Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel (July 5, 1976) "Here Comes the Sun" Single – EMI AUS

THE RELEASE

Label: EMI

Format: 7" Vinyl Single Country: 

Australia

Catalogue: EMI 11186

Release Date: July 5, 1976

TRACK LIST 

A-Side Here Comes the Sun (Harrison) – 2:57

B-Side All Men Are Hungry (Harley) – 4:48

WHAT THE LABEL SHOWS

Red and beige EMI labels.

A-side “HERE COMES THE SUN” (Harrison).

B-side “ALL MEN ARE HUNGRY” (Harley). Produced by Steve Harley.

CONTEXT AND NOTES

Australian release with different B-side to the UK edition.

PERSONNEL

Songwriters 

• George Harrison (original)

See below for detailed information.

INTERNATIONAL VARIANTS

• USA – EMI – 1976

• Canada – EMI – 1976

CHART DATA

(None for Australian release)

UK / EU RELEASE

Label: EMI

Format: 7" Vinyl Single Country: UK Catalogue: EMI 11186

Release Date: July 23, 1976

TRACK LIST 

A-Side Here Comes the Sun (Harrison) – 2:57

B-Side Lay Me Down (Harley) – 3:58

WHAT THE LABEL SHOWS

Red and beige EMI labels.

A-side “HERE COMES THE SUN”

(Harrison).

Demo copies marked “DEMO RECORD NOT FOR RESALE”.

Produced by Steve Harley.

INTERNATIONAL VARIANTS

(SAME B-SIDE)

• Belgium – EMI – 1976

• France – EMI – 1976

• Germany – EMI – 1976

• Ireland – EMI – 1976

• Japan – EMI – 1976

• Mexico – EMI – 1976

• Netherlands – EMI – 1976

• New Zealand – EMI – 1976

• South Africa – EMI – 1976

• Spain – EMI – 1976

PERSONNEL

Songwriters 

• George Harrison (original)

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel 

• Steve Harley – vocals, guitar

• Jim Cregan – guitar, backing vocals

• Duncan Mackay – keyboards

• George Ford – bass, backing vocals

• Stuart Elliott – drums

• Lindsay Elliott – percussion Additional • Jo Partridge – guitar, backing vocals

• Tony Rivers, John G. Perry, Stuart Calver – backing vocals

CHART DATA

Peak Positions 

• UK Singles Chart: #10

• Ireland: #7

• Netherlands: #21

• Belgium (Wallonia): #49

Released as the lead single from the album Love’s a Prima Donna.

The band’s interpretation added a dramatic, synth-heavy arrangement. It reached No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart and was their last major hit.

Music video

The song’s music video was shot at Dunsoghly Castle in St. Margaret’s, County Dublin, Ireland. The shoot took six hours to complete in a single day during July 1976 and both the band and production team returned to London by plane later that evening. It was the band’s first and only visit to Ireland as they never played a concert there in the 1970s.

Promotion

The band made an appearance on the UK music show Top of the Pops to perform the song. Harley also performed the song on his own on the West German music television programme Musikladen, alongside “Too Much Tenderness”.

Critical reception

Upon its release as a single, Geoff Barton of Sounds considered “Here Comes the Sun” to be “one of the highlights of the recent SH&CR tour, but surprising to see as a single”. He continued, “An obvious contender for the summer sound market, jaunty and pleasant, but, overall, rather half-heartedly performed. Nicely surreptitious keyboard work, however.” Geoff Ward of the Worcester Evening News praised it as a “rewarding treatment of the George Harrison song by one of the most sincere and intelligent performers of the moment – a showstopper from the band’s stage act too”.

Sue Byrom of Record Mirror & Disc gave a somewhat negative review but noted the chart potential. She wrote, “Trouble is that Steve doesn’t really add more to the song or interpret it in any vastly different way. Production is a bit weak, and if the record does anything it’ll be because of the song rather than the singer.” Caroline Coon of Melody Maker also believed the single was “chartbound”, but was not impressed by the single.

She wrote, “Booking himself into Abbey Road studios for the summer, Harley says he’s lost track of time. But if ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and especially the B-side ‘Lay Me Down’ [are] anything to go by, he’s lost track of a lot more than time.” Dianne Gibbons of the Staffordshire Evening Sentinel stated, “Though I like Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, I feel they have better original material available without turning to an old Beatles hit. Not one of their better performances.” Steve Clarke of the NME picked it as the “turkey of the week” and wrote, “Overkill is a barely adequate description for this treatment of Harri’s classic.

Clumsily and overarranged and sun, Harley has completely destroyed the beguiling naivete of the original.”

In the US, Cash Box called it a “winner”, suited for “progressive FMs and wise AM programmers”. They wrote, “Harley takes the Beatles’ standard and really rocks it up, getting progressively tougher with each verse. By emphasizing the rhythm of the well-known riff, he accentuates a part of the song that has, until now, been well-hidden.” Record World noted that “Harrison’s ‘Abbey Road’ classic has been given a face lift and put into a new light with a synthesized undercurrent and a vocal that is pure Steve Harley”.

In a review of Love’s a Prima Donna, Geoff Barton of Sounds called it “entertaining but largely dispensable”. Paul Phillips of the National RockStar criticised it as the song’s “ugliest version to date”. He added that it has “all the hallmarks of the accomplished lyricist desperately attempting to become the acclaimed musician/arranger – mistaking clumsiness for cleverness and arrogance for art”. Rex Anderson, writing in the EMI Records Weekly News Magazine, noted that it was “very rare that an artist manages to add something to an original Beatle song”. In a 1977 review of Face to Face: A Live Recording, Sheila Prophet of Record Mirror called it “Harley’s worst ever misjudgment”.

Donald A. Guarisco of AllMusic retrospectively called it an “arty, synthesizer-laced cover of the Beatles’ classic”. In the book The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, author Colin Larkin noted the song saw Harley’s “limited but interesting vocal range put to the test”.SOURCES

 Discogs, 45 World, Wikipedia, BBC Official Charts, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel Discography Website

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