‘For You Blue’: The Beatles song that should have never been
There was always a baseline of quality when it came to all of The Beatles’ best albums. Even though there were exceptions every now and again, like ‘Revolution 9’, most of the Fab Four’s songs were meant to put their best foot forward rather than just throw together random songs in a decent order on the back of a record. However, considering the amount of great material that they had to work with, the thought of them giving ‘For You Blue’ is still one of the most baffling choices of the late 1960s.
But looking at Let It Be, it’s not like anyone was really having the most fun putting every piece of the album together. The whole road after The White Album was bound to be messy, and when Paul McCartney had the idea of setting up shop in a film studio for a potential performance, it didn’t take long before they started nagging at each other over every creative decision possible.
At this point, the Fab Four had upgraded from having two exceptional songwriters to three. George Harrison had spent time in the background honing his craft, and by the time they were working on Abbey Road, his contributions were among the best songs in the entire Beatles canon on ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’.
Everything was set for them to make something exceptional now with three forces writing songs. Unfortunately, they seemed to have absolutely no idea how to handle Harrison’s contributions. There was still the odd track that went over well, but considering he was writing a lot of classics around this time, whoever decided ‘For You Blue’ deserved to be heard was way off the mark.
Granted, it’s not like it’s hard to see where they were coming from. After everyone washed their hands of the album, there was little material to work with, so it’s better to have Harrison on here in some capacity. And despite the idea of a bluesy tune going along with the idea of them returning back to their roots, it makes no sense looking at what Harrison had in the pipeline for his upcoming triple album.
While ‘I Me Mine’ was a change of pace, it comes to a halt before it even picks up too much momentum, but this is much worse. Compared to tunes like ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘Awaiting On You All’ that would come later, hearing him do an impromptu jam just talking about how much he loves his significant other sounds like The Beatles were implying that everything that he came to the table with wasn’t up to snuff.
Now, with the benefit of the Get Back documentary, though, it’s one of the greatest musical crimes to see ‘All Things Must Pass’ being worked on during these sessions and only begrudgingly rehearsed by the rest of the band. Say what you will about the standards that both Lennon and McCartney had, but there’s no way that ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ eclipses this song in any sane world.
But maybe not including that tune on the record was just the group’s collective denial of the fact that they were breaking up. Everything was coming to an end, and perhaps if they had included a song about the passage of time and everything going away, that would have made it far too real for them to digest.
Still, it’s much better to have a poignant statement on an album than a time-waster, and for as charming as it is, ‘For You Blue’ is really a song that deserves to come at the tail end of a triple album than on a Beatles project. Because, for all of its strengths, including it alongside ‘Let It Be’ and ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ just makes Harrison look like an inferior songwriter while also reminding everyone that this is an album that went kicking and screaming out the door.
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