Something
Encyclopedia
"Something" is a song by The Beatles
, written by lead guitarist George Harrison
in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by Harrison to appear on the A-side
of a Beatles' single. It was one of the first Beatles' singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing (LP) album
, with both "Something" and "Come Together" having appeared on Abbey Road. "Something" was the only Harrison composition to top the American charts while he was in The Beatles.
John Lennon
and Paul McCartney
, the band's principal songwriters, both praised "Something" as among the best songs Harrison had written, or the group had to offer. As well as critical acclaim, the single achieved commercial success, topping the Billboard charts
in the United States, and entering the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The song has been covered by over 150 artists including Elvis Presley
, Shirley Bassey
, Frank Sinatra
, Tony Bennett
, James Brown
, Julio Iglesias
, The Miracles
, Eric Clapton
, and Joe Cocker
, and is the second-most covered Beatles' song after "Yesterday
". Harrison is quoted as saying that his favourite cover of the song was James Brown's, and he kept Brown's version in his personal jukebox
.
(also referred to as the White Album), Harrison began working on a song that eventually became known as "Something". The song's first lyrics were adapted from the title of an unrelated song by fellow Apple
artist James Taylor
called "Something in the Way She Moves" and used as filler while the melody was being developed. The song's second line, "Attracts me like no other lover," was the last to be written; during early recording sessions for "Something", Harrison alternated between two placeholder lyrics: "Attracts me like a cauliflower
" and "Attracts me like a pomegranate
."
Harrison later said that "I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That's really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out. It didn't go on the White Album because we'd already finished all the tracks." A demo recording
of the song by Harrison from this period appears on the Beatles Anthology 3
collection, released in 1996.
Many believe that Harrison's inspiration for "Something" was his wife at the time, Pattie Boyd
. Boyd also claimed that inspiration in her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, where she wrote: "He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me."
However, Harrison has cited other sources of inspiration to the contrary. In a 1996 interview he responded to the question of whether the song was about Pattie: "Well no, I didn't [write it about her]. I just wrote it, and then somebody put together a video. And what they did was they went out and got some footage of me and Pattie
, Paul and Linda
, Ringo and Maureen, it was at that time, and John and Yoko
and they just made up a little video to go with it. So then, everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie, but actually, when I wrote it, I was thinking of Ray Charles
."
The original intention had been for Harrison to offer the song to Jackie Lomax
, as had been done with the previous Harrison composition, "Sour Milk Sea
". When this fell through, the song was given to Joe Cocker
(who had previously covered The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends
"); his version came out two months before that of The Beatles. During the Get Back recording sessions for what eventually became Let It Be, Harrison considered using "Something", but eventually decided against it due to his fear that insufficient care would be taken in its recording; his earlier suggestion of "Old Brown Shoe
" had not gone down well with the band. It was only during the recording sessions for Abbey Road that The Beatles began seriously working on "Something".
The original draft that The Beatles used lasted eight minutes, with Lennon on the piano
towards the end (which was recorded later as Lennon was not present during the first few sessions). The middle also contained a small counter-melody
section in the draft. Both the counter-melody and Lennon's piano piece were cut from the final version. Still, Lennon's piano was not erased totally. Some bits can be heard in the middle eight, in particular the line played downwards the C major scale, i.e. the connection passage to Harrison's guitar solo. The erased parts of Lennon's piano section later became the basis for Lennon's song "Remember
".
.
throughout. The melody
begins in the key
of C major
. It continues in this key throughout the intro
and the first two verses, until the eight-measure-long bridge
, which is in the key of A major
. After the bridge, the melody returns to C Major for the guitar solo
, the third verse, and the outro. Although The Beatles had initially attempted an edgier acoustic
version of the song, this was dropped along with the counter-melody. A demo of the acoustic version with the counter-melody included was later released as part of Anthology 3
. On the final release, the counter-melody was replaced by an instrumental break, and the song was given a softer tone with the introduction of a string arrangement by George Martin
, the Beatles' producer.
Simon Leng said the song's theme is doubt and uncertainty. Richie Unterberger
of Allmusic described it as "an unabashedly straightforward and sentimental love song" 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".
A few days later on 6 October, "Something" was nominally released as a double A-side single with "Come Together
" in the United States, becoming the first Harrison composition to receive top billing on a Beatles' single.
In actuality, it was the A-side in both form and cataloguing: it appears on the side displaying the outer skin of Apple's logo, and is listed first in
Apple's catalog. In many other countries, it was explicitly labeled as the A-side.
