Something

The best love song the Beatles ever recorded (arguably) wasn’t written by Lennon or McCartney. It was written by the quiet one, on a piano, in an empty studio, while the band imploded (and chain smoked) in three other rooms.

George Harrison was 25, and they maybe gave him one song per album if he begged enough. So he walked out with the best track on Abbey Road. Lennon, not a compliment machine, called it the best song on the album. Yoko called it “[inaudible screech.]”

The first line isn’t even his. “Something in the way she moves” is a James Taylor song title. Taylor was a kid signed to the Beatles’ own label, Harrison admitted the borrow, and nobody sued anybody. Imagine writing a line so good a Beatle takes it to the bank.

Harrison’s first move with the song was to…er, give it away? He offered it to Joe Cocker, who recorded it off George’s demo. But Harrison also pictured Ray Charles singing it, and Charles obliged, eventually.

But his favorite cover? James Brown’s. “I have it on my jukebox at home. It’s absolutely brilliant.” The quiet Beatle’s favorite version of his own love song belongs to the Godfather of Soul. Trivia night gold!

Frank Sinatra called it the greatest love song of the past 50 years, performed it for years, recorded it twice, and introduced it as a Lennon-McCartney song. Everyone was probably too scared to correct him.

Sinatra also changed a bridge line, and Harrison liked the change enough to sing it himself. Misattributed and edited by the Chairman of the Board, and George kept the edit. Saint or pushover, you decide.

In 2002, a year after George died, McCartney opened the Concert for George by playing it alone on a ukulele, because Harrison loved ukuleles. Check your pulse if that does nothing for you.