Sue Me, Sue You Blues
When writing the song, Harrison drew inspiration from the legal issues surrounding the Beatles during the early months of 1971, particularly the lawsuit that Paul McCartney initiated in an effort to dissolve the band's business partnership, Apple Corps.
Recorded at the Beatles' Apple Studio in London, the track features his extensive use of the Dobro-style resonator guitar, as well as musical contributions from Gary Wright, Nicky Hopkins, Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner.
The song's musical mood and lyric recall aspects of old English square dance, a quality that some writers identify as mirroring the changing of sides amid the lawsuits relating to the Beatles' break-up.
As third songwriter to Lennon and McCartney,[2] George Harrison had written about his experiences regarding the disharmonious atmosphere within the Beatles during the late 1960s,[3] in compositions such as "Not Guilty",[4] "I Me Mine",[5] "Wah-Wah"[6] and "Run of the Mill".
[7] The latter two songs, which reflect on the failing friendships among the Beatles,[8] appeared on Harrison's critically acclaimed triple album All Things Must Pass, released in November 1970,[9] seven months after Paul McCartney's departure had initiated the band's break-up.
[10] On 31 December of that year, McCartney filed suit against Apple Corps and his former bandmates at London's High Court of Justice,[11] in an effort to free himself from the legal obligations imposed on him by the Beatles' partnership,[12] and particularly from manager Allen Klein.
[20][nb 1] On 12 March, High Court judge Mr Justice Stamp ruled in McCartney's favour,[26] appointing London accountant James Spooner as Apple Corps' official receiver.
"[35] Regarding the song's square-dance theme, Leng suggests that folk dancing's cycle of about-turns and to-and-fro movement reminded Harrison of the Beatles' "seemingly endless, and pointless, legal orbits around one another".
[32][nb 3] The song title soon became part of regular Harrison parlance, as evidenced by his appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in November 1971,[42] when he used the phrase to goad Capitol Records boss Bhaskar Menon over delaying the release of the Concert for Bangladesh live album.
[59] Russell also assisted Harrison in recruiting personnel for the associated benefit concerts, held at Madison Square Garden in New York,[60] and suggested Davis as a replacement for Eric Clapton, who was then dealing with a severe heroin addiction.
[68] Harrison returned to the song in December 1972, during a break in the sessions for his Living in the Material World album,[71] the start of which had been delayed by the various business and tax problems connected with his Concert for Bangladesh aid project.
[34][nb 7] These musicians provided the core line-up throughout the Material World sessions,[82] in a deliberate move by Harrison to work with a small band and pare down the production after the excesses of All Things Must Pass.
[83][84] The recording begins with the song's single-chord riff, created by a combination of Hopkins' low piano notes and Harrison's dobro, before the rhythm shifts to what author Alan Clayson calls "downbeat hootenanny" over the verses.
[31] Harrison takes the first solo, midway through the track, playing a second, overdubbed dobro, while Wright's Wurlitzer electric piano leads the instrumental passage that closes the song.
[87] He then travelled to Los Angeles for a series of Beatles-related business meetings held at the offices of Apple's US distributor, Capitol Records, primarily to discuss the upcoming Beatles compilations 1962–1966 and 1967–1970.
[96] It also served as a rare foray into rock amid the album's abundance of spiritually themed ballads[53][97] and occasional acoustic-based pop such as "Give Me Love" and "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long".
[98] Reflecting the album content,[99][100] Tom Wilkes's design for the record's face labels contrasted a devout spiritual existence with life in the material world, by featuring a painting of Krishna and his warrior prince Arjuna on side one and a picture of a Mercedes stretch limousine on the reverse.
[106] Recalling the album's release in The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, Michael Frontani writes: "Harrison's slide-playing is featured throughout, with the swamp-drenched, nocturnal wails of 'Sue Me, Sue You Blues,' in particular, demonstrating his grasp of the form.
[112] Among Harrison biographers, Ian Inglis finds an additional comic element in the use of dobro and, like Leng, sees the do-si-do rhythm as an apt musical metaphor for the changing alliances occurring in the courtroom through the early 1970s.
[115] In a feature article for Rolling Stone that otherwise savaged the opening West Coast portion of the Harrison–Shankar tour,[116][117] Ben Fong-Torres wrote approvingly of its inclusion while bemoaning the paucity of other "familiar Beatles or Harrison songs" in the setlist.
