From Eric Clapton's Garden to 1 Billion Streams: the Story Behind the 'Here Comes the Sun' Tab
The spring of 1969 was one of the bleakest periods in Beatles history. The get-back sessions at Twickenham Film Studios had exposed deep personal fissures, and the business apparatus around Apple Corps was descending into litigation. Harrison, tired of suits and ledger sheets, simply decided not to show up. Walking through Clapton’s garden in Ewhurst, Surrey, with the sun cutting through the damp overcast, he found an immediate melodic release.
Harrison borrowed an acoustic flat-top guitar from Clapton. Strumming on the grass, he began exploring a descending figure based around open chords shifted high up the neck. The lyrics arrived almost immediately, reflecting the relief of ditching an office appointment for open air. What sounded like casual strumming hid serious compositional muscle. Harrison had absorbed classical Indian rhythmic concepts through his work with Ravi Shankar, and he was beginning to weave irregular cycle pulses into Western acoustic songwriting without making the tunes feel academic or stiff.
