borscht Belt to the dentist's waiting room".Template:Sfn

Lena Horne recorded "Something" in the jazz style for her 1970 album with guitarist Gabor Szabo, titled Lena & Gabor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> An instrumental version by Booker T. & the M.G.'s, from their Abbey Road tribute album McLemore Avenue,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1970.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The R&B groups the O'Jays<ref name="Unterberger/AM" /> and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles also covered it, as did easy-listening stars such as Bert Kaempfert and Liberace.Template:Sfn Fulfilling Harrison's hopes, Ray Charles issued a version on his 1971 album Volcanic Action of My Soul.<ref name=RollingStone100 />

Referring to the song's adoption by easy-listening artists, Harrison later said: "When even Liberace covered it [in 1970], you know that it's one of them that ends up in an elevator ..."<ref name="pauldunoyer" /><ref name="Ellen/Q">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Harrison attributed its popularity among other artists to the easily mastered, five-note melody. Du Noyer partly refutes this explanation, saying that it was equally a vehicle for "the most advanced vocalists" such as Peggy Lee, along with Sinatra and Bassey.<ref name="pauldunoyer" />

Template:Quote box "Something" was one of the very few Beatles songs that Elvis Presley chose to play;Template:Sfn Lewisohn highlights his interpretation among the "dozens of high-profile covers".<ref name="Lewisohn/Mojo Beatles Final Years" /> Presley performed it on his 1973 Aloha from Hawaii TV special, the recording from which appeared on the accompanying bestselling album.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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 (1995)<ref>Jorgensen, Ernst Mikael; Semon, Roger; Rasmussen, Erik (1995). "Recording Data". Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters booklet. RCA Records/BMG. pp. 50–51.</ref> and Live in Las Vegas (2001).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1974, a recording by Johnny Rodriguez reached number 6 on BillboardTemplate:'s Hot Country Singles chart<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and number 85 on the Hot 100.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In Canada, Rodriguez's single peaked at number 11 on the RPM country chart.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

By 1972, over 150 artists had recorded "Something".<ref name="Hennessey/RM">Template:Cite magazine</ref>Template:Sfn In his 1996 Harrison biography The Quiet One, Alan Clayson said the song had attracted "nearly 200 cover versions".Template:Sfn In 1972, Harrison told music journalist Mike Hennessey that the Robinson and Cocker versions were among his favourites.<ref name="Hennessey/RM" /> In later interviews, he said that the best cover version was a recording by James Brown,<ref name="Ellen/Q" />Template:Sfn in which the singer declares "I got to believe in something!" over the main riff.Template:Sfn Harrison commented that the recording was relatively obscure in Brown's catalogue: "It was one of his B-sides. I have it on my jukebox at home. It's absolutely brilliant."Template:Sfn

Harrison tributes

Bruce Springsteen opened his first show after Harrison's death on 29 November 2001 by playing "Something", followed by a rendition of Harrison's solo hit "My Sweet Lord".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Elton John gave a solo performance of the song at New York's Carnegie Hall in April 2002, as part of a one-hour Harrison tribute during the eleventh annual Rainforest Foundation concert.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In honour of Harrison's fondness for the instrument, Paul McCartney played a ukulele rendition of "Something" throughout his 2002–03 world tourTemplate:Sfn and included the track on his Back in the U.S. live album.Template:Sfn At the Concert for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall on 29 November 2002,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> he and Eric Clapton performed a version that began with McCartney alone on ukulele, then reverted to the familiar rock arrangement with Clapton taking over as lead singer and backing from Starr, Preston and others.Template:Sfn Following its appearance in David Leland's film Concert for George (2003) and on the accompanying live album, this performance of "Something" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.Template:Sfn

Bob Dylan also played the song live during his November 2002 concerts, as a tribute to Harrison.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="dylan2002_11_13">Template:Cite web</ref> McCartney continued to perform "Something", adopting the Concert for George mix of ukulele and rock backing.Template:Sfn A version with this musical arrangement was included on his 2009 album Good Evening New York City.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Live performances by Harrison

