George Harrison wrote one of his biggest solo hits after The Beatles gave him a 'headache'

Music icon George Harrison wrote one of his biggest solo hits after The Beatles gave him a "headache." Cracks had been forming between the Fab Four for a year before they entered the recording studio to make Let It Be in 1969, but Harrison was the one that felt them the most, having constantly been pushed aside and controlled. Reaching his limit, he abruptly quit (temporarily) after a tense fight with Paul McCartney and went home to pen Wah-Wah, inspired by the tension in the band and all the fighting that made his head hurt.

In 1968, as the Fab Four recorded The White Album, Harrison began feeling the cracks forming between him and his bandmates. He called it a "depressing" and "negative" time, but things would only got worse as the group continued to record. After completing the double album, The Beatles took a break.



Harrison used his time to collaborated with artists like Jackie Lomax and went to America to spend Thanksgiving with Bob Dylan and The Band in New York. It was a highly creative time that left him feeling refreshed and optimistic about returning to work on Let It Be with The Beatles. However, he explained to Crawdaddy : "I felt really good at that time.

I got back to England for Christmas and then on January 1st we were to start on the thing which turned into Let It Be. And straight away, again, it was just weird vibes." “For me, to come back into the winter of discontent with The Beatles at Twickenham was very unhealthy and unhappy,” Harrison said in Anthology.

“I remember being quite optimistic about it. [..

.] But it was soon quite apparent that it was just the same as it had been..

. and it was going to be painful again.” The Beatles hired Michael Lindsay-Hogg to film a documentary capturing their recording sessions and rehearsals and planned to show it during a live TV concert, but the footage he captured later became the group's Let It Be film.

As the band fought about where to have the TV concert and about their overall direction, Harrison realized he wasn’t entering a collaborative environment like the one he’d shared with Dylan and The Band a few short months prior. Plus, he was getting tired of McCartney's controlling. No one showed interest in working on any of the songs he'd written during his time in New York.

Harrison elaborated: "For me, I'd always have to wait through ten of their songs before they'd even listen to one of mine. That was why All Things Must Pass had so many songs, because it was like I'd been constipated. I had a little encouragement from time to time, but it was very little.

"It was like they were doing me a favor. I didn't have much confidence in writing songs because of that. Because they never said, 'Yeah that's a good song.

'" During rehearsals for Two Of Us, frustrations between Harrison and McCartney reached their peak. Harrison was done being ordered around. “I’ll play anything you want me to play,” Harrison said.

“Or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play. Now, whatever it is that will please you, I’ll do it.” During a lunch break on January 10, Harrison hit his breaking point.

"I think I'll be leaving the band now," he declared. John Lennon responded with a casual: "When?" To which Harrison replied: "Now. Get a replacement.

Write into the NME and get a few people." As he made his exit, Harrison told the group off-camera that he’d see them “’round the clubs.” He wrote Wah-Wah out of frustration that night.

He explained to Crawdaddy: "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." Harrison speaks directly to his fellow Beatles and voices his displeasure in lyrics like: "You've given me a wah-wah/ And I'm thinking of you/ And all the things that we used to do" and "You made me such a big star/ Being there at the right time/ Cheaper than a dime/ Wah-wah, you've given me your/ Wah-wah.

" The song appeared on Harrison's debut solo album, All Things Must Pass, a triple album which was mostly written by the time The Beatles ended for good. DAILY NEWSLETTER: Sign up here to get the latest news and updates from the Mirror US straight to your inbox with our FREE newsletter..