“Got My Mind Set On You” by George Harrison

This song has a reputation as one of the worst songs ever recorded by an ex-Beatle, but when you actually think about it, there’s not really a lot wrong with it. Originally a cover of an obscure album track by Soul musician James Ray, it’s certainly got an extremely catchy and memorable melody, and while it is somewhat repetitive (especially since the Harrison version trimmed the verse sections a bit), it isn’t any more so than “She Loves You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)”, so I don’t really see what the problem is. The song’s negative reputation can mostly be traced to the decisively horrible music video, a stupid horror movie homage that looks hideous and doesn’t fit the song in the slightest. But even if this song came out in an era where music videos were at their peak of relevance and considered almost as important as the songs themselves, it’s still not really the song’s fault it was attached to a bad video, and when heard without the video, it doesn’t really have any major problems to justify the hatred it receives. In fact, from a purely musical perspective, this is actually one of George Harrison’s best solo songs, and given that he had arguably the most distinguished (and certainly the most consistent) solo career of all the Beatles, that’s saying something.

Verdict: Good, at least when not attached to that awful music video.

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