"Something" by George Harrison
A love song for love itself
“Something in the way she moves / Attracts me like no other lover / Something in the way she woos me”
The Peter Jackson documentary, “Get Back”, where we got to be a fly on the wall for nine hours of Beatles band practice, is such a revelation I can’t even talk about it. There are snippets in it where you see George bouncing his initial ideas for this song off of the other members. It’s got different words, he’s still developing it. It hasn’t crystallized yet and you can see insecurity all over his face. John and Paul are ribbing him and patronizing him. Nobody seems into it, the moment is excruciating to watch.
It’s right before he quits the band for a little while.
“I don't wanna leave her now / You know I believe and how”
But the final product ended up getting made, eventually. This love song is perfect. And it was written for a real person who George was really married to, until he wasn’t. Gawkers love to harp on the soap opera of Eric Clapton’s having stolen Pattie Boyd from George, but why dwell on the inevitable human limitations of earthly relationships when we still get to hear “Something” to this day?
Something never ended. It lives on with the listeners.
I don’t hear this as a love song for a person. It’s a love song for love itself. The devotion is crystalline, his surrender so complete. It’s like: this is what life is for and I’ve found it. Don’t need anything but this.
“Somewhere in her smile, she knows / That I don't need no other lover / Something in her style that shows me / Don't wanna leave her now / You know I believe and how”
The melody was there before the words, and George took a while to settle on the words. As mentioned, he even quit the band for a bit before it was done. I can’t imagine someone writing a song like this and not going through some version of hell to get it done. Even as a Beatle. Especially as a Beatle.
“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”
With some great songs, people remember the first time they heard them. There’s that a-ha moment of “wow, something new! What is this…?”
But I don’t remember the first time I heard this song. When I heard “Something” for the first time, it was already deeply familiar. Embedded in my psyche, revealed again after a long concealment. “Something” seemed like it had been latent in my brain for all eternity, and hearing it for the first time was just a welcome reunion.
The best songs seem like they were there all along. The deja-vu feeling they create on first listen is one indicator that the melodist has brought something forth from so deep within the current of human feeling that we are all connected to it.
Like it was hiding in plain sight. The songwriter disappears.
“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”
“Something” knows. All I have to do is think of this song. It continues to show me many things:
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