Here Comes the Sun
| "Here Comes the Sun" | ||||||||
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| Song by The Beatles from the album Abbey Road | ||||||||
| Released | 26 September 1969 | |||||||
| Recorded | 7 July-19 August 1969 | |||||||
| Genre | Folk rock, pop rock | |||||||
| Length | 3:05 | |||||||
| Label | Apple Records | |||||||
| Writer | George Harrison | |||||||
| Producer | George Martin | |||||||
| Abbey Road track listing | ||||||||
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"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by George Harrison from The Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road.
Contents |
[edit] Composition
"Here Comes the Sun" is one of Harrison's best-known Beatles contributions alongside "Something". The year 1969 was a difficult one for Harrison: he was arrested for marijuana possession, he had his tonsils removed, and he had quit the band temporarily.
Harrison stated in his autobiography:
"Here Comes the Sun" was written at the time when Apple was getting like school, where we had to go and be businessmen: 'Sign this' and 'sign that'. Anyway, it seems as if winter in England goes on forever, by the time spring comes you really deserve it. So one day I decided I was going to sag off Apple and I went over to Eric Clapton's house. The relief of not having to go see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote "Here Comes the Sun".[1]
There is a lost photo from the Anthology 3 of Harrison working on the song, with the capo on the seventh fret.
As Clapton states in his own autobiography, the house in question is known as 'Hurtwood'.
[edit] Musical structure
A feature is the guitar flat-picking that embellishes the E7 chord from 2.03-2.11 secs, creating tension for resolution on the tonic A chord at "Little darlin'".[2] The bridge involves a ♭III- ♭VII-IV-I-V7 triple descending 4th (or Tri-Plagal) progression (with an extra V7) as the vocals move from "Sun" (♭III or C chord) "sun" (♭VII or G chord) "sun" (iv or D chord) to "comes" (I or A chord) and the additional 4th descent to a V7 (E7) chord.[3] The song also features extreme 2/4, 3/8, 5/8, 4/4 phrasing interludes which Harrison drew from Indian music influences.[4] The song is in chromatic-minor with a tonic major chord.[5]
[edit] Recording
Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded the rhythm track in 13 takes on 7 July 1969. John Lennon did not contribute to the song as he was recovering from a car crash.[6] Towards the end of the session Harrison spent an hour re-recording his acoustic guitar part. He capoed his guitar on the 7th fret, resulting in the final key of A major (in fact, slightly above A major due to the track being varispeeded by less than a semitone). He also used the same technique on his 1965 song "If I Needed Someone," which shares a similar melodic pattern. The following day he taped his lead vocals, and he and McCartney recorded their backing vocals twice to give a fuller sound.
A harmonium and handclaps were added on 16 July. Harrison added an electric guitar run through a Leslie speaker on 6 August, and the orchestral parts were added on 15 August. "Here Comes the Sun" was completed four days later with the addition of Harrison's Moog synthesizer part.[7]
The master tapes reveal that Harrison recorded a guitar solo that was not included in the final mix.[8]
[edit] Voyager proposal
Astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan had wanted the song to be included on the Voyager Golden Record, copies of which were attached to both spacecraft of the Voyager program to provide any entity that recovered them a representative sample of human civilization. Although The Beatles favoured the idea, EMI refused to release the rights and when the probes were launched in 1977 the song was not included.[9]
[edit] Personnel
- George Harrison – lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, Moog synthesizer, handclaps
- Paul McCartney – backing vocals, bass guitar, handclaps
- Ringo Starr – drums, handclaps
- Uncredited – four violas, four cellos, double bass, two piccolos, two flutes, two alto flutes, two clarinets
- Personnel per Ian MacDonald[6]
[edit] Cover versions
The song was covered by Peter Tosh and released as a hit single.[citation needed] American folk singer Richie Havens saw his 1971 version reach #16 in the U.S.[citation needed] The most successful UK cover was by Steve Harley who reached number 10 in 1976.[citation needed] Swedish metal band Ghost also features a cover on the Japanese edition of their debut album Opus Eponymous. It was also covered by Nina Simone.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Harrison, George. I Me Mine (1980) p. 144
- ^ Dominic Pedler. The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Music Sales Limited. Omnibus Press. NY. 2003. p10
- ^ Dominic Pedler. The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Music Sales Limited. Omnibus Press. NY. 2003. pp249-250
- ^ Dominic Pedler. The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Music Sales Limited. Omnibus Press. NY. 2003. p555
- ^ Stephenson, Ken (2002). What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, p.89. ISBN 9780300092394.
- ^ a b MacDonald 2005, p. 356.
- ^ The Beatles Bible 2008.
- ^ andpop.com 2012.
- ^ Sagan et al 1978.
[edit] References
- The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-3636-3.
- "Here Comes the Sun". Fretbase.com. 2010. http://www.fretbase.com/songs/393-here-comes-the-sun. Retrieved 7 January 2010.
- "The Beatles ‘Here Comes The Sun’: Lost Solo Discovered". andpop.com. 2012. http://www.andpop.com/2012/01/28/the-beatles-here-comes-the-sun-lost-solo-discovered/. Retrieved 28 January 2012.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
- Sagan, Carl; Drake, Frank D.; Lomberg, Jon; Sagan, Linda Salzman; Druyan, Ann; Ferris, Timothy (1978). Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-41047-5.
[edit] External links
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