How George Harrison Made Himself Known With the Recording of ‘Here Comes the Sun’
Raymond Schillinger of You Can't Unhear This looked back at the history of Here Comes the Sun", a seminal song by The Beatles that was both perfect and unusual in so many different ways.
Here Comes The Sun has become one of the most popular and treasured Beatles songs, a gateway into their music for many new fans. This 3-minute gem of unforgettable songwriting is also packed with intriguing anomalies, production quirks and even a mystery.
The song was written entirely by George Harrison in 1969, rather than John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Harrison, who wasn't yet known for his incredible song writing skills, took the reins that summer, both musically and lyrically, by adding new and innovative instruments like the Moog synthesizer, running his guitar through a rotating Leslie speaker made for keyboards, and adding vari-speed pitch control to the final song.
With just days togo before the album was set to be mixed, George felt that his song needed one final ingredient:the fabulous and otherworldly sounds created by a new electronic instrument called the Moog....With all of the pieces finally in place on the packed 8-track tape, the beautifullylayered recording of Here Comes the Sun was finally ready to be mixed...where of course theanomalies continued... This intentional adjustment, often called vari-speed, was occasionally used by The Beatles to lend a special texture to theirstudio recordings.
George also played a guitar solo that he ultimately decided wasn't right for the song. It was later found.
A different electric guitar part from these Augustsessions didn't make it into the final mix. In 2011this intriguing lost overdub was rediscovered during the filming of a documentary about George's life. George ultimately felt the guitarsolo didn't really fit and instructedthe EMI engineers to leave it out of thefinal mix.
There was also some confusion with Lennon's Here Comes Sun King", but it was never resolved.
We don't know whenJohn wrote the lyrics, but we do know that SunKing" was recorded a few weeks after Here Comesthe Sun". Adding to the confusion are a couple of entries in the Beatles newsletter from thatthat summer where the two songs are referred to under a single title. It's also labeled this wayon the tape box. Neither John nor George ever spoke about this uncanny connection, so we may never know
