Episode 6: This Song by George Harrison

This is the original sleeve that the record came in. I still have mine, though not quite in this condition.
In the mid 1970s, George Harrison was having a rough time of it. He was still embroiled in the lawsuit over "My Sweet Lord", he was tangled up in other legal issues caused by his breakup with his business manager, his album Extra Texture had taken a beating by the critics, and to top it all off, while recording Thirty Three and 1/3 he was struck with hepatitis and couldn't work for most of the summer of 1976.
 
A still from the promotional film (they weren't calling them "videos" yet) for This Song, from near the end. If you look closely you can see that George's playing hand is cuffed to the cop, played by Harry Nilsson.
But he managed to turn it around with the release of this, the first single off the album. It didn't exactly tear up the charts (it peaked at #25 on the Hot 100), but it did remind us all that George was still around and could still bring it when he wanted to.
This episode was inspired by a suggestion by a friend of mine, who originally asked me to write about a different song that appears on the same album. It turns out that the story behind that song is quite short, not long enough for a full podcast, so I'm saving it for a post you'll see in a couple of days.
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As promised, here's the video. So tell me: who can you identify? And is that vampiric-looking prosecutor really Michael Richards?
https://youtu.be/T0i9rjTxhpY
And just for the giggles, here's Billy Preston's version, which was recorded first. You can still hear the "He's So Fine" echoes in it, but I think that, compared to Harrison, Preston might have gotten away with it:
 

https://youtu.be/ih9r0yquoxw