‘Blood From a Clone’: The powerful song George Harrison wrote after his album was rejected
George Harrison never seemed to let his pessimism show throughout his solo career. He may have written some downtrodden songs and made his opinion abundantly clear on matters like spirituality or his strained relationship with Paul McCartney, but there was never a moment where he didn’t sound like he was having the time of his life singing about the wonders of being a rock and roll star. He had earned the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do, but by the time the 1980s kicked in, some pushback from his level led to the most nihilistic song he had ever written.
Before getting into it, the idea of someone trying to tell a Beatle how to write pop songs is insane. The Fab Four had practically written the book on how to make a catchy tune, so who the hell had any right to tell them that what they were doing couldn’t reach the same amount of people that ‘Let It Be’ or ‘Hey Jude’ had?
It’s especially egregious to have that kind of talk with Harrison. He had become one of the biggest solo stars since the band split, and even if not every album hit the mark the same way All Things Must Pass did, he still sold a ton of records based on the goodwill of his music. If someone like Ringo Starr was having problems in the 1970s thanks to disco, though, it was about time that Harrison’s label started putting their foot down as well.
Despite sitting out most of the punk and new wave movement, Harrison was ready for another spiritual journey on Somewhere in England before his label rejected everything. There were still some good songs, but they felt that there was no hooky single to rope everyone in, eventually telling him to write a silly love song in the vein of Paul McCartney.
While Harrison did comply and go back to the drawing board, the results were equal parts uncomfortable and hilarious. ‘Teardrops’ is still one of the most unintentionally funny things any Beatle has released thanks to its squelchy keyboards, but ‘Blood From a Clone’ was the first Harrison seemed genuinely pissed off.
According to Harrison, the opening track was an excuse for him to air out his grievances towards the higher-ups, saying, “People were saying, ‘Now, look, radio stations are having all these polls done in the street to find out what constitutes a hit single, and they’ve decided a hit single is a song of love gained or lost directed at 14-to-20-year-olds.’ And I said, ‘Shit, what chance does that give me?’ So anyway, I went in and wrote that song just to shed some of the frustrations.”
Admittedly, the song is a pretty sharp dig at the phoniness of the music business, considering most of the lines are directly about having to go back to the drawing board purely for money and having to suppress any desires to go on Frank Zappa-esque tirades. Considering this is the same album that has the John Lennon tribute ‘All Those Years Ago’, though, hearing an angst-ridden tune kick off the album is much more abrasive for anyone used to ‘Crackerbox Palace’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’.
If you look at the time and place, though, this was the closest that Harrison was ever going to come to embracing punk rock. He had shed his Beatle skin long ago, but since his entire solo career began as a form of rebellion against the Lennon/McCartney songwriting machine, most knew he wouldn’t go quietly when someone tried to stomp him down again.
