That indefinable something called love…

The maximum times I heard all my favourite melodies from one of the most outstanding bands ever was during my residency. My roommate in the RMO quarters was a guy who is now a big name in Electrophysiology in the US, Sanjay Deshpande. He was as fond of the great band as I, and one sweet UG student at the time was even more of a Beatlemaniac than us.

This is one of my very favourite songs of the era. https://youtu.be/UelDrZ1aFeY

Written by George Harrison, it is a wonderful melody.

Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don’t need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

You’re asking me will my love grow
I don’t know, I don’t know
You stick around, now it may show
I don’t know, I don’t know

Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

John Lennon and Paul McCartney both rated the song highly. The two have contributed to a very large share of the famed quartet’s songs. Lennon said, “I think that’s about the best track on the album, (Abbey Road) actually,” while McCartney said “For me I think it’s the best he’s written. George had a smugness on his face when he came in with this one, and rightly so – he knew it was absolutely brilliant.”

Something is from their 1969 album Abbey Road and was written by George Harrison, who was then the band’s lead guitarist.

Together with his second contribution to Abbey Road, “Here Comes the Sun”, it is widely viewed by music historians as having marked Harrison’s ascendancy as a composer to the well known, very high level of the two main  songwriters for the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Amazingly, a fortnight after the album released the song was issued on a double A-side single, (with “Come Together“), making it the first Harrison composition to become a Beatles A-side. This was the first time in the United Kingdom that the Beatles issued a single containing tracks already available on an album that had been released. While the single’s commercial performance in the UK (where it reached #4) was lessened by this, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States as well as charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and West Germany

The track is generally considered a love song to Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s first wife (who was famously wooed by his good friend Eric Clapton), although Harrison offered alternative sources of inspiration in later interviews.

The song has a prominent guitar solo that many identify among Harrison’s finest. The song also drew praise from the other Beatles and their producer, George Martin, with Lennon stating that it was the best song on Abbey Road. The promotional film for the single combined footage of each of the Beatles with his respective wife, reflecting the estrangement in the band during the months preceding their break-up in April 1970.

An amazing song that I remembered first up today. Dedicated to the memories of Beatles 4Ever concert in IIT Bombay in ’79 (?80) in the company of some lovely friends. https://youtu.be/VsmNQyntKL8

Stay safe and healthy, folks. The winter will finally take a grip on the city I live in.

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