"So Sad" is a song written by George Harrison, originally given to Alvin Lee and Mylon LeFevre for their 1973 album On the Road to Freedom. The only song known to have been written by Harrison about the failure of his first marriage, to Pattie Boyd, it was subsequently included on his Dark Horse album in 1974.

Background and composition [link]

In interview with Derek Taylor for his autobiography some years later, Harrison recalled starting “So Sad” in New York in 1972 – at the Park Lane Hotel, judging by his handwritten lyrics^[1] – and identified this as “the time I was splitting up with Pattie”.^[2] In fact, the marriage “muddled on” until mid '74, by which time Eric Clapton had returned to their social circle following a two-year period of hibernation away from friends and the music business, a result of Boyd’s rejection of his advances in November 1970.^[3][4] The end of Clapton's self-imposed exile coincided with his long-awaited return to the concert stage, on 13 January 1973, with two Pete Townshend-organised charity shows at the Rainbow Theatre in north London,^[5] attended by a host of celebrities including the Harrisons, Ringo Starr, Elton John and Jimmy Page.^[6] A further year would pass before Clapton cemented his comeback with the 461 Ocean Boulevard album, but his reappearance ensured that he became a frequent visitor once more to Friar Park, the Harrisons' home in Henley-on-Thames.^[7] During one such visit, Little Malcolm star John Hurt later revealed, Harrison challenged his friend/rival to a guitar duel, the winning prize for which was Boyd herself.^[8] Clapton was judged the victor that night, Harrison − "full of brandy, as usual", his ex-wife remembers − having let himself become "riled", by resorting to uncharacteristic "instrumental gymnastics".^[7] With Harrison already pursuing an affair with Starr’s wife Maureen, the couple finally parted ways on 4 July 1974, when Boyd joined Clapton on tour in support of 461 Ocean Boulevard.^[7]

The Harrison−Boyd−Clapton entanglement soon became one of the most infamous footnotes in rock ’n’ roll, and just as remarkable was the fact that Harrison appeared to approve of the situation.^[9][10][11] Although his next album would include a version of The Everly Brothers hit “Bye Bye Love” with lyrics altered to sarcastically address “old Clapper” and “our lady”,^[12][13][14] “So Sad” is the only song that Harrison ever acknowledged as dealing specifically with his and Boyd’s marital problems; this is in contrast to contemporaries Bob Dylan and John Lennon, each of whom dedicated a significant portion of his album to reflecting the breakdown in his marriage around this time.^[15][16]

Despite his apparent “take her” attitude and what Boyd has described as her husband’s “cold and indifferent” behaviour,^[7] the song's lyrics would refer to a hidden “great despair”.^[17] Returning to the weather imagery of earlier compositions such as “All Things Must Pass”, Harrison's opening verse sets the scene for a man who “feels so alone / With no love of his own”:^[18]

Now the winter has come
Eclipsing the sun
That has lighted my love for some time
And a cold wind now blows
Not much tenderness flows
From the heart of someone feeling so tired.

The singer’s viewpoint changes to the third person from this point,^[19] as the chorus repeatedly states the bereft emotion: “So sad, so bad / So sad, so bad …” Only in the third and final verse does Harrison return to the unambiguous, first-person perspective, the lyrics appearing to wish his former lover well:

Take the dawn of the day
And give it away
To someone who can build a part
Of the dream we once held
Now it’s got to be shelved
It’s too late for to make a new start.

Alvin Lee and Mylon LeFevre's version [link]

Harrison had become friends with Ten Years After frontman Alvin Lee after the two met in Henley’s Row Barge pub.^[20] Along with the likes of Joe Brown, Mick Ralphs and Jon Lord, Lee would become a member of Harrison’s so-called “Henley Music Mafia” of well-heeled local rock stars.^[21][22] Hearing that Lee was recording a country-folk album with American gospel singer Mylon LeFevre, Harrison offered him the recently completed “So Sad”, which they recorded at his Friar Park home studio, FPSHOT, in August 1973.^[23] Also playing on the session was Faces guitarist Ron Wood^[24] – who subsequently embarked on a brief affair with Pattie Harrison, while her husband holidayed in Portugal with Wood’s wife Krissy.^[11][25]

Lee would repay the favour to his near neighbour by guesting on the Harrison-produced debut album by Splinter and the Dark Horse track “Ding Dong, Ding Dong”.

