The song George Harrison called the “most impressive” on ‘Abbey Road’
By 1969, the crack that ran between The Beatles ran deep. The band’s two creative leaders were standing at either side of the recording studio, with the knowledge that their growing tension would break up The Beatles, the band who had defined the entire decade to that point and the band who would define everything thereafter.
While history likes to foreground Paul McCartney and John Lennon in the story of the feud, it massively overlooks the role of George Harrison and Ringo Starr also. Not only were they encouraged by the prospect of their own freedom, best showcased in George Harrison’s 1970 album All Things Must Pass, which might just be the best Beatle solo record of all. But they were also embroiled in a divorce-like saga, whereby they had to subtly pledge allegiance.
Harrison might not outrightly admit it, but he was certainly on the side of Lennon throughout it all. He was, during the entirety of his Beatles career, a quiet supporter of Lennon. McCartney became somewhat of a creative control freak in the latter years, which felt entirely at odds with the growing force of Harrison’s songwriting style.
Harrison recalled that “there came a time when Paul had fixed an idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs… It was taken to the most ridiculous situations, where I’d open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out and he’d say, ‘No, no, we’re not doing that yet.’ It got so there was very little to do, other than sit around and hear him going, ‘Fixing a hole…’ with Ringo [Starr] keeping the time.”
Safe to say, the dynamic stirred a sense of resentment within Harrison, growing tired of the somewhat playful tone that laced his songs. Quietly, he backed the work of Macca’s creative rival, in the thought that it would perhaps be taken to somewhere more twisted, and interesting. Which is why, on all of the tunes on the band’s swansong masterpiece, Abbey Road, that Harrison claims to love, it was one of Lennon’s.
Speaking of the track, ‘Because’, Harrison said, “The backing is a bit like Beethoven. And three-part harmony right throughout. Paul usually writes the sweeter tunes, and John writes the, sort of, more the rave-up things, or the freakier things. But John’s getting to where he doesn’t want to. He just wants to write twelve-bars. But you can’t deny it, I think this is possibly my favourite one on the album. The lyrics are so simple. The harmony was pretty difficult to sing. We had to really learn it. But I think that’s one of the tunes that will impress most people. It’s really good.”
It is the last song on the record, before it transcends into the medley, which many attribute to the mind of Paul. These fragmented sonic ideas feel somewhat representative of a band shattered into shards of creatives, slicing up against one another. Ironically, of all the tracks best remembered from that record, it is ‘Come Together’, which if the chorus line is anything to go by, was a siren call for a band in peril.
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