Soundtrack of My Life – This Song

SoundtrackLife

It’s sad to think that there are many young people who have never heard of The Beatles. Of course for those who do remember them, there has always been discussions over favourites. For some, Paul McCartney was the favourite, for others John Lennon, some thought George Harrison was the best Beatle and there were even some who marched to the beat of Ringo’s drum.

While I wasn’t really around in the early days of Beatlemania, (they exploded onto the charts the year I was born) I do enjoy a lot of their music and you’d find heaps of their work on my iPod. When it comes to the matter of favourites, I’m definitely with George Harrison.

I love a lot of George’s music, including the track I’ve chosen to highlight today, This Song. It’s a song about the song itself and it was written after a famous court case where Harrison was accused of copying someone else’s work.

“This Song” was written after the week Harrison spent in a New York courtroom, unsuccessfully trying to convince a judge that his 1970 song “My Sweet Lord” did not intentionally infringe the Chiffons’ 1963 hit “He’s So Fine”. According to Harrison, the plaintiff got ridiculously in-depth, breaking “My Sweet Lord” down into several melody lines, or “motifs”, as they referred to them. Apparently, the plaintiff also drew up several charts with large musical notes on it to prove their point. Harrison said in his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, that after several days, he “started to believe that maybe they did own those notes”. – Wiki

The subject matter wasn’t veiled at all. From the first few lines you knew exactly what it was all about.

This song has nothing tricky about it
This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright, so . . .

This song we’ll let be
This song is in E
This song is for you and . . .

This tune has nothing Bright about it
This tune ain’t bad or good and come ever what may
My expert tells me it’s okay

As this song came to me
Quite unknowingly
This song could be you could be . . .

This riff ain’t trying to win gold medals
This riff ain’t hip or square
Well done or rare
May end up one more weight to bear

But this song could well be
A reason to see – that
Without you there’s no point to . . . this song

It’s a catchy, fun song that never really lit up the charts but I love it. I also love watching the video. It’s a lot of fun. Look out for appearances by a bunch of Harrison’s friends including drummer Jim Keltner as the judge and the Rolling Stones’s Ronnie Wood dressed as a middle aged woman miming the words, “Could be ‘Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch’ – No, sounds more like ‘Rescue Me’.” which was recorded on the song by Monty Python’s Eric Idle. You can watch it below.

George Harrison might not be your favourite Beatle; in fact you might not even like The Beatles at all, but This Song is part of the soundtrack of my life and I wanted to share it with you. Let me know what you think.



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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