Although it began charting a week after its release on 18 October, doubts began to arise over the possibility of "Something" topping the American charts. It was the prevailing practice at the time to count sales and airplay of the A- and B-sides separately, which allowed for separate chart positions. With "Come Together" rivaling "Something" in popularity, it was hardly certain that either side of the single would reach number one. However, on 29 November, Billboard
started factoring the combined performance of both A- and B-sides into their calculations, as one single. The result was that "Come Together"/"Something" topped the American charts for a week, before eventually falling out of the charts about two months later (on the concurrent Cash Box singles chart, which continued to measure the performance on both sides of a single separately, "Something" peaked at number two while "Come Together" spent three weeks at number one). The single was certified Gold just three weeks after its initial release, but was not heard of again in terms of sales until 1999, when it was declared Platinum.
In the UK, "Something" came out on 31 October. It was the first Beatles' single to have a Harrison song on the A-side, and it was also The Beatles' first single to feature songs already available on an album. "Something" first entered the chart on 8 November, eventually peaking at number four, before falling out of the charts three months after its initial release. In the UK Shirley Bassey
's version also reached #4.
Although Harrison himself had been dismissive of the song—he later said that he "put it on ice for about six months because I thought 'that's too easy—Lennon and McCartney both stated that they held "Something" in high regard. Lennon said "I think that's about the best track on the album, actually", while McCartney said "For me I think it's the best he's written." Both had largely ignored Harrison's compositions prior to "Something", with their own songs taking much of the limelight. Lennon later explained:
"Something" continues to garner accolades from the musical establishment decades after its release, with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website naming it as the 64th-greatest song ever. According to the BBC, "Something" shows more clearly than any other song in The Beatles' canon that there were three great songwriters in the band rather than just two." The Beatles' official website itself said that "Something" "underlined the ascendancy of George Harrison as a major song writing force". In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated
(BMI) named "Something" as the 17th-most performed song of the 20th century, with five million performances in all. Other Beatles' songs on the list were "Yesterday
" and "Let It Be
", both written by Paul McCartney (though attributed to Lennon and McCartney).
In 2010, the magazine ranked it #6 on The Beatles' 100 Greatest Songs.
s from other artists almost immediately after its release by The Beatles. Lena Horne
recorded a cover version in November 1969 for the album she recorded with guitarist Gabor Szabo
, Lena and Gabor. Other cover versions soon appeared, including versions from Elvis Presley
(who included it in his Aloha from Hawaii
TV special), Frank Sinatra
, The O'Jays
, James Brown
, Smokey Robinson
and Ray Charles
. Despite having written the song with Charles in mind, Harrison's favorite version was Brown's. Of Brown's recording, Harrison said:
Frank Sinatra
was particularly impressed with "Something", calling it "the greatest love song ever written". Apart from performing "Something" numerous times in concert, Sinatra recorded the song twice: in the late 1960s
as a single for Reprise
(this version later appeared on Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
), and in 1980 for Trilogy: Past Present Future
. During live performances, the singer was known to mistakenly introduce "Something" as a Lennon/McCartney
composition, however, by 1978, had begun correctly citing Harrison as its author. Harrison would go on to adopt Sinatra's minor lyrical change (the song's bridge, "you stick around now, it may show" was changed to "You stick around, Jack, she might show") for his own live performances.
A successful version was recorded by Shirley Bassey
, released in 1970 as the title single to her album, of the same name. It was her biggest UK hit for many years, reaching No.4 and spending 22 weeks on the chart. It also reached No.6 on the US AC Chart.
A version by country singer Johnny Rodriguez
reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles
chart in the spring of 1974. Barbara Mandrell
covered the song on her 1974 album This Time I Almost Made It
.
In 2002, after Harrison's death, McCartney
performed the song using just a ukulele
on his "Back in The US" and "Back in the World" tours. McCartney and Eric Clapton
performed "Something" at the Concert for George
on November 30, 2002, a performance which was nominated for the Grammy Award
for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
. The song was also performed as a tribute to Harrison by McCartney in 2008 at the Liverpool Sound Concert, performing the song in a similar fashion to that of the Concert for George: starting off with only a ukulele for accompaniment, then after the bridge, being joined by the full band to conclude the song similarly to that of the original recording. Bob Dylan
likewise played the song live as a tribute to Harrison following his death. Musiq Soulchild also covered the song from 2002's Juslisen album.
with Eric Clapton
, Ringo, and many others. Although
the guitar solo differed from the studio version, it was still in the key of C major
, while the lyrics remained the same. The new guitar solo was very similar to the guitar intro to the Live in Japan version of this song.
