"Here Comes the Sun" is a song written by George Harrison that was first
released on the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road. Along with "Something" and
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps", it is one of Harrison's best-known
compositions from the Beatles era. The song was written at the country house of
his friend Eric Clapton, where Harrison had chosen to play truant for the day,
to avoid attending a meeting at the Beatles' Apple Corps organisation. The
lyrics reflect the composer's relief at both the arrival of spring and the
temporary respite he was experiencing from the band's business affairs.
The Beatles recorded "Here Comes the Sun" at London's EMI Studios in the
summer of 1969. Led by Harrison's acoustic guitar, the recording also
features Moog synthesizer, which he had introduced to the Beatles' sound after
acquiring an early model of the instrument in California. Reflecting the
continued influence of Indian classical music on Harrison's writing, the
composition includes a series of unusual time changes over the "Sun, sun, sun,
here it comes" refrain. "Here Comes the Sun" has received
acclaim from music critics. Combined with his other contribution to Abbey
Road, "Something", it gained for Harrison the level of recognition as a
songwriter that had previously been reserved for his bandmates John Lennon
and Paul McCartney. Harrison played the song during many of his relatively rare
live performances as a solo artist, including at the Concert for Bangladesh
in 1971 and, with Paul Simon, during his appearance on Saturday Night Live in
1976. Richie Havens and Steve Harley each had hit singles with "Here Comes
the Sun" in the 1970s. Nina Simone, George Benson, Booker T. & the M.G.'s,
Peter Tosh and Joe Brown are among the many other artists who have covered the
song. Composition
"Here Comes the Sun" is one of Harrison's best-known Beatles
compositions alongside "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". The
early months of 1969 were a difficult period for Harrison: he had quit the
band temporarily, he was arrested for marijuana possession, and he had his
tonsils removed. Harrison states in his autobiography, I,
Me, Mine: "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". As Clapton states in his autobiography,
the house in question is known as Hurtwood Edge. When interviewed in the
Martin Scorsese documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World,
Clapton said he believed the month was April. Data from two meteorological
stations in the London area show that April 1969 set a record for sunlight
hours for the 1960s. The Greenwich station recorded 189 hours for April, a
high that was not beaten until 1984. The Greenwich data also show that February
and March were much colder than the norm for the 1960s, which would account for
Harrison's reference to a "long, cold, lonely winter".
Musical structure The song is in the key of A major. The
main refrain uses a IV to V-of-V progression. The melody in the verse and
refrain basically follows the pentatonic scale from E up to C♯.
One feature is the increasing syncopation in the vocal parts. Another
feature is the guitar flat-picking that embellishes the E7 chord from 2:03 to
2:11, creating tension for resolution on the tonic A chord at "Little darlin' ".
The bridge involves a ♭III-♭VII-IV-I-V7 triple descending 4th progression as the
vocals move from "Sun" to "sun" to "sun" to "comes" and the additional 4th
descent to a V7 chord. The lyric here has been described as taking "on the
quality of a meditator's mantra". The song also features extreme 4/4 and a
sequence of 11/8 + 4/4 + 7/8 in the bridge, phrasing interludes which
Harrison drew from Indian music influences. In the second verse the Moog
synthesizer doubles the solo guitar line and in the third verse the Moog adds an
obligato line an octave above. The last four bars juxtapose the guitar break
with a repeat of the bridge. Recording
Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo 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. 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. 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. The master tapes reveal that
Harrison recorded a guitar solo that was not included in the final mix at that
time. Release and reception
Abbey Road was released on 26 September 1969 with "Here Comes the Sun" sequenced
as the opening track on side two of the LP. Along with "Something", which was
issued as a single from the album, the song established Harrison as a composer
to match Lennon and McCartney. According to author Alan Clayson, Harrison's two
Abbey Road compositions received "the most widespread syndication" of all the
tracks on the album, partly through the number of cover versions they attracted.