Harrison played "Something" at the two Concert for Bangladesh shows, held at Madison Square Garden in New York on 1 August 1971.Template:Sfn His first live performance as a solo artist, he was backed by a large band that included Starr, Preston, Clapton and Leon Russell.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The version used on the live album and in the 1972 concert film was taken from the evening show that day, when Harrison played it as the final song before returning to perform "Bangla Desh" as an encore.Template:Sfn

Harrison included "Something" in all of his subsequent, and rare, full-length concert appearances.Template:Sfn For his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar, he had been reluctant to feature any material from the Beatles' catalogue,Template:Sfn but at the urging of Shankar and Preston during rehearsals, he added "Something" to the setlist.Template:Sfn To the disappointment of many fans, he chose to alter some of the song's lyrics (such as changing the first line to "If there's something in the way, remove it").Template:Sfn Further distancing himself from the Beatles' legacy, Harrison told journalists at the start of the tour that he would join a group with Lennon "any day" but rejected the idea of working again with McCartney, since he preferred Willie Weeks as a bassist.Template:Sfn MacDonald comments that this statement was likely in reference to McCartney's "too fussily extemporised" bass part on the Beatles' 1969 recording.Template:Sfn With Boyd having left Harrison for Clapton earlier in 1974,Template:Sfn Larry Sloman of Rolling Stone described the reworked "Something" as "a moving diary of his love life".Template:Sfn

A version from Harrison's December 1991 tour of Japan with Clapton – Harrison's only other tour as a solo artist<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> – appears on the Live in Japan double album (1992).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Inglis writes of the track having "extra poignancy" by this time, "in that the woman for whom it was written had been married to, and divorced from, Harrison and Clapton in turn".Template:Sfn Inglis adds: "It is not a new interpretation of the song, but it does suggest a new perspective, in which words and music are used by two close friends to reflect on the lives they have led."Template:Sfn

Personnel

According to Walter Everett,Template:Sfn Bruce SpizerTemplate:Sfn and Kenneth Womack:Template:Sfn

The Beatles

• George Harrison – lead vocal, lead and rhythm guitars
• John Lennon – piano
• Paul McCartney – bass guitar, backing vocal
• Ringo Starr – drums

Additional musicians

• Billy Preston – Hammond organ
• George Martin – string arrangement
• Unidentified session musicians – twelve violins, four violas, four cellos, string bass

Charts and certifications

Beatles version

Chart (1969–1970)	Peak position
Australian Go-Set National Top 40 Singles<ref name="GoSet">Template:Cite web</ref>	1
Austrian Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	11
Canadian RPM 100 Singles<ref name="RPM">Template:Cite web</ref>	1
Finnish Suomen Virallinen Lista<ref name=Finland>Template:Cite book</ref>	12
Irish Singles Chart<ref name="Ireland">Template:Cite web</ref>	3
New Zealand Listener ChartTemplate:Sfn	1
Norwegian VG-lista Singles<ref name="nochart">Template:Cite web</ref>	2
Swedish Kvällstoppen Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	5
Swedish Tio i Topp Chart<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	4
UK Singles Chart<ref name="UKchart" />	4
US Billboard Hot 100<ref name="Whitburn">Template:Cite book</ref>	1
US Billboard Easy Listening<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	17
US Cash Box Top 100<ref name="Whitburn" />	2
West German Musikmarkt Hit-Parade<ref name="MediaControl">Template:Cite web</ref>	1

Chart (2015)	Peak position
Sweden Heatseeker (Sverigetopplistan)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	11

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Chart (2019)	Peak position

Shirley Bassey version

Chart (1970–71)	Peak position
Australian Go-Set National Top 60 Singles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	47
Austrian Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	19
Belgian Ultratop Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	11
Dutch MegaChart Singles<ref name="Bassey EUR">Template:Cite web</ref>	10
French SNEP Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	34
Irish Singles Chart<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	13
UK Singles Chart<ref name="Bassey UK">Template:Cite web</ref>	4
US Billboard Hot 100<ref name="Bassey US">Template:Cite web</ref>	55
US Billboard Easy Listening<ref name="Bassey US" />	6
West German Media Control Singles Chart<ref name="Bassey EUR" />	40

Sources

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Further reading

• Template:Cite web

External links

• Full lyrics for the song at the Beatles' official website
• Template:Discogs master