B-Side Himself

[Birchy]

The B-side of George Harrison's "Give Me Love" was entitled "Miss O'Dell", in which he starts to laugh on a couple of occasions. What was this song about, and why the laughter?

[andy hughes]

The lyrics are part nonsense, and part social protest - the intention is probably ironic, given George's known commitment to the world's starving people. His comment about being "the only one who's got nothing to say about the war or the rice that keeps going astray on its way to Bombay" is an ironic way of making a statement in the form of a love song to the Miss O'Dell of the title. In the time the song was recorded, artists would often use a throw-away or whimsical song to fill the B-side space. The song exists in a few versions, one of which is the studio demo version, with the laughter - it's likely that George saw something which amused him during the one version of the vocal recording - someone pulling a face or whatever to distract him, and this version was kept and used, against the normal practice of re-recording the vocal with the usual relaxed studio banter under control.