George Harrison Had a Hilarious One-Liner Reaction to Listening to This Iconic ‘Abbey Road’ Cut

No one can cut down a piece of music quite like the person who made it, and that includes members of bands who changed the world with their albums. George Harrison of The Beatles proved that to stunning effect as he and his former bandmates, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, sat in Abbey Road and listened to mixes from their 1969 album of the same name with producer George Martin as part of the Anthology series.

Videos by American Songwriter

The clip is only seconds long, but it almost reads like a scene straight from The Office. As “Carry That Weight” plays over the studio speakers, Harrison looks directly at the camera. As the triumphant orchestral feature brings in the melody of “You Never Give Me Your Money”, Harrison turns to McCartney and Starr and says matter-of-factly, “A bit cheesy, that.”

If McCartney and Starr wanted to react, they didn’t seem to have time to do so. Martin interjected with a heads-up that the guitar solo was coming, and the musicians continued to listen. Then, as the vocal harmonies came in, Harrison commented that he didn’t remember singing on it. McCartney didn’t say anything, obviously trying to focus on the mix. But the explanation is simple: Harrison didn’t sing that. McCartney overdubbed those vocals.

A Flippant Response to “Carry That Weight” and the Globally Loved Album It Helps Close

Listening back with objective ears can be difficult for a musician. On the one hand, a lifelong player will always be improving, which means that the skill levels demonstrated on an old recording might seem cringey compared to where that player is when they hear it back. On the other hand, creating highly emotional, dramatic music can sometimes seem, as George Harrison put it, a “bit cheesy” when you’re listening to it as a standalone feature.

Nevertheless, the album that “Carry That Weight” helps close, Abbey Road, is a universally loved Beatles album that has become a seminal piece of late 1960s rock ‘n’ roll history. “Carry That Weight” was on the B-side of The Beatles’ last album they recorded together, alongside other short zingers like “Mean Mr. Mustard”, “Polythene Pam”, “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, “Golden Slumbers”, “The End”, and “Her Majesty”.

Out of all of these musical bits and bobs, “Carry That Weight” was one to which McCartney felt the most emotionally attached. “I’m generally quite upbeat,” he later explained to Barry Miles. “But at certain times, things get to me so much that I just can’t be upbeat anymore, and that was one of those times. We were taking so much acid and doing so much drugs and all this [Allen] Klein s*** was going on and getting crazier and crazier and crazier. ‘Carry that weight a long time.’ Like, forever. That’s what I meant.”

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t in the mood to razz the song with Harrison.