In 1991, George and Eric Clapton played "Something" live in Japan and in London, such that the third verse gets repeated after the bridge is played again, but without the guitar solo. This was also done in the Concert for George
.
Additional personnel
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, written by lead guitarist George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by Harrison to appear on the A-side
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
of a Beatles' single. It was one of the first Beatles' singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing (LP) album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
, with both "Something" and "Come Together" having appeared on Abbey Road. "Something" was the only Harrison composition to top the American charts while he was in The Beatles.
John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, the band's principal songwriters, both praised "Something" as among the best songs Harrison had written, or the group had to offer. As well as critical acclaim, the single achieved commercial success, topping the Billboard charts
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
in the United States, and entering the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The song has been covered by over 150 artists including Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, Julio Iglesias
Julio Iglesias
Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva , better known simply as Julio Iglesias, is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music Entertainment, he is one of the top 15 best selling music artists in history,...
, The Miracles
The Miracles
The Miracles are an American rhythm and blues group from Detroit, Michigan, notable as the first successful group act for Berry Gordy's Motown Record Corporation . Their single "Shop Around" was Motown's first million-selling hit record, and the group went on to become one of Motown's signature...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, and Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...
, and is the second-most covered Beatles' song after "Yesterday
Yesterday (song)
"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
". Harrison is quoted as saying that his favourite cover of the song was James Brown's, and he kept Brown's version in his personal jukebox
Jukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
.
Writing
During the 1968 recording sessions for The BeatlesThe Beatles (album)
The Beatles is the ninth official album by the English rock group The Beatles, a double album released in 1968. It is also commonly known as "The White Album" as it has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed on its plain white sleeve.The album was written and recorded during a...
(also referred to as the White Album), Harrison began working on a song that eventually became known as "Something". The song's first lyrics were adapted from the title of an unrelated song by fellow Apple
Apple Records
Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...
artist James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
called "Something in the Way She Moves" and used as filler while the melody was being developed. The song's second line, "Attracts me like no other lover," was the last to be written; during early recording sessions for "Something", Harrison alternated between two placeholder lyrics: "Attracts me like a cauliflower
Cauliflower
Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea, in the family Brassicaceae. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed...
" and "Attracts me like a pomegranate
Pomegranate
The pomegranate , Punica granatum, is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing between five and eight meters tall.Native to the area of modern day Iran, the pomegranate has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times. From there it spread to Asian areas such as the Caucasus as...
."
Harrison later said that "I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That's really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out. It didn't go on the White Album because we'd already finished all the tracks." A demo recording
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of the song by Harrison from this period appears on the Beatles Anthology 3
Anthology 3
Anthology 3 is a compilation album by The Beatles released in October 1996 by Apple Records as part of The Beatles Anthology series. The album includes rarities and alternative tracks from the final two years of the band's career, ranging from the initial sessions for The Beatles to the last...
collection, released in 1996.
Many believe that Harrison's inspiration for "Something" was his wife at the time, Pattie Boyd
Pattie Boyd
Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...
. Boyd also claimed that inspiration in her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, where she wrote: "He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me."
However, Harrison has cited other sources of inspiration to the contrary. In a 1996 interview he responded to the question of whether the song was about Pattie: "Well no, I didn't [write it about her]. I just wrote it, and then somebody put together a video. And what they did was they went out and got some footage of me and Pattie
Pattie Boyd
Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...
, Paul and Linda
Linda McCartney
Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney was an American photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her father and mother were Lee Eastman and Louise Sara Lindner Eastman....
, Ringo and Maureen, it was at that time, and John and Yoko
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
and they just made up a little video to go with it. So then, everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie, but actually, when I wrote it, I was thinking of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
."
The original intention had been for Harrison to offer the song to Jackie Lomax
Jackie Lomax
John Richard 'Jackie' Lomax is a British guitarist and singer/songwriter best known for his association with George Harrison and Eric Clapton...
, as had been done with the previous Harrison composition, "Sour Milk Sea
Sour Milk Sea
"Sour Milk Sea" is a song written by George Harrison that surfaced during the sessions for The Beatles . The song was recorded professionally by Jackie Lomax on The Beatles' Apple Records label and released as a single in 1968.-Recording:The Beatles recorded a demo at George Harrison's Esher home...
". When this fell through, the song was given to Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker
John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...
