Learning How to Love You
| "Learning How to Love You" | |
|---|---|
1976 single face label
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| Song by George Harrison | |
| from the album Thirty Three & 1/3 | |
| Published | Oops (UK)/Ganga (US) |
| Released | 19 November 1976 |
| Genre | Pop, soul |
| Length | 4:13 |
| Label | Dark Horse |
| Songwriter(s) | George Harrison |
| Producer(s) | George Harrison with Tom Scott |
| Thirty Three & 1/3 track listing | |
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10 tracks
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"Learning How to Love You" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released in 1976 as the closing track of his debut album on his Dark Horse record label, Thirty Three & 1/3. Harrison wrote the song for Herb Alpert, sometime singer and co-head of A&M Records, which at the time was the worldwide distributor for Dark Horse. Although the relationship with A&M soured due to Harrison's failure to deliver Thirty Three & 1/3 on schedule, resulting in litigation and a new distribution deal with Warner Bros. Records, Harrison still dedicated the song to Alpert in the album's liner notes.
Music critics note the influence of light jazz and soul in the composition, similar to the work of songwriter Burt Bacharach, and Harrison himself considered "Learning How to Love You" to be the best song he had written since his much-covered Beatles hit "Something". The recording features prominent Fender Rhodes piano from New York musician Richard Tee, and a horn and flute arrangement by Tom Scott. The song was also issued as the B-side to Harrison's two US hit singles in 1976–77, "This Song" and "Crackerbox Palace".
A&M Records, co-founded by American musician and composer Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962, had a reputation as an "artist-friendly" international record company, a factor that led to George Harrison agreeing terms with A&M to serve as distributors for his Dark Horse Records label in May 1974. Artists such as Ravi Shankar, Splinter, Stairsteps and Attitudes had all recorded for Dark Horse before Harrison was able to sign with A&M as a Dark Horse act himself, following the expiration of his contract with EMI-affiliated Apple Records in January 1976. Around that time, Harrison and Alpert were working in neighbouring studios at A&M's recording facility on La Brea Avenue, Hollywood, when Alpert asked him to provide a song for his forthcoming solo album. Although Alpert was best known as a trumpeter through his success with the Tijuana Brass, he had a US number 1 hit in 1968 with the original version of "This Guy's in Love with You", written by Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David. Harrison recalls in his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, that he admired Alpert's singing voice, especially on "This Guy's in Love with You", and so "thought I'd try and write a vocal [piece], something with that sort of mood". According to Eight Arms to Hold You authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter, Harrison's working title for the new composition was "Herb's Tune".
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