The Beatles are in no short supply of brilliant songs, but George Harrison says a John Lennon song is “one of the nicest things we’ve done.”
Harrison, joined by Ringo Starr, broke down Abbey Road just weeks before its release in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine. There, Harrison spoke of each song and pointed to a Lennon number he believes is one of the best pieces The Beatles ever managed to make. Despite its niceness, it was seemingly inspired by a tragic accident Lennon suffered. Come Together, the song which opens Abbey Road, was one of the last pieces The Beatles recorded together for the album, and Harrison believes it to be one of their best.
Speaking on Come Together’s recording, Harrison said: “Come Together, the first track on side one, was one of the last tracks to be recorded. John wrote it a month ago, just after his car accident. It’s a twelve-bar type of tune – and one of the nicest things we’ve done musically. Ringo’s drumming is great. It’s an upbeat, rock-a-beat-boogie, with very Lennon lyrics.”
His praise for Lennon’s work on Abbey Road was seen throughout the interview, with praise for I Want You (She’s So Heavy) following. Harrison said of the “very heavy” song: “It has John playing lead guitar and singing the same as he plays. This is good because the riff he sings is basically a blues.
“But it’s a very original Lennon-like song, even though you thought I’d written it. The middle bit is great… John has an amazing thing with his timing. He always comes across with different timing things, for example, All You Need is Love, which sort of skips beats out and changes from 3-4 to 4-4 all the time, ina nd out of each other.
“Yet when you question him about it, he doesn’t know. He just does it naturally and you can’t pin him down. The bridge section is like that – it’s an excellent chord sequence he’s using.”
His praise for Paul McCartney, however, was seemingly absent from the review. Harrison sounded critical of McCartney’s Abbey Road inclusions, including Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Oh, Darling!, the latter of which was dubbed a song that was “mainly Paul shouting.”
Harrison said: “Oh, Darling! is another of Paul’s songs which is typical 1950-1960 sort of period in its chord structure. It’s a typical 1955 song which thousands of groups used to make – The Moonglows, The Paragons, The Shells and so on. We do a few ooh-oohs in the background, very quietly, but mainly, it’s Paul shouting.”
I seem to recall that John Lennon said “Oh, Darling” was a song he wished that HE wrote.
Outstanding! Thank you for that. John and George often threw darts at Paul, I think. Hmm, wonder why? He get more girls? Have a better career after the break-up? Was considered by some to be the most handsome? Get over yourself, George.
In case you don’t know , George passed away in 2001 and he had not been throwing dates for many years before that. No jealousy, he was just speaking truth. Paul’s songs that George mentioned on that side of Abbey Road were not as good as those by John.
This is when Paul was suing George John and Ringo. They threw a lot of darts at Paul then. But he had to do it in order to get Alan Kline from controlling their money. They all admitted he was right later on. George praised She came in through the bedroom window also the melody mix on side 2. But that was later on after the lawsuit’s were settled. Also Paul changed the sound of Come Together by saying they need to make it swampy because of some lyrics that were the same as a Chuck Berry song. Funny how John didn’t play on any of the Harrison songs on Abbey Road. Anyway his quotes here are from sour grapes.
To me, ‘Oh! Darling’ is very generic in it’s lyrics. But it does capture that ‘Janis Joplin’ feel that was of the time.
I love Paul’s rwa voice in ‘OH Darlin’!