(who had previously covered The Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends
With a Little Help from My Friends
-Joe Cocker version:Joe Cocker's version was a radical re-arrangement of the original, in a slower, 6/8 meter, using different chords in the middle eight, and a lengthy instrumental introduction...
"); his version came out two months before that of The Beatles. During the Get Back recording sessions for what eventually became Let It Be, Harrison considered using "Something", but eventually decided against it due to his fear that insufficient care would be taken in its recording; his earlier suggestion of "Old Brown Shoe
Old Brown Shoe
"Old Brown Shoe" is a song written by George Harrison that was first released by The Beatles as a B-side to "The Ballad of John and Yoko". It is also available on the Beatles' compilation albums Hey Jude, 1967–1970 and Past Masters, Volume Two....
" had not gone down well with the band. It was only during the recording sessions for Abbey Road that The Beatles began seriously working on "Something".
Recording and production
"Something" was recorded during the Abbey Road sessions. It took 52 takes in two main periods, the first session involved a demo take on Harrison's 26th birthday, 25 February 1969, followed by 13 backing track takes on 16 April. The second main session took 39 takes and started on 2 May 1969 when the main parts of the song were laid down in 36 takes, finishing on 15 August 1969 after several days of recording overdubs.The original draft that The Beatles used lasted eight minutes, with Lennon on the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
towards the end (which was recorded later as Lennon was not present during the first few sessions). The middle also contained a small counter-melody
Counter-melody
In music, counter-melody is a sequence of notes, perceived as a melody, written to be played simultaneously with a more prominent lead melody. Typically a counter-melody performs a subordinate role, and is heard in a texture consisting of a melody plus accompaniment...
section in the draft. Both the counter-melody and Lennon's piano piece were cut from the final version. Still, Lennon's piano was not erased totally. Some bits can be heard in the middle eight, in particular the line played downwards the C major scale, i.e. the connection passage to Harrison's guitar solo. The erased parts of Lennon's piano section later became the basis for Lennon's song "Remember
Remember (John Lennon song)
"Remember" is a 1970 song appearing on John Lennon's first official solo album release, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.The song was influenced by Lennon's primal therapy sessions with Dr Arthur Janov, and the lyrics reflect things typically remembered in therapy. The memories described are unpleasant...
".
Promotional video
The promotional video for "Something" was shot shortly before the break-up of the band. By this time, the individual Beatles had drawn apart and so the film consisted of separate clips of each Beatle walking around his home, accompanied by his wife, edited together. The film was directed by Neil AspinallNeil Aspinall
Neil Stanley Aspinall was a British music industry executive. A school friend of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he went on to head The Beatles' company Apple Corps....
.
Composition
The lead vocalist for "Something" was Harrison. The song runs at a speed of about sixty-six beats per minute and is in common timeCommon Time
"Common Time" is a science fiction short story written by James Blish. It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros ; in The Penguin Science Fiction...
throughout. The melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...
begins in the key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
of C major
C major
C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....
. It continues in this key throughout the intro
Introduction (music)
In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often abbreviated as intro...
and the first two verses, until the eight-measure-long bridge
Bridge (music)
In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section which also prepares for the return of the original material section...
, which is in the key of A major
A major
A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps.Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor...
. After the bridge, the melody returns to C Major for the guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
, the third verse, and the outro. Although The Beatles had initially attempted an edgier acoustic
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
version of the song, this was dropped along with the counter-melody. A demo of the acoustic version with the counter-melody included was later released as part of Anthology 3
Anthology 3
Anthology 3 is a compilation album by The Beatles released in October 1996 by Apple Records as part of The Beatles Anthology series. The album includes rarities and alternative tracks from the final two years of the band's career, ranging from the initial sessions for The Beatles to the last...
. On the final release, the counter-melody was replaced by an instrumental break, and the song was given a softer tone with the introduction of a string arrangement by George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
, the Beatles' producer.
Simon Leng said the song's theme is doubt and uncertainty. Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger
Richie Unterberger is a US author and journalist whose focus is popular music and travel writing.-Life and writing:Having worked as a DJ at WXPN in Philadelphia, he started reviewing records for Op magazine in 1983...
of Allmusic described it as "an unabashedly straightforward and sentimental love song" 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".
Reception
The Abbey Road album was the first Beatles' release to feature "Something"; it was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, with the United States' release following on 1 October, and performed well, topping the charts in both countries.A few days later on 6 October, "Something" was nominally released as a double A-side single with "Come Together
Come Together
"Come Together" is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on The Beatles' September 1969 album Abbey Road....
