George Harrison on the Dark Lyric in ‘When We Was Fab’
George Harrison wanted to evoke the good times he had with The Beatles in his song, “When We Was Fab.” However, not all of the tune’s lyrics stem from fond memories. There’s a dark lyric that speaks about one of the things George hated about being a member of the Fab Four.
George Harrison wanted to evoke the good memories he had with The Beatles on ‘When We Was Fab’
Being Beatle George was hard. It was a constant push and pull between screaming fans and not being able to stretch his creativity to its fullest. Beatlemania aged him and made him paranoid. John Lennon and Paul McCartney often pushed him and his songs aside. However, on top of it all, George desperately wanted to break free and explore spiritualism. He didn’t want to be a glorified session man or a teen idol. George wanted to be God-conscious.
However, years after The Beatles split and everything settled, George came to terms with being a Beatle. When he entered the studio in 1987 to record Cloud Nine, he suddenly wanted to create a song that evoked the spirit of his old band. What resulted was “When We Was Fab,” a song (and music video) that had more Beatles Easter eggs than “Glass Onion.”
George told Goldmine that he wanted the tune to be “reminiscent of that period.” He even used sounds from that time; the cellos, the backward bits, and the stars. “It was like a whole collection of impressions, a montage of that period,” George said.
George told Musician Magazine that he got the idea for the chords while he and his co-producer, Jeff Lynne, were in Australia. Chords from two Beatles songs also influenced the tune’s sound. “But the idea was that it would evoke a Fabs song,” George said. “It was always intended to be lots of fun.”
George on the dark lyric in ‘When We Was Fab’
For the most part, George wrote “joke” lyrics for “When We Was Fab.” He wanted the song to embody his happiest memories in The Beatles. However, some of his not-so-happy memories crept in as well.
MuchMusic asked George what the tune’s lyrics meant, especially one dark line, “Caresses fleeced you in the morning light/ Casualties at dawn.” George explained that The Beatles got caressed and knocked around by fans wherever they went.
“Well, I think that was the kind of thing that was happening to us, where those caressers fleece you in the morning light,” George said. “Casualties at dawn. We all end up coming out of someplace after being fleeced. But basically, it’s just a little montage of ideas put together.”
George would’ve remembered being fleeced by fans eager to retrieve a hanky, a cigarette, or even a handful of hair from him and his bandmates. That was the worst part of Beatlemania, the part that made George paranoid about being seriously hurt or, worse, murdered.
So, “When We Was Fab” might sound like an ode to Beatledom, but it has the darkness of the period lurking in there too.
The former Beatle said he did something uncharacteristic when writing the song
“When We Was Fab” might have evoked the old days with The Beatles and used the same sounds of the 1960s, but George used a new technique when writing it. He started recording the song before he finished writing the lyrics. It was uncharacteristic of him and strange.
“Anyway, every so often we took the tape of ‘Fab’ out and overdubbed more, and it developed and took shape to where we wrote words,” George told Musician Magazine. “This was an odd experience for me; I’ve normally finished all of the songs I’ve done–with the exception of maybe a few words here and there-before I ever recorded them. But Jeff doesn’t do that at all. He’s making them up as he goes along.
“That to me is a bit like, ‘Ohh nooo, that’s too mystical. I wanna know where we’re heading.’ But in another way it’s good because you don’t have to finalize your idea ’till the last minute.”
Whatever George did to write “When We Was Fab,” the song embodies the good and bad of being a Beatle.
