Video Classics: 'All Those Years Ago' - George Harrison

To honor WNEW's legendary Firecracker 500, every day we are highlighting the music that populated the 1991 and 1996 lists, with classic videos, live performances and little-known facts about the songs and how they came to be...

While it was released expressly as a George Harrison single. All Those Years Ago is, perhaps, the closest thing one is going to find to what a Beatles song would sound like had the band still existed in the early '80s. The song features the efforts of Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr.  Sadly, it was the death of the fourth Beatle, John Lennon, that brought them together for it.

The song itself, though widely regarded today as a tribute to Lennon, didn't start out that way.  Harrison originally wrote the song for Starr to record as a single, though the subject matter was still a reminiscence of the band's early days. Starr, however, felt the song was a bit high for his vocal range (McCartney and Lennon, back in the Beatles days, labored hard on the 'Ringo' songs they tried to include on each album to acommodate Starr's strong, but limited, voice). Starr also wasn't fond of the words, so the single never came to pass.

The song had actually begun recording as a Harrison single, with Starr's contribution on drums and vocals, when John Lennon was murdered in December of 1980. Harrison changed the words to be a tribute to Lennon and recorded a new vocal track (removing Starr's, but keeping his drum track), and brought in McCartney to assist with backing vocals. The result was a track that went to #2, and to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, Harrison's first #1 as a solo artist.

Have memories of this song or the Firecracker 500? Add your thoughts to the comments below or take a look at Video Classics past...