" in the United States, becoming the first Harrison composition to receive top billing on a Beatles' single.
In actuality, it was the A-side in both form and cataloguing: it appears on the side displaying the outer skin of Apple's logo, and is listed first in
Apple's catalog. In many other countries, it was explicitly labeled as the A-side.
Although it began charting a week after its release on 18 October, doubts began to arise over the possibility of "Something" topping the American charts. It was the prevailing practice at the time to count sales and airplay of the A- and B-sides separately, which allowed for separate chart positions. With "Come Together" rivaling "Something" in popularity, it was hardly certain that either side of the single would reach number one. However, on 29 November, Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
started factoring the combined performance of both A- and B-sides into their calculations, as one single. The result was that "Come Together"/"Something" topped the American charts for a week, before eventually falling out of the charts about two months later (on the concurrent Cash Box singles chart, which continued to measure the performance on both sides of a single separately, "Something" peaked at number two while "Come Together" spent three weeks at number one). The single was certified Gold just three weeks after its initial release, but was not heard of again in terms of sales until 1999, when it was declared Platinum.
In the UK, "Something" came out on 31 October. It was the first Beatles' single to have a Harrison song on the A-side, and it was also The Beatles' first single to feature songs already available on an album. "Something" first entered the chart on 8 November, eventually peaking at number four, before falling out of the charts three months after its initial release. In the UK Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
's version also reached #4.
Although Harrison himself had been dismissive of the song—he later said that he "put it on ice for about six months because I thought 'that's too easy—Lennon and McCartney both stated that they held "Something" in high regard. Lennon said "I think that's about the best track on the album, actually", while McCartney said "For me I think it's the best he's written." Both had largely ignored Harrison's compositions prior to "Something", with their own songs taking much of the limelight. Lennon later explained:
Awards
In 1970, the same year The Beatles announced they had split, "Something" received the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically."Something" continues to garner accolades from the musical establishment decades after its release, with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) website naming it as the 64th-greatest song ever. According to the BBC, "Something" shows more clearly than any other song in The Beatles' canon that there were three great songwriters in the band rather than just two." The Beatles' official website itself said that "Something" "underlined the ascendancy of George Harrison as a major song writing force". In 1999, Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
(BMI) named "Something" as the 17th-most performed song of the 20th century, with five million performances in all. Other Beatles' songs on the list were "Yesterday
Yesterday (song)
"Yesterday" is a song originally recorded by The Beatles for their 1965 album Help!. The song first hit the United Kingdom top 10 three months after the release of Help!. The song remains popular today with more than 1,600 cover versions, one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded...
" and "Let It Be
Let It Be (song)
"Let It Be" is a song by The Beatles, released in March 1970 as a single, and as the title track of their album Let It Be. It was written by Paul McCartney, but credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was their final single before McCartney announced his departure from the band...
", both written by Paul McCartney (though attributed to Lennon and McCartney).
In 2010, the magazine ranked it #6 on The Beatles' 100 Greatest Songs.
Cover versions
With more than 150 versions, "Something" is the second most covered Beatles' song after "Yesterday". It began accumulating cover versionCover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
s from other artists almost immediately after its release by The Beatles. Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
recorded a cover version in November 1969 for the album she recorded with guitarist Gabor Szabo
Gábor Szabó
Gábor Szabó was a Hungarian jazz guitarist, famous for mixing jazz, pop-rock and his native Hungarian music.-Biography:...
, Lena and Gabor. Other cover versions soon appeared, including versions from Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
(who included it in his Aloha from Hawaii
Aloha from Hawaii
Aloha from Hawaii is a music concert that was headlined by Elvis Presley, and was broadcast live via satellite on January 14, 1973. It is the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history, viewed by an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide. The concert took place at the...
TV special), Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, The O'Jays
The O'Jays
The O'Jays are an American R&B group from Canton, Ohio, formed in 1963 and originally consisting of Eddie Levert , Walter Williams , William Powell , Bobby Massey and Bill Isles. The O'Jays were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004, and The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005...
, James Brown
James Brown
James Joseph Brown was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of Funk and is recognized as a major figure in the 20th century popular music for both his vocals and dancing. He has been referred to as "The Godfather of Soul," "Mr...
