I Me Mine

Composition

The set of pronouns which forms the song's title is a conventional way of referring to the ego in a Hindu context. For example, the Bhagavad Gita 2:71-72 can be translated as "They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of 'I', 'me' and 'mine' to be united with the Lord. This is the supreme state. Attain to this, and pass from death to immortality." Author Jonathan Gould claims that Harrison wrote "I Me Mine" "as a commentary on the selfishness" of his Beatles bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney and considers it poignant that the song was only properly recorded because, during the group's filmed rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969, it had provided accompaniment to Lennon and his partner Yoko Ono dancing. Gould writes that Harrison was particularly upset at Twickenham "that his fellow Beatles could complain about the amount of time they had to spend learning the arrangement for 'I Me Mine' and then turn around and submit to a laborious rehearsal of a song like 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' which struck George as a paragon of pop inanity." Gould contends further that, if "friends like Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton heard something worthwhile in material like [Harrison's] 'All Things Must Pass'" then only "sheer egotism could account for the air of complete indifference with which Lennon and McCartney first greeted" both that tune and "I Me Mine".

After receiving his "eternal problem" inspiration when writing the song, Harrison played some chords to a 6/8 time signature. The melody was inspired by the incidental music for a BBC television program, Europa – The Titled and the Untitled, which aired on 7 January 1969. Harrison wrote "I Me Mine" that night and performed it for the other Beatles the following morning.

Musical structure

The verses of this song are in the key of A minor but the chorus is in A major. This technique of parallel minor/major contrast is also present in Beatles' songs including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Savoy Truffle", "The Fool on the Hill", "Fixing a Hole", "Michelle", "Things We Said Today", "Do You Want to Know a Secret" and "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". The song begins in 6/8 time on "All through the day" with a shift from the I minor (Am) chord to a IV (D7) which Dominic Pedler of Total Guitar magazine considers emphasises the Dorian mode. The progression in 3/4 time beginning with an F melody note on "Now they're frightened of leaving it" against minor iv (Dm) chord (the ♭3rd emphasising in Pedler's view the Aeolian mode) shifts to an V7 (E7) on "comin' on strong", but here (at 0.27 secs) the hauntingly strong ♭9 (F natural) melody note results in the suitably "dark drama" of the very rare (in pop music) E7♭9 chord in the key of A minor. The song is also notable for concluding on an ♭VI (Fmaj7) chord in A minor key.

Recording

The Let It Be documentary film features a segment in which Harrison plays the song for Ringo Starr and describes it as "a heavy waltz". Harrison, Starr and McCartney are then seen performing the tune while an uninterested Lennon dances with Ono. Close to a year later, by which time Lennon had privately announced he was leaving the band, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg chose to include the "I Me Mine" segment in the film. The Beatles therefore had to record the song for inclusion on the Let It Be album. On 3 January 1970, Harrison, McCartney and Starr met at EMI's Abbey Road Studios to work on the track with George Martin. Lennon did not attend the session, since he and Ono were on holiday in Denmark at the time.

The group recorded 16 takes of the song, the last of which was deemed satisfactory. Before take 15, Harrison delivered a mock press statement in which he made a joking reference to Lennon's absence by recasting the four Beatles as members of the British pop group Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. The statement, followed by take 16 of "I Me Mine", was released on the Anthology 3 compilation in 1996. The song lasted just 1 minute 34 seconds, until Phil Spector – who had been invited by Lennon and Harrison to complete the Let It Be album – extended the length by copying the rock-style chorus in the middle of the song and the second verse, and repeating them at the end of the track. Spector also overdubbed a string and brass accompaniment. The final version, as "re-produced" by Spector, was included on Let It Be. A similar edit, without Spector's orchestral overdubs but retaining the repeated section, was made available on the Let It Be... Naked album in 2003.

Although the sessions for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and "The End" in August 1969 were the last where all four Beatles were present in the recording studio, "I Me Mine" was the last new song recorded by the Beatles (albeit without Lennon) until sessions for the band's Anthology project in 1994. It was not their final recording session, however, since McCartney, Harrison and Starr continued to carry out various overdubs on the Let It Be tracks.

Release and reception

Let It Be was issued on 8 May 1970 with "I Me Mine" sequenced as the fourth track. The release followed a month after McCartney's public announcement that he was leaving the Beatles, which had resulted in the group's break-up.

Among contemporary reviews of the album, Alan Smith of the NME derided the release as "a cheapskate epitaph" and a "sad and tatty end" to the band's career, but he admired the "Russian-flavoured 'I Me Mine'" as "a strong ballad with a frantic centre". In Melody Maker, Richard Williams wrote: "'I Me Mine' has a great organ/guitar intro, meditative verses and a tempo switch in and out of the rocking chorus, which has guitar riffs one step away from Chuck Berry. George put a lot of strength into this." Reviewing for Rolling Stone, John Mendelsohn ridiculed Spector's use of lush orchestration, particularly on McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road", adding: "'I Me Mine,' the waltz sections of which reminds one very definitely of something from one of The Al Jolson Story's more maudlin moments, almost benefits from such treatment … As [Spector has] left it, though, it, like 'Winding Road,' is funny enough to find cloying but not funny enough to enjoy laughing at."

In 2002, David Fricke of Rolling Stone included "I Me Mine" in his list of the "25 Essential Harrison Performances". Fricke said of the Beatles' final recording: "Harrison signed off in style; his angry, grinding guitar is the honest sound of exhaustion and hard-won freedom." In a 2003 review for Mojo, John Harris wrote that "[Harrison's] vocal, frequently pitched just short of falsetto, is a delight" and admired the string arrangement for "manag[ing] to tease out the sense of camp" underlying the song."

Harrison titled his 1980 autobiography after the track. The song is playable in the video game The Beatles: Rock Band. Spector's work was removed for the game's version. Marc Ford recorded a version of "I Me Mine" for the album Songs from the Material World: A Tribute to George Harrison, released in February 2003 to coincide with what would have been Harrison's 60th birthday. Beth Orton recorded the song as a medley with "Dig It" for the Let It Be Revisited CD, included with the October 2010 issue of Mojo magazine. At the George Fest tribute to Harrison in 2014, "I Me Mine" was performed by Britt Daniel of the band Spoon, who said that it was his favourite song by Harrison.

Personnel

According to Ian MacDonald and Mark Lewisohn: