The song has a nice sentiment, and was done as a lark. But, it helped get Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. married.
Elaborating more on the writer of "Wedding Bell Blues" Laura Nyro. I bought a CD compilation of Nyro's work about 2 years ago, and it is amazing (does have original version of "Wedding Bell Blues"). Very sorry I did not venture down this road earlier. Hard to believe Nyro has been dead for over 20 years. I was aware of her at the time of her death and therefore remember hearing about it, having read about her around 1980, but as mentioned did not get any of her music until about 2015. Why? The main reason -- never heard her (own versions) of songs anywhere before that.
Are you talking about the album The Memphis Record? That was released in 1987, and features a remix of the song that is missing the horn overdubs and is the original performance length (2:34) without the looped/extended ending or the fade out/in that were part of the original stereo and mono mixes. If not, what album are you referring to? "Suspicious Minds" was also released without the fade on the Worldwide Gold Award Hits CD in 1989. That version does have the looped ending and is extended to 4:20 like the original mixes, it's just missing the fade. It appears to have been released by mistake. To my knowledge, no version of the song without the fade was released until 1987.
Amazing that this double-sided hit, with all the huzzahs it garnered at the time, particularly for Harrison's ballad, could only muster one week at the top. Abby Road itself was hugely successful so what, did everyone buy the album instead? It should be pointed out that all the #1 songs after Wedding Bell Blues, which basically encompasses the month of December, lasted one or two weeks, the same amount of songs that took us through the entire summer!
"Something" is lovely, and I'm glad that as things were getting near the end, George finally got an A side. But my favorite George song on Abbey Road (and indeed my favorite George song as a Beatle) will always be "Here Comes the Sun," 3 minutes of undiluted joy.
As with most Beatles songs, love the song... just not the Beatles version. Someone else sings it, and produces it (In this case, Terry Melcher) and I love it.
I've always thought this was just an incredible single. "Come Together" is wonderfully dark and mysterious and dare I say even a bit swampy. It's certainly as Memphis as The Beatles ever got, and I can't help but wonder what other fantastic material they might have produced if they'd hung together for another album or two. "Something" meanwhile is as lovely a ballad as you're likely to find anywhere, and while ballads aren't typically my thing, this one I've loved since I can remember. Also, thanks no doubt in part to having Alan Parsons along for the production, Abbey Road is by far the best-sounding Beatles record ever, and these singles - especially "Something" - are just a fantastic listen.
There was a radio special at the time and a hipster went through it line by line explaining it was all about drugs.
Parsons was one of the second engineers on that album, but my understanding is that the title is just a glorified name for "tape op." So he likely doesn't deserve much of any credit for how the recordings sound.
I think he was quite a bit more involved than just "tape op" by that point - he'd also worked on the Let It Be sessions by the way.
He was a second engineer on the Abbey Road sessions. If he was "more involved" then what would the actual engineers be doing? Here's an interview where he talks about his role during the Let it Be sessions. He literally says "I was sent to operate the tape." In this interview he discusses his duties for the rooftop concert, which involved running microphone cable up to the roof and acting as a gofer (buying pantyhose to put over the mics). The article notes that he was able to stand around and watch the performance because Glyn Johns (the actual engineer) was running the console. On Abbey Road, Parsons was one of two second engineers (the other was John Kurlander). Three different engineers (Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Tony Clark) worked on recording the album. Here's an article where Parsons is referred to as a "tape operator" during those sessions. Giving him any significant credit for the sound of the album is unfair to the guys who actually recorded the album, and there doesn't seem to be any evidence to support it. He was an apprentice in those days.
"Something" was technically the A side - the only one Harrison got in all The Beatles' lifetime (it was the side with the full apple) - and deservedly so. (It, to my particularly sensitive ears, smites all covers that came after it.) The opening intro (and transition from chorus to next verse) on "Come Together," meanwhile, seemed to have some influence over part of the musical backing of the opening and verses of a later #1 - "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" by Mac Davis (which we'll get to a few months from now). Both songs were beginning to fade from the charts when Billboard decided to alter its policy and allow double-sided entries in their chart positions, which was how both ended up #1 if only for the week. As for the "swampy" arrangement on "Come Together," apparently Paul played the keyboard on that - and it seemed more inspired by what Creedence Clearwater Revival were turning out. The Beatles, in the scheme of things, were luckier with #1's in the U.S. than the U.K. by this point. This record could only muster #4 in England (their lowest chart position since their 1962 debut single "Love Me Do"), and in fact in their remaining time as an active unit, they would never have another #1 in their own land ("The Ballad Of John And Yoko" was their last chart-topper across the pond).
This double-sided hit was only #1 because Billboard put both songs together beginning with issue November 29. In the three weeks before the songs had the following chart positions: Come Together: 3 > 2 > 7 and then #1 together with "Something" Something: 9 > 3 > 3 and then #1 together with "Come Together" (the Hot 100 used this chart positions in the issue from November 29, 1969) In the U.K. was the single released as Something / Come Together.
Love both sides, but "Come Together" took a lot more easing my way into than "Something," which I loved at first listen. I distinctly recall buying the 45 and putting it on for the first time and thinking, "Oh, this song, I love this song!" I think I've quite possibly heard more people call "Something" their favorite Beatles song than any other. It's just that kind of instant classic. Now, how it is that both sides of this single almost didn't make it to #1 is one of the great mysteries of the rock era to me. Incidentally, Abbey Road is not my favorite Beatles album but it is the only one on which I never skip a single song. There are maybe a dozen albums in my entire collection of which I can say that; this is one of them.
Combining the A & B sides of a single to gauge sales is logical. If you purchase the single, you get both sides. Had Billboard made that adjustment two weeks earlier, Something/Come Together would have been #1 for at least three weeks.
There wasn't supposed to be a single from Abbey Road but Allen Klein was in charge of Apple and the single was his first order. New Zealand band The La De Das had already recorded a cover of Come Together at Abbey Road but it got blown out of the water by The Beatles' original. George wrote Something during sessions for The White Album and played it to the band while they recorded Piggies. Everyone who heard it said he should scrap Piggies and record Something but George wasn't convinced and gave the song to Joe Cocker. As originally recorded for Abbey Road the song had a long, boring section at the end but someone convinced George it needed editing and turned it into the song we all know and love.
The public loves a love song. That's why "Something" shot to #1 over "Come Together". "Something" is one of those "perfect" songs. It was impeccably produced and executed. It'a has a lovely mix. I also can't help thinking that the use of solid state electronics influenced the sound. To me, it sounded nothing like The Beatles had done before, and it made a lot of people sit up and take notice of George Harrison's writing abilities, "While My Guitar Weeps" notwithstanding. "Something" was all over the radio in the fall of 1969. I don't know how anyone could have missed it. To me, "Something" said that The Beatles were headed in a new phase. Funny, Phil Spector used that very phrase in describing his version of the "Let It Be" album a year later. "Come Together" is a song I first remember hearing at one of my sister's parties in 1969. Some girl brought the 45 with her, and I remember hearing it on our stereo. I liked it, but wouldn't hear it again until the 80s when I bought the Blue album.
