Four boys in Liverpool in the 1950s learned to play by copying Elvis Presley records. They idolized him. John Lennon said it flatly and never took it back: “Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.” They went on to become the biggest band in history and, for a while, made Elvis look like yesterday’s man.
Then on 14 January 1973, Elvis Presley stood on a stage in Honolulu, in front of an audience estimated at over a billion people, and sang a song written by George Harrison.
The song was “Something.” Harrison wrote it for Abbey Road in 1969, and it was the only song of his ever released as an A-side single by the Beatles. It went to number one in America. Frank Sinatra called it “the greatest love song of the past fifty years.” It is now the second-most covered Beatles song in existence, behind only “Yesterday.”
Elvis Presley, “Something” at Aloha From Hawaii, 1973]
Elvis had been quietly working his way through their catalog for years by then, and most fans have no idea. He recorded a studio version of “Hey Jude” in 1969. In the 1970 rehearsal footage, you can watch him running through “Get Back” and “Yesterday” with his band. On stage in Vegas, he sometimes sang a “Yesterday”/“Hey Jude” medley. The idea that Elvis resented the Beatles is one of the most persistent myths about him — and the tapes do not support it.
What he did with “Something” is the interesting part musically. Harrison’s original is restrained. It is gentle, held back, almost hesitant — a man who is not entirely sure of what he is feeling. Elvis dropped it into a lower key, put a full orchestra behind it, and sang it with his enormous seventies baritone. He turned a quiet, uncertain love song into a grand public declaration.
The Beatles – Something (Official Music Video) [Remastered 2015]
There is one story attached to this that circulates widely, and it deserves a health warning. Some accounts claim George Harrison met Elvis around the time of his 1972 Madison Square Garden shows and told him to his face that he preferred his older material — and that Elvis chose “Something” as a wry reply. It is a great story. It is also poorly sourced, so treat it as fan lore rather than fact.
The simpler explanation is almost certainly the true one. Elvis recognized an outstanding song when he heard one, and he wanted it in his show.
The setting made it enormous. Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite was the first concert by a single performer to be broadcast live worldwide via satellite, reaching more than 40 countries. The album went to number one on both the pop and country charts and has since been certified five times platinum. “Something” was one of eight songs on it that had never appeared on an Elvis record before.
So look at the shape of the whole thing. Four teenagers in England learn their trade from Elvis Presley records. They grow up, take over the world, and one of them writes a song so good that Frank Sinatra calls it the finest love song in half a century. And then the man they copied stands on the biggest stage of his life, in front of more people than had ever watched a single performer, and sings it back to them.