Wah-Wah - 2020 Mix

Harrison wrote this during the Beatles' Let It Be sessions after he and Paul McCartney had a nasty fight that led to George quitting the group on January 10, 1969. The sessions were being recorded for the documentary Let It Be, which wasn't sitting well with Harrison. After he left, The Beatles tried recording without him, but didn't get very far. After a meeting on January 15 where McCartney and John Lennon agreed to give him more input, Harrison agreed to come back to the fold. "Wah-Wah" ended up on his first solo album, All Things Must Pass, released November 27, 1970. Harrison wasn't the first Beatle to temporarily quit the group. Ringo Starr walked out during the White Album sessions a year earlier.

A wah-wah pedal is a device used to create various effects on electric guitar, but the term has a different meaning in this song. In an interview with Crawdaddy magazine, Harrison explained: "That was the song, when I left from the Let It Be movie, there's a scene where Paul and I are having an argument, and we're trying to cover it up. Then the next scene I'm not there and Yoko's just screaming, doing her screeching number. Well, that's where I'd left, and I went home to write 'Wah-Wah.' It had given me a wah-wah, like I had such a headache with that whole argument. It was such a headache."

Bobby Whitlock played keyboards on the album. After the sessions, he formed Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton, who also played on the album. Whitlock told Songfacts, "I was the last one to show up at the session - I was running late and my car went down on me. It was getting started, I walked in and Phil Spector said, 'Phase those drums! Phase those guitars!' He's standing there looking out like he's the captain of a ship, and he says, 'Phase everything!' A guy had to operate this phase shifter by hand, his name was Eddie Albert, and he had to work it by twisting this knob to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right. You had to do it manually then. He's saying, 'Phase this, phase that,' I come in, I'm late and Billy Preston's sitting down at the organ, Gary Brooker is on the piano, where's my spot? Everything was on the downbeat. I said, 'I've got it, give me that little piano over there, I've got my part.' I played everything that nobody was playing - I played on the upbeat. That's me on the electric piano playing the exact opposite."