Format vinyl record 7" Genre Pop rock | Recorded 1978 | |
B-side "Soft-Hearted Hana" (UK)
"Soft Touch" (US) Released 20 April 1979 (UK)
11 May 1979 (US) Length 4:36 (album version)
3:35 (single edit) | ||
"Love Comes to Everyone" is a song by English musician George Harrison that was released as the opening track of his 1979 album George Harrison. It was also issued as the second single off the album. The recording contains musical contributions from Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton.
Contents
The song was included on Harrison's Dark Horse Records compilation Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989. Clapton covered the track on his 2005 album Back Home as a tribute to Harrison, four years after his death.
Composition and recording
George Harrison began writing "Love Comes to Everyone" in September 1977 and finished it in Hawaii in February 1978. Its writing and recording coincided with a period of domestic contentment for Harrison, who married his second wife, Olivia Arias, and saw the birth of his only child, son Dhani, during the sessions of his self-titled album. In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he describes the message of the song as "very optimistic". He also says the melody came about through using a Roland chorus effect on his guitar.
Harrison recorded "Love Comes to Everyone" at his home studio, FPSHOT, between March and October 1978. As with all of the George Harrison album, he co-produced the track with Russ Titelman. The song incorporates a danceable tom-tom beat. Eric Clapton plays lead guitar during the intro to the track. The other musicians on the recording are Steve Winwood, Neil Larsen, Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark and Ray Cooper.
Release
George Harrison was released on Dark Horse Records in February 1979, with "Love Comes to Everyone" sequenced as the opening track. It was originally intended as the lead single from the album, but "Blow Away" was released as the first single instead. Although favoured by DJs as an album cut, the song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 when issued as a single in April 1979. However, it did reach number 38 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart. The US picture sleeve is the most valuable collectible among George Harrison's record-related items.
The single edit of "Love Comes to Everyone" also appeared on Harrison's Dark Horse Records compilation Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989. He performed the song live just once, at the start of his Japanese Tour with Clapton, in December 1991.
Critical reception
Writing in Melody Maker, E.J. Thribb identified the track among the three most enjoyable songs on an album that reflected the singer's happier approach to life, relative to much of his past work. Thribb grouped it with "Blow Away" and "Not Guilty", saying: "The chords roll and tumble, the melodies are good to chant, and the lyrics are simple to tell their story." Billboard's reviewer considered it to be the album's "best cut" and admired the track for "Harrison's vintage guitar strumming, a guitar intro by Eric Clapton and vocal harmonies by Stevie Winwood". In Rolling Stone, Stephen Holden found the album "refreshingly lighthearted" and admired the "prettiness" of the song's melody. Writing in 1981, Bob Woffinden of the NME described the track as "joyous" and an example of how, thanks to its creator's happiness as a husband and father, George Harrison was "characterised by many of the positive qualities (consistency, professionalism, confidence, ebullience)" that had distinguished the Beatles' work throughout the 1960s.
Less impressed, AllMusic critic Richard Ginell finds "Love Comes to Everyone" a "depressing" choice to lead off the album, describing it as "a treadmill tune with greeting-card verses". Pop historian Robert Rodriguez calls it "a melodic, gentle slice of commercial pop, managing to sound at once contemporary and idiosyncratically Harrison". He considers that it deserved to become a hit and describes the single's lack of significant commercial success as "baffling".
NME critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler refer to "Love Comes to Everyone" as a "poised and relaxedly melodic all purpose choon". They note that Harrison incorporates a composing trick he has used since "If I Needed Someone" from the Beatles' 1965 album Rubber Soul, that of "basing his phrases on the off-beats of a two-bar sequence", a device they describe as one of Harrison's "best loved and least worn out".
Cover versions
The first cover of "Love Comes to Everyone" was recorded by Brazilian female singer Zizi Possi in 1983. Her version was released on "Pra Sempre E Mais Um Dia" album and the lyrics were translated. Consequently, the song was titled "O Amor Vem Pra Cada Um", and became a trademark hit for her which she especially likes to performe live, preferably with her daughter Luiza Possi, another famous Brazilian singer. "Love Comes to Everyone" was also performed as a choral piece in two concerts in honour of George Harrison by Trio Amaranto (Flavia, Lucia and Marina Ferraz) and other Brazilian musicians (André Godoy, drums; James Godoy, bass; William "Boll Weevil" Rancanti, guitar) in Belo Horizonte 2002.
As a tribute to Harrison, Clapton included a cover of "Love Comes to Everyone" on his 2005 album Back Home.