"Old Brown Shoe" | ||||
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US picture sleeve (reverse)
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Single by the Beatles | ||||
A-side | "The Ballad of John and Yoko" | |||
Released | 30 May 1969 | |||
Format | 7-inch record | |||
Recorded | 16, 18 April 1969, EMI Studios, London |
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Genre | Blues rock | |||
Length | 3:16 | |||
Label | Apple | |||
Songwriter(s) | George Harrison | |||
Producer(s) | George Martin | |||
The Beatles singles chronology | ||||
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Audio sample | ||||
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"Old Brown Shoe" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written by George Harrison, the group's lead guitarist, it was released on a non-album single in May 1969, as the B-side to "The Ballad of John and Yoko". The song was subsequently included on the Beatles' compilation albums Hey Jude, 1967–1970 and Past Masters, Volume Two. At the Concert for George tribute in November 2002, a year after Harrison's death, the song was performed by Gary Brooker. Several music critics have recognised "Old Brown Shoe" as one of Harrison's best compositions from the Beatles era. A demo version of the song, recorded by Harrison in February 1969, was released on the 1996 compilation Anthology 3.
Harrison commented about this song: "I started the chord sequences on the piano (which I don't really play) and then began writing ideas for the words from various opposites: I want a love that's right / But right is only half of what's wrong. Again, it's the duality of things – yes-no, up-down, left-right, right-wrong, etc." This idea was also prevalent in the Beatles' 1967 single "Hello, Goodbye". Author and critic Ian MacDonald identifies the "hood-eyed spirit" of Bob Dylan in the song's "dusty shuffle-beat" and ironic lyrics, while recognising the "surprising and graphic" chord progression as typical of Harrison's work. Author Alan Clayson cites the "undercurrent of bottleneck" in the song's main guitar riff as anticipating Harrison's slide guitar style, a technique he first embraced in December 1969 while on tour with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends.
"Old Brown Shoe" is in the key of C major. The chorus goes to the subdominant chord (F) ("I'm stepping out this old brown shoe"), and cadences on the submediant (A minor) via its secondary dominant (E). Among musicologists' assessments of the composition, Walter Everett considers that this "C/Am" duality fits well "with the composer's main concern in the poetic text" ("I want a love that's right but right is only half of what's wrong").Alan Pollack highlights the song's interesting flat VI (A♭) chord in the verse, the V-IV (G-F chord) alternation in the bridge, and the "bluesy" effect of the frequent flat 3rd and 7th notes alongside the I7 (C7) chords.