IFLTS: 'Something,' The Beatles

Posted on Sep 9th 2009 12:30PM by Jason Persse
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'Something,' The Beatles
1969 single from 'Abbey Road'

I jumped at the chance to write about George Harrison's 'Something,' and I've regretted the decision since the moment I sat down at the computer. It's one of the most beautiful pop songs ever written, an elegant, deceptively simple ode to being blissfully under the spell of a good woman. And that's precisely the problem. Writing about 'Something' means writing about "feelings." 'Something' is a love song, you see, and writing about love is a job for songwriters and poets and 13-year-old girls, not thirty-something professional cynics.

The Beatles really seemed to enjoy writing about it: She's in love with me, she loves you and I love her, all you need is love, yadda yadda yadda. But 'Something' is different altogether. It isn't a song about love so much as it's the sound of being in love -- being deeply, serenely engulfed in another person's every movement and thought. Harrison never says "I love her" or "We're so in love." He just tosses out images and impressions that almost capture the way his woman makes him feel. Of all the innovative, catchy, and "important" love songs in the Beatles' catalog, 'Something' is the only one that truly nails what it feels like to be head over heels about someone, because it doesn't nail anything at all. The secret is right there in the title. You can't name it, you can't capture it...and you certainly can't write about it. It's just that something in the way she moves and smiles and knows, and you couldn't imagine life without it. Now that's a love song.

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