Beatles Countdown #72: I Me Mine

Nov 10

Doug1960s george harrison, the beatles No Comments

One of George Harrison’s most signature songs with The Beatles comes in at #72 talking about the dreaded ego problem: “I Me Mine!”

The song is probably the most ironic songs to appear on the band’s last released album out of the disastrous Get Back recordings. A combination of LSD and his new love in all things Hindu, “I Me Mine” is basically just the sum of the ego problem by Harrison. In the Hindu context, those are taught to shy away from the shackles of ego with these words to be truly selfless for the lord. Harrison would call it “his eternal problem” and came up with the idea after dabbling in LSD & examining just how much his ego controls things. Now, the funny thing is that while this song has roots in the Hindu teachings, it’d be very naive to think that the twilight of The Beatles had no part of shaping the song. Destroyed by the egos of everyone thinking they knew best for the band, they now approached things lackadaisically while grudges formed that wouldn’t heal for years to come. Hell, when Harrison brought up the song and described it to his “bandmates” as a “heavy waltz,” Lennon mockingly dismissed the song claiming that they were in fact a rock band. As the other three practiced the waltz, Lennon continued the embarrassment by jokingly waltzing around the studio with Yoko Ono in a famously captured scene for the documentary Let It Be. In the video below, you can see bits and pieces of this too. Though it wasn’t his breaking point for leaving the band briefly during this time, moments like this make it pretty clear why Harrison felt so constrained within the group. Lennon & McCartney viewed themselves as the songwriters for the band and Harrison was just there for the odd song out here & there. Don’t believe me? They didn’t even care about it to include on the album in the first place!

We’ve talked a little about the Get Back recordings so I’ll sum it up quickly here. The band (mostly Paul) wanted to return to their roots and record all new songs in a live fashion. Paul also brought in a documentary crew. Tensions ran high and the project was eventually dropped. However, the directors still planned to release the film now titled Let It Be. The band then brought in producer Phil Spector (known for the “Wall Of Sound“) to pick up the scraps of the recordings and turn it into an album to accompany the film upon release. All caught up? Good. “I Me Mine” was actually left off the original track-listing for Get Back, but due to the inclusion in the film of that infamous scene, the producers and execs wanted the song to appear on the album, However, the band had actually never physically recorded the song, merely practicing it for the cameras and in free time. The real problem though was that while Spector was brought in to pick up the scraps & the band needed to record some more, Lennon had already privately quit the band. By the time the band was called back for finishing touches on the album, Lennon was on “holiday” in Denmark though I’m sure they didn’t ask him to come either. This didn’t hold them back though and the remaining three returned to the studio a little over a year later to lay down the track. The band recorded multiple takes including one with Harrison mocking Lennon’s absence (a very late comeback for the dancing the year prior), but the one deemed the best was actually the version only ninety seconds long! Producer Phil Spector had the fix though and was able to copy parts of the recording though to double its length making it the version we all know & love today. Of course, Spector added more to the song including some of his infamous studio techniques. It would be these techniques that would whip Paul McCartney into a frenzy before the release and ultimately lead to 2003′s Let It Be…Naked. That album released the songs in the manner Paul wanted and voided almost all of Spector’s work except one. The song, now void of all the excess instrumentation, remained at the doubled length Phil imagined. Not sure if Paul even remembered Spector’s part in that since he really did aim to rid the album of all things the now-jailed Spector tweaked, but it’s a good thing the song stayed at least that way for the better. Despite all this and despite the fact that technically this was the last new song they recorded together until the two songs in the 90s, the others have always referred to the song as filler. Remember it wasn’t even supposed to be on the album! That’s okay though; George seemed to like it so much he titled his autobiography after it and much later, it was even chosen (over a lot of other songs left out too) to be part of The Beatles: Rock Band game. Not bad for a rock band doing a waltz, eh John?

Song: I Me Mine
Album: Let It Be
Year: 1970

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