{"id":607342,"date":"2026-05-27T21:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607342\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T21:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:54:10","slug":"the-1989-george-harrison-song-he-tried-to-give-to-eric-clapton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607342\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1989 George Harrison song he tried to give to Eric Clapton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"George<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Wed 27 May 2026 20:24, UK <\/p>\n

For most artists, it would be a career high to have George Harrison<\/a> write a song with them in mind.<\/p>\n

However, to Eric Clapton, Harrison was merely his friend George rather than a Beatle. While few would dare reject a song that had been penned for them by the man responsible for crafting \u2018Something\u2019 and \u2018Here Comes The Sun<\/a>\u2018, their relationship meant that he wasn\u2019t prepared to accept a song purely because of who wrote it.<\/p>\n

The pair had been close confidantes since the 1960s, with Harrison even inviting Clapton into The Beatles\u2019 tight-knit inner-circle, even contributing to \u2018When My Guitar Gently Sleeps\u2019. Their musical partnership continued to flourish once The Beatles went in their separate directions.<\/p>\n

Somehow, their friendship even survived Harrison\u2019s ex-wife, Pattie Boyd<\/a>, marrying Clapton, who had been courting her throughout her marriage to his friend. Moreover, at Clapton and Boyd\u2019s wedding, Harrison even performed at the ceremony.<\/p>\n

They truly had a bond that was thicker than blood. While Harrison left his touring days behind in the \u201970s, Clapton even convinced him to come out of retirement for a co-headline run in Japan in 1991, which proved to be his final set of shows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit: Alamy<\/p>\n

However, while they\u2019d have likely have taken a bullet for each other, Clapton had no qualms about rejecting \u2018Cheer Down\u2019, despite Harrison and Tom Petty penning it purely for him. Notably, Harrison was in his Travelling Wilburys era, hence why it was co-written with Petty.<\/p>\n

At the time, Clapton was in the middle of making his eleventh studio album, Journeyman, which arrived in 1989, but didn\u2019t feel the song fit into his plans. Although he did accept \u2018Run So Far\u2019, also written by Harrison, which appeared on Journeyman.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

While \u2018Cheer Down\u2019 was rejected by Clapton, he\u2019d inadvertently be responsible for the song seeing the light of day thanks to Lethal Weapon 2, of all things.<\/p>\n

Clapton was tasked with curating the soundtrack for the movie, yet was still hesitant to green-light the song, until the decision was taken out of Clapton\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

In the book Harrison on Harrison, the former Beatle explained of the unconventional journey of \u2018Cheer Down\u2019: \u201cThere\u2019s a song here when Eric was doing the Journeyman album, and I wrote this song for him, but he didn\u2019t use it. I think we made an attempt at it, we just ran through the song, and at that time, he was working with Michael Kamen doing the music to Lethal Weapon 2, and the director Dick Donner heard this song, and he wanted it in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Eric didn\u2019t really want it \u2013 he didn\u2019t want to have a single out from the movie \u2013 so Dick Donner asked me if I\u2019d record the song, which I did. I wrote it for Eric originally, and Tom Petty helped me write the lyrics to it. It\u2019s called \u2018Cheer Down\u2019,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

As much as Clapton wasn\u2019t infatuated enough with \u2018Cheer Down\u2019 to include it on Journeyman, he unsurprisingly felt less preciously about the soundtrack to Lethal Weapon 2.<\/p>\n

He must have had somewhat of a soft spot for it, however. When they toured Japan<\/a> in 1991, the duo would perform \u2018Cheer Down\u2019 together, which was later included on Harrison\u2019s Live in Japan album.<\/p>\n

Curiously, Clapton has never gone on record to explain his reasoning for rejecting \u2018Cheer Down\u2019; it\u2019s hard to believe it wasn\u2019t for the best with the benefit of hindsight. It\u2019s a splendid addition to Harrison\u2019s solo catalogue, even if it was never designed to be so. Harrison\u2019s slide guitar solo on the song will put a smile on your face for the rest of the day, and his voice also fits it perfectly. Therefore, while the rejection still makes little sense, it allowed \u2018Cheer Down\u2019 to be recorded by its rightful owner.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Wed 27 May 2026 20:24, UK For most artists, it would be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[206867,96,36499,26940,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-607342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-206867","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-clapton","tag-george-harrison","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}