The George Harrison song written after an argument with Paul McCartney: “I had such a headache”
When The Beatles broke up and embarked on solo careers, everyone desperately waited to see what the new situation would look like, especially for Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
Not just because they were the two creative figureheads of the world’s biggest bands, now freed from the shackles of their toxic relationship, but because that very toxic relationship would fuel the lyrics of the oncoming music and satisfy the salacious needs of music fans all over.
While they delivered, with two songs the modern audience would dub ‘diss tracks’, George Harrison was quietly writing his solo material, fuelled by equal levels of venom and frustration. Because of the divorce of this beloved band, Harrison almost felt like the middle child, whose real-life experiences were overshadowed by his more famous counterparts.
Of all the band members, it was Harrison who had the most to be disgruntled with in the late part of the decade. Upon his return from India, he had proven himself a worthy songwriter, with tracks like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes The Sun’, yet felt continually shunned.
So his 1970 record, All Things Must Pass, sounded like a giant sigh of relief, as his ideas freely flowed over his guitar, and he could brazenly embrace the spiritualism that fuelled most of his creativity. But then came the third track, ‘Wah-Wah’, which finally presented his chance to contribute to the post-Beatles drama.
The track was pulled from the Let It Be sessions, which were a series of recordings that were filmed for the subsequent documentary of the same name. The fact that it was being documented didn’t sit well with Harrison, and so he stormed out of the studio, leaving his bandmates to finish his own idea. When they realised that they couldn’t complete the song without him, McCartney and Lennon called for a meeting where they agreed to give him more input.
‘Wah-Wah’ wasn’t a song that represented that, and so later, it found its way onto All Things Must Pass, serving as a fitting reminder of the disintegrating dynamics between the band and the level of quality that Harrison could bring to the table.
He explained, “That was the song, when I left from the Let It Be movie, there’s a scene where Paul and I are having an argument, and we’re trying to cover it up. Then the next scene, I’m not there, and Yoko’s just screaming, doing her screeching number. Well, that’s where I’d left, and I went home to write ‘Wah-Wah’. It had given me a wah-wah, like I had such a headache with that whole argument. It was such a headache.”
The song features some of Harrison’s very best guitar work and boasts a chorus harmony that would have been perfect for the band, and when he recruited Bobby Whitlock and Eric Clapton to be session musicians on the track, both McCartney and Lennon would have surely realised what a hit they had missed out on.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.