As well as including the parenthetical “No Love of His Own” in the song title, the Lee−LeFevre version of “So Sad” differs significantly from Harrison’s in mood,^[13] being more of a wistful, lilting, “country tearjerker”.^[26] Released on their On the Road to Freedom album, and later as a single,^[27] “So Sad (No Love of His Own)” was received without “a single critical sneer”, in author Simon Leng’s words, unlike its composer’s own reading the following year.^[26]

Personnel [link]

• Mylon LeFevre – vocals, backing vocals
• Alvin Lee – acoustic guitars, backing vocals
• George Harrison – acoustic guitar, dobro, bass, backing vocals
• Ron Wood – 12-string acoustic guitar
• Mick Fleetwood – drums

George Harrison's version [link]

Harrison began work on his own version of “So Sad” around the time that his and his wife’s extramarital affairs finally unravelled. Shortly before Christmas 1973, a visiting Chris O’Dell would be met at Heathrow Airport by the telltale welcome committee of Harrison and Maureen Starkey, and Boyd and Ron Wood.^[28] The following night, with Pattie and Maureen both present, Harrison nonchalantly informed Starr: “You know, Ringo, I’m in love with your wife.”^[29][4]

The basic track for “So Sad” was made that November with Nicky Hopkins on piano and the “old firm” of Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner providing the rhythm section.^[30] It would seem that Voormann’s bass part was subsequently redone by Willie Weeks, though, and Harrison similarly overdubbed a wide range of instruments onto this backing track,^[26][31] including dual acoustic-guitar, electric-piano and slide-guitar parts. The effect of Harrison’s guitar collage made for “delectable listening”, in the opinion of Beatles Forever author Nicholas Schaffner.^[32] The song’s key modulates from C major in the verses to D in the choruses, which feature a tension-building augmented chord sequence − a “beautiful” rising sequence in musical biographer Simon Leng’s estimation,^[26] and a device much favoured by Harrison, and John Lennon also.

Leng has described Dark Horse as “a musical soap opera, cataloguing rock-life antics, marital strife, lost friendships and self-doubt”, of which “So Sad” would appear to be the centrepiece in a trio of “remarkably revealing” instalments.^[33] On the album, the song is preceded by “Simply Shady”, a tale of drugs and decadence in the music industry (“Somebody brought the juicer / I thought I’d take a sip”),^[34][35] and followed by the gossip-laden ““Bye Bye, Love”,^[33] “Harrison’s farewell to his marriage”.^[36]

Leng views this rendition of “So Sad” as a “harrowing encounter, a far more savage affair than the Alvin Lee take”.^[26] With its dejected lyrics detailing the onset of winter, “Eclipsing the sun” both literally and in the singer’s heart, he sees the song as the antithesis of Harrison’s 1969 composition “Here Comes the Sun” – as well as “the temporary death of George’s Krishna dream”, as spiritual conviction proves inadequate against “the human pain of separation”.^[19] While many critics ridiculed the song on release, Harrison himself still liked it “a lot” years later, but acknowledged: “the only problem with it is, it’s depressing. It is so sad.”^[2] Allmusic's Richard Ginell nominates "So Sad" as one of just two "AMG track picks" on the Dark Horse album.^[14]

Personnel [link]

• George Harrison – vocals, 12-string acoustic guitars, electric guitar, electric pianos, slide guitars, backing vocals
• Nicky Hopkins – piano
• Ringo Starr – drums
• Jim Keltner – drums
• Willie Weeks – bass

Cover versions [link]

English singer Iain Matthews, a former member of Fairport Convention, recorded a demo of “So Sad” in 1974, around the time of his Some Days You Eat the Bear album. It was finally released in 1993, on his compilation Orphans & Outcasts, Vol. 1: Collection of Demos, 1969–1979.

References [link]