In Japan, "Here Comes the Sun" was also issued on a single in 1970, as the
B-side to McCartney's Abbey Road track "Oh! Darling". While the Beatles never
released the track on a single in Britain, new rules implemented to the UK
Singles Chart in 2007 allowed any song to enter the charts based on download
sales. This allowed several songs recorded by the Beatles to list on the
charts when the group's back catalogue became available for download on iTunes
in 2010, including "Here Comes the Sun", which peaked at number 58 on 27 November
that year. Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal
Gilmore likened "Here Comes the Sun" to the McCartney-written "Let It Be" and
Lennon's "Imagine", as Harrison's "graceful anthem of hope amid difficult
realities". While expressing regret at having underestimated Harrison as a
songwriter, Martin described "Here Comes the Sun" as being "in some ways one of
the best songs ever written". The track has appeared in many critics'
lists of the Beatles' best recordings. Among these, the NME placed it at number
4 in the magazine's 2015 list of "the 100 Greatest Beatles Songs". In a
similar poll compiled by Mojo in 2006, where the song appeared at number 21,
Danny Eccleston described it as "perhaps the best song – outside 'Jerusalem' –
that religion can claim credit for", adding: "Those who professed surprise at
Harrison's immediate elevation to Most Successful Solo Beatle status [in 1970]
clearly weren't listening to this." "Here Comes the Sun" appeared at number
28 on Rolling Stone‍ '​s 2010 list, where the editors commented: "Along with
'Something,' it gave notice that the Beatles now had three formidable
composers." Voyager proposal
In 1977, astronomer and science populariser Carl Sagan attempted to have
"Here Comes the Sun" included on a disc of music accompanying the Voyager space
mission. Titled the Voyager Golden Record, copies of this disc were
attached to both spacecrafts in the Voyager program in order to provide any
entity that recovered them with a representative sample of human
civilization. Writing in his book Murmurs of Earth, Sagan recalls that the
Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal
status of the piece seemed too murky to risk." When the probes were launched in
1977, the song was not included. Cover versions
In August 1971, Harrison performed the song at the Concert for Bangladesh,
accompanied by Pete Ham of the group Badfinger. He also played it during his
appearance on Saturday Night Live in November 1976, as a duet with Paul
Simon. A live version from his 1991 Japanese tour with Eric Clapton appears
on Harrison's Live in Japan double album.
Booker T. & the M.G.'s included the song on their 1970 Abbey Road tribute album,
McLemore Avenue. That same year, "Here Comes the Sun" was covered by Peter Tosh
and released as a single, although it was not widely available until its
inclusion on Can't Blame the Youth in 2004. American folk singer Richie Havens
had a US hit with his 1971 version, which peaked at number 16 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart. The most successful UK cover was by
Steve Harley, who reached number 10 with the song during the unusually hot
British summer of 1976. On their 1994 debut album, Who Is, This Is?, ska-punk
band Voodoo Glow Skulls recorded a version of the song. We Five released a
version on their 1970 album Catch the Wind. Nina Simone recorded "Here Comes
the Sun" as the title track to her 1971 covers album.
Linda Eder released a version of "Here Comes the Sun" in 2002 on her Gold
album. On 29 November that year, Joe Brown performed the song at the Concert
for George tribute, which was organised by Clapton and held at the Royal Albert
Hall in London. Brown's performance was included on the subsequent live album
from the event and in David Leland's concert film.
Naya Rivera and Demi Lovato performed the song, as Santana Lopez and Dani
respectively, in Glee‍‍ '​‍s fifth season episode "Tina in the Sky with
Diamonds". Their duet version appears on the album Glee Sings the Beatles.
Writing for MTV, Jocelyn Vena commented that the two singers sang "in perfect
harmony over a plucky guitar." Idolator also pointed out "their beautiful
harmonies" as highlight. Swedish heavy metal band Ghost released
a version of the song as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of their 2010
album Opus Eponymous. In 1980, on their album Flaming
Schoolgirls, the Runaways recorded "Here Comes the Sun".
Malaysian singer Yuna recorded her version for the 2012 film Savages. It
can be heard in the ending credits. Dave Edmunds, Debbie Gibson and Raffi
sang a live cover version in a Japanese television special aired in 1990. Sandy
Farina covered "Here Comes the Sun" on the Martin-produced soundtrack to the
1978 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sheryl Crow sang it for Bee
Movie in 2007. Personnel
According to Ian MacDonald: The Beatles
George Harrison – lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitars,
harmonium, Moog synthesizer, handclaps Paul McCartney – backing vocal, bass,
handclaps Ringo Starr – drums, handclaps
Orchestra Uncredited – four violas, four cellos,
double bass, two piccolos, two flutes, two alto flutes, two clarinets
References Sources
External links Review from AllMusic
Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics