Background
When discussing "Wah-Wah" and George Harrison's walkout from the Beatles' rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969, a number of authors and music journalists note the relevance of his two-month visit to America at the end of 1968, following the completion of the band's White Album. In Los Angeles, while producing Jackie Lomax's Is This What You Want? album, Harrison directed top session musicians such as Hal Blaine and Larry Knechtel, and met future collaborators Delaney Bramlett and Leon Russell; later, in upstate New York, he established a musical bond with Bob Dylan and thrived among the "group ethic and camaraderie" of the Band. Harrison later recalled this period as "such a good time" musically, yet "the moment I got back with the Beatles, it was just too difficult". These difficulties included having to endure Paul McCartney's habit of dictating how the others should play their instruments and John Lennon's increasing withdrawal from the band and emotional dependence on his ever-present partner, Yoko Ono. The couple had recently descended into heroin addiction, leaving Lennon, in author Peter Doggett's words, "emotionally removed and artistically bankrupt".
On 6 January, day three of filming at Twickenham, in south-west London, an argument was captured on film where McCartney criticised Harrison's guitar playing on the song "Two of Us". A resigned Harrison told him: "I'll play what you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play." With the sessions being recorded by film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, bootleg tapes reveal Beatles insiders Neil Aspinall and George Martin sympathising with Harrison's position, recognising that McCartney and Lennon "don't offer him enough freedom within their compositions".
Harrison himself had bloomed as a songwriter over the previous six months, having recently co-written Cream's single "Badge" with Eric Clapton, as well as collaborating with Dylan in Bearsville. During the first three days at Twickenham, Harrison presented new compositions such as "All Things Must Pass", "Let It Down" and "Hear Me Lord" for consideration, yet they received little enthusiasm from Lennon and McCartney, or outright rejection in some cases. In their study of the Get Back project, Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt write that this was a routine whereby the band's principal songwriters regularly overlooked Harrison's songs, even when some were "far better than their own".
On 8 January, Harrison presented "I Me Mine", a song inspired by the bickering and negativity over the previous few days. It was met with derision by Lennon and an argument ensued between the two during which Lennon dismissed Harrison's abilities as a songwriter. At lunchtime on Friday, 10 January, following a "fierce" argument between him and Lennon, during which Harrison berated his fellow Beatle for contributing nothing positive to the rehearsals, Harrison walked out of the band, with a suggestion that the others advertise in the NME for his replacement.
Harrison's diary records that Lennon and Ono "diverted" him at home over breakfast the following morning, but even after a subsequent band meeting at Starr's house, their "feud" remained "intractable", apparently because Lennon once more chose to have Ono speak on his behalf. Harrison went to his parents' home in Warrington for a few days before imposing terms for his return to the band – namely, that McCartney's plans for a live concert be abandoned and the project be relocated to the Beatles' basement studio at Savile Row. Commentators have remarked on a change in Harrison's standing within the band as a result of his walkout, and by the end of 1969 Lennon and McCartney would be speaking admiringly of Harrison's growth as a songwriter, with Lennon rating him as a "real guitarist" on a par with Eric Clapton. In an article for Mojo magazine's July 2001 "Solo Beatles Special", John Harris has written that although Harrison "nominally" remained a Beatle, he was "serving out his notice" after 10 January 1969.
Read more about this topic: Wah-Wah (George Harrison Song)
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