The song George Harrison wrote to tease Eric Clapton: “A funny one”
The bond between George Harrison and Eric Clapton was unbreakable, even surviving the love triangle they were tangled in with Pattie Boyd. Despite Harrison being a close friend of Clapton’s, the Cream guitarist famously became fixated with Boyd, the subject of his song ‘Layla’, and eventually married her after her marriage to Harrison collapsed. Rather than hold ill feelings towards the couple, they had the full support of The Beatles guitarist, who even performed at their wedding.
By Harrison’s own admission, he wasn’t the greatest husband in the world to Boyd. Therefore, he wanted her to have the happy ending she deserved with Clapton. Sadly, despite Clapton courting Boyd for many years before they eventually became a couple, he was also unfaithful in their marriage, which resulted in their divorce.
Harrison and Clapton’s friendship began in the mid-1960s when The Yardbirds supported The Beatles. A few years later, they became inseparable and often wrote together, which fruitfully led to the creation of ‘Here Comes The Sun‘ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. When Harrison grew increasingly frustrated with his role in The Beatles, he brought Clapton into the Fab Four’s inner circle in a bid to smooth the tension. As there was an outsider in their ranks, this ensured that everybody was on their best behaviour, which worked a charm. In fact, The Beatles even lined up Clapton as Harrison’s replacement when he briefly quit the group before returning with his tail between his legs.
Their friendship blossomed around the time of The White Album, a record which was a turning point for Harrison as a songwriter. John Lennon later said of his bandmate’s previous lack of talent in this department: “There was an embarrassing period when George’s songs weren’t that good and nobody wanted to say anything.” Paul McCartney agreed, stating, “I thought until this album that George’s songs weren’t that good.”
However, Harrison had begun to exude infectious confidence as a songwriter, as he demonstrated on ‘Savoy Truffle’, which he wrote to poke fun at Clapton. Rather than being an ode to their friendship, it was, in fact, a joke about Clapton’s dental problems, which were preventing him from enjoying his favourite sweet treats.
In his autobiography, Harrison shared: “‘Savoy Truffle’ is a funny one written whilst hanging out with Eric Clapton in the ’60s. At that time, he had a lot of cavities in his teeth and needed dental work. He always had a toothache, but he ate a lot of chocolates – he couldn’t resist them, and once he saw a box, he had to eat them all. He was over at my house, and I had a box of Good News chocolates on the table and wrote the song from the names inside the lid. I got stuck with the two bridges for a while and Derek Taylor wrote some of the words in the middle – ‘You know that what you eat you are’.”
In a separate interview, Harrison elaborated on the reasoning behind writing the track, explaining, “So as a tribute, I wrote, ‘You’ll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy Truffle’. The truffle was some kind of sweet, just like all the rest—cream tangerine, ginger sling—just candy, to tease Eric.”
Admittedly, the light-hearted effort wasn’t Harrison’s finest moment as a songwriter, but ‘Savoy Truffle’ further signifies that he was the joker of the pack. Although Harrison was known as the ‘Quiet Beatle’ due to the demeanour he projected in public, he was anything but shy in the company of those who knew him best.
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