Together with his second contribution to Abbey Road, "Here Comes the Sun", it is widely viewed by music historians as having marked Harrison's ascendancy as a composer to the level of the Beatles' principal songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

While the single's commercial performance was lessened by this, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States as well as charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and West Germany, and peaked at number 4 in the UK.

The promotional film for the single combined footage of each of the Beatles with his respective wife, reflecting the estrangement in the band during the months preceding their break-up in April 1970.

I thought it was beautiful ..." Boyd discusses the song's popularity among other recording artists and concludes: "My favourite [version] was the one by George Harrison, which he played to me in the kitchen at Kinfauns.

[11] That year, he told a music journalist that "everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie" because of the promotional film accompanying the release of the Beatles' recording, which showed the couple together.

[11] In the version issued on the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road, which was the first release for the song,[20] "Something" runs at a speed of around 66 beats per minute and is in common time throughout.

[22][23] Harrison biographer Simon Leng identifies "harmonic interest ... [in] almost every line" of the song, as the melody follows a series of descending half-steps from the tonic over the verses, a structure that is then mirrored in the new key, through the middle eight.

[25] Referring to lines in the song's verses,[26] Inglis writes: "there is a clear and mutual confidence in the reciprocal nature of their love; he muses that [Boyd] 'attracts me like no other lover' and 'all I have to do is think of her,' but he is equally aware that she feels the same, that 'somewhere in her smile, she knows.

[5][38] In their study of the available tapes, Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt write that the Beatles gave the song two run-throughs that day, which was the only occasion that they attempted it during the Get Back/Let It Be project.

[42] Lennon offered his support for the idea,[42] similarly keen that his and Ono's recording projects outside the Beatles could continue without jeopardising the band's future.

[40] On 25 February 1969 – his 26th birthday – Harrison entered Abbey Road Studios and taped solo demos of "Something", "Old Brown Shoe" and "All Things Must Pass",[43][44] the last two of which had also been rejected recently by Lennon and McCartney.

[47][48] By this point, Harrison had completed the lyrics, although he included an extra verse, sung to a counter-melody, over the section that would comprise his guitar solo on the Beatles' subsequent official recording.

[56][57] Having temporarily left the group in January 1969, partly as a result of McCartney's criticism of his musicianship, Harrison exhibited a greater level of assertiveness regarding his place in the band, particularly while they worked on his compositions "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun".

The line-up was Harrison on Leslie-effected rhythm guitar, Lennon on piano, McCartney on bass, Ringo Starr on drums, and guest musician Billy Preston playing Hammond organ.

[52] Following another reduction mix, at which point the remainder of the coda was excised from the track, Martin-arranged string orchestration was overdubbed on 15 August, as Harrison, working in the adjacent studio at Abbey Road, re-recorded his lead guitar part live.

[52] Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, David Fricke described the Beatles' version of "Something" as "actually two moods in one: the pillowy yearning of the verses ... and the golden thunder of the bridge, the latter driven by Ringo Starr's military flourish on a high-hat cymbal".

[85] Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield comments on the significance of the clip, with regard to the band's history: [E]ach couple projects a totally different vibe – George and Patti peacocking in their hippie-royalty finery, Paul and Linda on the farm in Scotland with Martha the sheepdog, Ringo and Maureen goofing around on motorbikes, John and Yoko serene in their matching black robes.

"[87] Time magazine declared "Something" to be the best track on Abbey Road,[88] while John Mendelsohn wrote in Rolling Stone: "George's vocal, containing less adenoids and more grainy Paul tunefulness than ever before, is one of many highlights on his 'Something,' some of the others being more excellent drum work, a dead catchy guitar line, perfectly subdued strings, and an unusually nice melody.

"[90] According to Beatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner, "Something" showed Harrison following McCartney's populist approach and some "long-haired music critics" were repelled by the song's use of lush MOR-style orchestration.

Johnson stated his regret that Harrison "isn't featured more regularly as a singer", and concluded of "Something": "It's a song that grows on you, and mark my words, it will – in a big way!

"[96] Although its commercial impact was lessened by the ongoing success of the parent album,[97] "Something" / "Come Together" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on 27 October.

MacDonald highlighted the song's "key-structure of classical grace and panoramic effect", and cited the lyrics to verse two as "its author's finest lines – at once deeper and more elegant than almost anything his colleagues ever wrote".

[140] The single also reached the top twenty in other European countries[141] and peaked at number 6 on Billboard's Easy Listening (later Adult Contemporary) chart.

[11] Aside from performing "Something" numerous times in concert,[146] Sinatra recorded the song for a single in October 1970[147] and then for his 1980 triple album Trilogy: Past Present Future.

[168] Elton John gave a solo performance of the song at New York's Carnegie Hall in April 2002, as part of a one-hour Harrison tribute during the eleventh annual Rainforest Foundation concert.

[169] In honour of Harrison's fondness for the instrument, Paul McCartney played a ukulele rendition of "Something" throughout his 2002–03 world tour[170] and included the track on his Back in the U.S. live album.

[173] Following its appearance in David Leland's film Concert for George (2003) and on the accompanying live album, this performance of "Something" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

[180][181] The version used on the live album and in the 1972 concert film was taken from the evening show that day, when Harrison played it as the final song before returning to perform "Bangla Desh" as an encore.

[186] Further distancing himself from the Beatles' legacy, Harrison told journalists at the start of the tour that he would join a group with Lennon "any day" but rejected the idea of working again with McCartney, since he preferred Willie Weeks as a bassist.

[10] With Boyd having left Harrison for Clapton earlier in 1974,[188] Larry Sloman of Rolling Stone described the reworked "Something" as "a moving diary of his love life".