Here Comes the Sun

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 (D chord) to V-of-V (B chord) progression (the reverse of that used in "Eight Days a Week" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"). The melody in the verse and refrain basically follows the pentatonic scale from E up to C♯ (scale steps 5, 6, 1, 2, 3).

One feature is the increasing syncopation in the vocal parts. Another feature is the guitar flat-picking that embellishes the E7 (V7) 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 (or Tri-Plagal) progression (with an extra V7) as the vocals move from "Sun" (♭III or C chord) to "sun" (♭VII or G chord) to "sun" (IV or D chord) to "comes" (I or A chord) and the additional 4th descent to a V7 (E7) chord. The lyric here ("Sun, sun, sun, here it comes") has been described as taking "on the quality of a meditator's mantra". The song also features extreme 4/4 (in the verse) and a sequence of 11/8 + 4/4 + 7/8 (which can also be transcribed as 11/8 + 15/8) in the bridge, phrasing interludes which Harrison drew from Indian music influences. In the second verse (0:59–1:13) the Moog synthesizer doubles the solo guitar line and in the third verse the Moog adds an obbligato line an octave above. The last four bars (2:54–3:04) 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 (in fact, slightly above A major due to the track being varispeeded by less than a semitone). 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 (George Martin's score for two piccolos, two flutes, two alto flutes and two clarinets) 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. Nine years later, Harrison recorded "Here Comes the Moon" as a lyrical successor to the song.

In Japan, "Here Comes the Sun" was 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".

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

In 1976, "Here Comes the Sun" was covered by the British rock band Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, and released as the lead single from their fifth studio album, Love's a Prima Donna. The lineup on their version was Steve Harley on vocals and guitar, Jim Cregan on lead guitar and backing vocals, Jo Partridge on guitar and backing vocals, George Ford on bass guitar and backing vocals, Duncan Mackay on keyboards, and Stuart Elliott on drums. Additional backing vocals were provided by Yvonne Keeley, John G. Perry and Tony Rivers, while Lindsey Elliott played percussion.

"Here Comes the Sun" was the first cover version that Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel had chosen to record. The song peaked at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart and number 7 in Ireland. It was the band's last top 40 single.

Other artists

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. We Five released a version on their 1970 album Catch the Wind.

American folk singer Richie Havens had a US hit with his 1971 version, which peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Nina Simone recorded "Here Comes the Sun" as the title track to her 1971 covers album.

Sandy Farina covered "Here Comes the Sun" on the Martin-produced soundtrack to the 1978 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In 1980, on their album Flaming Schoolgirls, the Runaways recorded "Here Comes the Sun". Dave Edmunds, Debbie Gibson and Raffi sang a live cover version in a Japanese television special aired in 1990. On their 1994 debut album, Who Is, This Is?, ska-punk band Voodoo Glow Skulls recorded a version of the song.

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.

Sheryl Crow sang "Here Comes the Sun" in the 2007 animated film Bee Movie. 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. Marina Prior recorded the song for her 2012 album Both Sides Now. Malaysian singer Yuna recorded her version for the 2012 film Savages. It can be heard in the ending credits.

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, released in September 2013. 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 a highlight.

Paul Simon has often performed "Here Comes the Sun" in concert, as a tribute to Harrison. In September 2014, Simon played the song live on the TBS television show Conan as part of the show's "George Harrison Week" initiative.

Personnel

According to Ian MacDonald, the lineup on the Beatles' recording was as follows.

The Beatles

Orchestra