, Smokey Robinson
Smokey Robinson
William "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. Robinson is one of the primary figures associated with Motown, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy...
and Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
. Despite having written the song with Charles in mind, Harrison's favorite version was Brown's. Of Brown's recording, Harrison said:
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
was particularly impressed with "Something", calling it "the greatest love song ever written". Apart from performing "Something" numerous times in concert, Sinatra recorded the song twice: in the late 1960s
1960s in music
For music from a year in the 1960s, go to 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1960s....
as a single for Reprise
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
(this version later appeared on Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 was Sinatra's second compilation of material released by Reprise Records, which like its predecessor, consisted of singles and songs from movie soundtracks. Vol. 2 picks up where Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits leaves off, so all of the tracks date from 1968 to...
), and in 1980 for Trilogy: Past Present Future
Trilogy: Past Present Future
Trilogy: Past Present Future is a 1980 triple album by the American singer Frank Sinatra. This album produced the last of Sinatra's many signature numbers, "Theme from New York, New York."...
. During live performances, the singer was known to mistakenly introduce "Something" as a Lennon/McCartney
Lennon/McCartney
The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership is one of the best-known and most successful musical collaborations in history...
composition, however, by 1978, had begun correctly citing Harrison as its author. Harrison would go on to adopt Sinatra's minor lyrical change (the song's bridge, "you stick around now, it may show" was changed to "You stick around, Jack, she might show") for his own live performances.
A successful version was recorded by Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
, released in 1970 as the title single to her album, of the same name. It was her biggest UK hit for many years, reaching No.4 and spending 22 weeks on the chart. It also reached No.6 on the US AC Chart.
A version by country singer Johnny Rodriguez
Johnny Rodriguez
Johnny Rodriguez is an American country music singer. He was the first famous Latin American country music singer, infusing his music with Latin sounds, and even singing verses of songs in Spanish....
reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
chart in the spring of 1974. Barbara Mandrell
Barbara Mandrell
Barbara Ann Mandrell is an American country music singer best known for a 1970s–1980s series of Top 10 hits and TV shows that helped her become one of country's most successful female vocalists of the 1970s and 1980s...
covered the song on her 1974 album This Time I Almost Made It
This Time I Almost Made It
This Time I Almost Made It is the fourth studio album released by American country singer, Barbara Mandrell, released in 1974.This would be Mandrell's last album with her record company, Columbia before the label dropped her. She would later switch to ABC/Dot and enjoy the most successful part of...
.
In 2002, after Harrison's death, McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
performed the song using just a ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....
on his "Back in The US" and "Back in the World" tours. McCartney and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
performed "Something" at the Concert for George
Concert for George
The Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 29 November 2002 as a memorial to George Harrison on the first anniversary of his death. The event was organized by Harrison's widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, and arranged under the musical direction of Eric Clapton and Jeff Lynne...
on November 30, 2002, a performance which was nominated for the Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
The Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality pop songs on which singers collaborate...
. The song was also performed as a tribute to Harrison by McCartney in 2008 at the Liverpool Sound Concert, performing the song in a similar fashion to that of the Concert for George: starting off with only a ukulele for accompaniment, then after the bridge, being joined by the full band to conclude the song similarly to that of the original recording. Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
likewise played the song live as a tribute to Harrison following his death. Musiq Soulchild also covered the song from 2002's Juslisen album.
Live performances (by Harrison)
In 1971, Harrison played this song in The Concert for BangladeshThe Concert for Bangladesh
The Concert for Bangladesh was the name for two benefit concerts organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at noon and at 7 PM on August 1, 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City...
with Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Ringo, and many others. Although
the guitar solo differed from the studio version, it was still in the key of C major
C major
C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....
, while the lyrics remained the same. The new guitar solo was very similar to the guitar intro to the Live in Japan version of this song.
In 1991, George and Eric Clapton played "Something" live in Japan and in London, such that the third verse gets repeated after the bridge is played again, but without the guitar solo. This was also done in the Concert for George
Concert for George
The Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 29 November 2002 as a memorial to George Harrison on the first anniversary of his death. The event was organized by Harrison's widow, Olivia, and son, Dhani, and arranged under the musical direction of Eric Clapton and Jeff Lynne...
.
Personnel
The Beatles- George HarrisonGeorge HarrisonGeorge Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...
– leadLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
and rhythmRhythm guitarRhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, lead vocalsLead vocalistThe lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the... - John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
– pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal... - Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, backing vocalsBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists... - Ringo StarrRingo StarrRichard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
Additional personnel
- George MartinGeorge MartinSir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
– stringString instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
arrangementArrangementThe American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents... - Billy PrestonBilly PrestonWilliam Everett "Billy" Preston was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from...
– Hammond organHammond organThe Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...