The legendary singer George Harrison couldn’t stand covering his songs: “Thanks, Frank”
One testament to a band or artist’s songwriting prowess is how often their songs are covered—whether by their peers or long after they’ve stopped releasing music.
As with many measures of popularity, The Beatles stand as a prime example, with countless artists reinterpreting their work. While some covers are more recent, the Fab Four frequently saw their songs reimagined within a year of their original release.
The speed with which Beatles songs were covered reflected both their commercial dominance and the remarkable quality of the songwriting itself. By the mid-1960s, artists from a wide range of genres were eager to reinterpret the band’s material, recognising the strength of compositions that could thrive far beyond their original recordings.
Among some of the best-known covers of Beatles hits that have come out within a short timeframe of the originals include The Beach Boys, who included three tracks on their 1965 album Beach Boys’ Party!, while The Supremes had already released an album entitled A Bit of Liverpool in 1964, which took four Beatles numbers along with other hits from acts in the band’s home city.
However, a large amount of these covers were of the best-known Lennon-McCartney compositions, and it’s unfortunate that less attention was paid towards the subtly brilliant works of George Harrison. He may not have had the same volume of work as John or Paul, but the lead guitarist was an equally proficient songwriter who deserved to get the same level of recognition and tribute paid to him in the form of covers.
Although Harrison often operated in the shadow of Lennon and McCartney during the Beatles years, songs such as ‘Something’ demonstrated that he had developed into a songwriter of equal stature. The track would ultimately become one of the most covered compositions in the Beatles catalogue, helping to cement his reputation as one of the group’s most gifted creative forces.
One of his later compositions, the 1969 hit ‘Something’, was ripe for reinterpretation by the crooners of the era, with artists like Shirley Bassey and James Brown releasing their own versions within a year of its release. It’s unclear whether Harrison approved of these renditions of his gorgeous love song, but there was one artist who began incorporating the track into his live repertoire—much to Harrison’s dissatisfaction.
Its universal appeal made the song particularly attractive to performers from outside the rock world. The melody, emotional directness and elegant structure lent themselves naturally to reinterpretation, allowing artists with vastly different styles to make the song their own while preserving its core sentiment.
Frank Sinatra called ‘Something’ the “greatest love song of the past 50 years”, which on its own is more than enough praise for Harrison’s stellar work, but the fact that Sinatra would repeatedly erroneously refer to it as a Lennon-McCartney song wound Harrison up to no end. Paul McCartney would jokingly express his gratitude to the jazz singer for this mistake, saying: “I think Frank Sinatra used to introduce ‘Something’ as his favourite Lennon-McCartney song. Thanks, Frank.”
Harrison would try to brush off the tribute as being insignificant to him at the time, stating in the liner notes for the 1994 Beatles: Anthology release that “when I wrote it, in my mind I heard Ray Charles singing it, and he did do it some years later,” before continuing, “At the time I wasn’t particularly thrilled that Frank Sinatra did ‘Something’.”
However, as the years passed, Harrison would amend his views on Sinatra’s rendition of the song, saying, “I’m more thrilled now than I was then”, stating that he had more interest in artists of his generation, such as Brown and Smokey Robinson offering their interpretations. “I’m very pleased now, whoever’s done it. I realise that the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions.” Whether Sinatra’s correction of his mistake in 1978 to finally give credit to Harrison for having written the song influenced his change of heart isn’t known, but one thing can certainly remain true about Sinatra’s statements – it is still the greatest love song of all time.
Ultimately, Harrison’s changing opinion of Sinatra’s version reflects a broader truth about great songwriting. While artists may have personal preferences regarding who performs their work, the enduring success of a composition is often measured by its ability to transcend its original context. Decades after its release, ‘Something’ continues to attract new listeners and performers alike, confirming its place among the most celebrated love songs ever written.
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