On September 19th, 1968, George was in Studio One of Abbey Road Studios sitting at a harpsichord with young producer Chris Thomas, working out the part that Chris would play on the song Piggies during sessions for the "White Album," when he suddenly played Something for Thomas's opinion. Even though Thomas assured him that it was great (and suggested recording it instead of Piggies), George said that he was considering offering it to Apple recording artist Jackie Lomax.
On January 28th and 29th of 1969, during the final stretch of the Get Back sessions, George presented the song to the other Beatles, seeking help with the lyrics, especially in the bridge. Some of John and Paul's ideas from this time actually made it into the finished version. (Of course, the initial line of George's composition came from yet another Apple artist - a young American by the name of James Taylor - who already had a song with the title Something in the Way She Moves.)
By February 25th, the melody and lyrics were complete, as George went into the studio to record demos of recent compositions Old Brown Shoe, All Things Must Pass and Something. Anthology 3 presents all three of these demos, with Something being played the most simply in a single take. At this point, George even had a countermelody along with some additional lyrics following the bridge, but this section proved to be superfluous and it was omitted from future versions of the song. Around this time, George offered the song to Joe Cocker instead of the Beatles.
But, by April 16th, he had changed his mind. After spending a good portion of the day working on the B-side Old Brown Shoe, the group shifted their focus to Something. John sat out as George, Paul, and Ringo, along with producer George Martin on piano, recorded thirteen takes of the basic track of the song.
George must have felt that version was lacking in some way, because the group started from scratch on May 2nd, once again beginning with take one. John sat at the piano on this day and, as the session wore on, he began playing a repetitive four-note coda after the main body of the song, akin to the coda at the end of his recent composition I Want You (She's So Heavy), though not nearly as interesting as the one on his song, and not on every take. On the final take - number thirty-six - this coda went on and on, bringing the track to seven minutes and forty-eight seconds.
The Beatles reconvened at Olympic Sound Studios on May 5th to begin applying overdubs to take thirty-six. Paul re-recorded his bass part and George did the same to his guitar part, playing it through a Leslie speaker. The group soon suspended all sessions until July, at which time they began working in earnest on a new album with full production values. As usual, George had to wait for awhile before attention got shifted back to any of his songs.
On July 11th, work finally resumed on Something, with George recording his lead vocal. Old friend Billy Preston probably added his flourishes on organ on this date, as well. About half of John's piano-based coda was cut around this time, bringing the running time of the song down to five minutes and thirty-two seconds. John's piano track was eliminated completely on July 16th when Ringo recorded some additional percussion in its place. Once Paul overdubbed his backing vocals, and George, Paul and Ringo added handclaps, the track was most likely considered to be complete.
But George was still not satisfied. He asked producer George Martin to write a suitable orchestration for the piece, as well as for his other song on the album, Here Comes the Sun. The arrangements were recorded on August 15th, 1969. As Martin conducted the orchestra in Studio One, Harrison essentially produced the session from the control booth in Studio Two, until he decided that he wanted to re-record his lead guitar solo. This could only be done on the floor of the studio alongside the orchestra. In his book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn relates that this solo was practically identical to the previous version. It is sublime, nonetheless. Before final stereo mixing, the rest of the coda was thankfully removed from the track.
Around the time that the album Abbey Road was released, comments from both John and Paul revealed that the senior members of the Beatles recognized the greatness of the composition, calling it the best song on the album. New manager Allen Klein, in an effort to raise revenue for the group's ailing Apple business, chose to release Something and Come Together as a double A-sided single - the only time this was done in the UK during the group's career after any of their songs had already been released on an album. While this kept the single from reaching number one in that country, there was a different result in the US, where it was a common practice to release singles after the fact. The single remained in the Billboard Top 40 for sixteen weeks, but only hit number one for one week after the figures for the two songs were combined instead of being charted separately.
George's only A-side as a member of the Beatles received its own promotional film, but the four bandmates could not be bothered to appear together. Instead, their former roadie Neil Aspinall shot each of them with their wives in outdoor settings. John and Yoko look like characters from the Lord of the Rings, Ringo and Maureen goof around on mopeds, Paul and Linda (who shot their own footage in Scotland) romp around their farm, and composer George and Pattie look mostly somber on the grounds of their estate. This film can be seen on the video collection 1+.
Something appeared on the Blue Album in 1973, on Love Songs in 1977, and on 1 in 2000. George played the song live at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, during his North American tour in 1974, and on his tour of Japan in 1991.
Perhaps the highest praise ever given the song was from Frank Sinatra, who called it the best love song written in 50 years. Unfortunately, when he first began singing it in concert, he introduced it as a Lennon/McCartney composition. Such was the lot of George Harrison, junior member of the firm known as the Beatles.
