The Amazing Recording History of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”

The most streamed Bea­t­les song isn’t “She Loves You,” “Hey Jude,” or “All You Need Is Love.” It isn’t even “Yes­ter­day.” If you were about to guess “Some­thing,” you’re on the right track, at least as far as the source album and song­writer. In fact, it’s George Har­rison’s oth­er sig­na­ture song “Here Comes the Sun,” which has racked up 1,433,830,334 Spo­ti­fy streams as of this writ­ing, near­ly a mil­lion more than “In My Life” right below it. The You Can’t Unhear This video above breaks down what makes “Here Comes the Sun” stand out even amid the for­mi­da­ble Bea­t­les cat­a­log, from its con­cep­tion through its record­ing process.

Though it comes off as a sim­ple song — whose invit­ing qual­i­ty may well have some­thing to do with its out­sized pop­u­lar­i­ty — “Here Comes the Sun” turns out to be the result of a tech­ni­cal­ly com­plex and uncon­ven­tion­al process fair­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic of the late Bea­t­les. Start­ing with a melody craft­ed while play­ing an acoustic gui­tar in Eric Clap­ton’s gar­den (hav­ing recused him­self from yet anoth­er busi­ness meet­ing), Har­ri­son enriched it with such tech­niques as run­ning his gui­tar through a revolv­ing Leslie speak­er meant for an organ and hav­ing his hulk­ing Moog syn­the­siz­er trans­port­ed to Abbey Road so he could add a lay­er of elec­tron­ic sub­lim­i­ty.

At this point in the life of the Bea­t­les, every­one involved could sure­ly feel that the band’s end was near. Regard­less, none of the Fab Four was quite work­ing in iso­la­tion, and indeed, the “Here Comes the Sun” ses­sions — which, of course, end­ed up on Abbey Road, the final album they record­ed — rep­re­sent some of their last work as a unit. It’s not sur­pris­ing that such a con­text would pro­duce, say, John Lennon’s grim­ly descend­ing “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which ends side one; what star­tles no mat­ter how many times you hear it is the gen­tle opti­mism with which Har­rison’s side two opens imme­di­ate­ly there­after, espe­cial­ly if you’re not turn­ing an LP over in between.

Even in iso­la­tion, “Here Comes the Sun” has made such a cul­tur­al impact that Carl Sagan lob­bied for its inclu­sion on the Voy­ager “Gold­en Records,” which were launched into out­er space with the intent to give oth­er forms of intel­li­gent life a glimpse of human civ­i­liza­tion. The Bea­t­les also liked the idea, but they did­n’t own the nec­es­sary rights; those belonged to the label EMI, who in the rec­ol­lec­tion of Sagan’s wid­ow Ann Druyan demand­ed a pro­hib­i­tive fee for the song’s use. Had it been includ­ed, per­haps it could’ve end­ed up the first inter­galac­tic hit song — one enjoyed in the orbit of anoth­er sun entire­ly.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Bea­t­les Release the First Ever Video for “Here Comes the Sun”

Hear The Bea­t­les’ “Here Comes the Sun” With a Re-Dis­cov­ered George Har­ri­son Solo

Flash­mob Per­forms The Bea­t­les’ “Here Comes the Sun” in Madrid Unem­ploy­ment Office

How George Mar­tin Defined the Sound of the Bea­t­les: From String Quar­tets to Back­wards Gui­tar Solos

Watch George Harrison’s Final Inter­view and Per­for­mance (1997)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.