“Only A Northern Song”

Due to complexities of the Beatles’ music publishing deal with Northern Songs at the time, John and Paul profited far more from a George Harrison composition than George did. So Harrison wrote this partly as sarcasm and partly as a throwaway, since it didn’t much matter. It sat unreleased for about 18 months until the group needed material for a contractually obligated soundtrack to the cartoon feature “Yellow Submarine.” Their hearts weren’t in it, however. The LP was issued on this date in 1969. A few months later in a corporate power play, the Fab Four lost the legal rights to almost all their songs, later acquired by Michael Jackson in 1985 (thanks to Paul, unwittingly) and finally regained by McCartney in 2017. When they recorded “Say, Say, Say” Paul told Michael that music publishing was a gold mine. Jackson said, “I’ll get your songs, then!” Eventually he did...and still went broke.