“I think I sort of smoked something, and I didn’t really know what I was doing”: George Harrison typically sketched out his solos in advance – his iconic lead break on this classic Beatles track was a notable exception

Re-emerging from a five-year hiatus in 1987 with the Cloud Nine album, George Harrison found his greatest commercial success in over a decade.

Guitar-wise, though, Harrison really stood out at the time – a man still wowing with his rich, slide-powered melodies and storytelling touch when the shred hurricane was at its most powerful. Hell, look at Cloud Nine‘s cover – he’s beaming, with a patterned, button-down shirt and his trusty ’57 Gretsch 6128 Duo Jet in hand. Not a flame in sight!

Obviously, a Beatle – much less the most influential of the lot when it comes to the guitar – was never going to have to respond to trends, but the topic of Harrison’s soloing strategies nonetheless came up when he sat down for an interview with Guitar World in 1988.

Harrison said that while he was happy to improvise (“If I want to play, as long as I know where the notes are that I can use, I can improvise around those notes and I’ve got a good sense of rhythm,” he told us) when needed, when it came to laying something down in the studio, he was far more comfortable charting out a path in advance.

“These players who wheel their equipment into studios and play a lot of sessions will either read a part or play spontaneously,” Harrison said. “I need more time than that.”

“There was a period when a lot of people started asking me to play slide guitar for them on their records, and I can do it, but I need time. I need to work out what I’m gonna do, and then I have to work out how to play it.”

Now, there was, Harrison said, an exception to this – and it’s one of the greatest solos he ever set to tape; the one found on his ballad, Something.

“Now that,” the Beatle said of the titanic Abbey Road track, “is an example of that kind of thing where I find roughly where I can go.

“In those days, I don’t know if that was an eight-track or whatever, but I remember specifically that it wasn’t a clean empty track to put that solo on. Ringo was overdubbing something, and Paul was overdubbing something at the same time I was doing my solo. So in order for me to practice, I’d say, ‘Let’s do it again, and again.’ But they’d have to do their bits, too.”

Though the Fab Four were on the verge of dissolution by this point, elements of their musical camaraderie, especially when greatness was at hand, still existed.

“Even in those days, there were times when we were also very cooperative, and we’d do that to help each other,” Harrison said. “And I think also I sort of smoked something, and I didn’t really know what I was doing.

“I did that solo a number of times, and then we left and went on holiday, came back, put the tape back up, and I was very pleasantly surprised, because I did hit some right notes, and it did have a certain spontaneity to it.”

So there you have it, kids. Smoke something, don’t know what you’re doing, and you, too, will create something as magical as the Beatles.

(For legal and practical reasons, kids, this is a joke).