“I’m really proud of that”: The chord George Harrison claimed to have invented
No artist is looking to break the framework of music theory whenever they perform. The biggest names in rock and roll usually get there by listening to a lot of different music, but sometimes, the creative ingenuity can come together almost by complete accident. Although The Beatles managed to cover every facet of Western music while they were together, George Harrison claimed a certain chord for the group on one of his deep cuts.
Looking at what he could do behind the fretboard, though, Harrison always wanted to do something different. Even from his first attempts at songwriting on tracks like ‘Don’t Bother Me’, he was already trying to twist things around a bit, writing a spiteful little song about wanting to be left alone after a breakup.
Around the time of Revolver, though, Harrison first started to come into his own. Although ‘Taxman’ saw him as someone capable of writing on the same level as John Lennon and Paul McCartney, ‘Love You To’ was the group’s fully-fledged foray into Indian music since the guitarist had first laid down a sitar track in the middle of the song ‘Norwegian Wood’.
While the Indian inspiration opened up a lot of doors for Harrison, ‘I Want To Tell You’ brought a much different flavour to the band’s repertoire. Although the song itself is a whimsical tune about the psychedelic way of thinking, the breakdown of the verse features one of the more dissonant chords to come out of The Beatles’ canon.
Although they had been learning different jazz chords from various musicians in Liverpool, this was much weirder. The lion’s share of the chord is an E7th chord, but when Harrison throws in an F note on top of everything, it has another layer of anticipation before getting back to the main groove of the song.
While there’s documented proof, Harrison thought his use of the chord marked the first time it had ever been used in a pop song, saying, “I’m really proud of that because I literally invented that chord. After I got the guitar riff, I experimented until I came up with the chord that echoed that sense of frustration. John later borrowed it on Abbey Road if you listen to ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”
It’s really easy to see what Harrison was getting at with the chord, as well. The entire premise of ‘I Want To Tell You’ is about never finding the right things to say to someone you care about, and by hammering away on that one chord, the audience is left hanging in the air, wondering if Harrison will finally speak up before falling back down to Earth with the guitar lick.
Then again, Harrison’s use of this chord is why The Beatles worked so well when it came to finding the right chords for every section. Not everyone would understand what they were singing about, but by hearing the tension of that chord, any listener could pick up on the frustration that the guitarist was talking about.
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