"I Don't Care Anymore" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the B-side of the

lead single A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. Release s ...

from his 1974 album '' Dark Horse''. The A-side was " Dark Horse" in the majority of countries internationally and "

Ding Dong, Ding Dong "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison, written as a New Year's Eve singalong and released in December 1974 on his album '' Dark Horse''. It was the album's lead single in Britain and some other European coun ...

" elsewhere, including the United Kingdom. It is one of Harrison's relatively rare compositions in the

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

genre and, equally unusual among his 1970s releases, the recording is a solo performance. Harrison wrote "I Don't Care Anymore" during a period of personal upheaval and extramarital affairs, coinciding with the end of his marriage to

Pattie Boyd Patricia Anne Boyd (born 17 March 1944) is an English model and photographer. She was one of the leading international models during the 1960s and, with Jean Shrimpton, epitomised the British female look of the era. Boyd married George Harri ...

. The song is a

love song A love song is a song about romantic love, falling in love, heartbreak after a breakup, and the feelings that these experiences bring. A comprehensive list of even the best known performers and composers of love songs would be a large order ...

, in which he express his desire for a woman who appears to be married. Harrison recorded the track in Los Angeles in October 1974, in a single take. His hoarse vocals reflect the onset of laryngitis as he rushed to complete ''Dark Horse'' while rehearsing for his North American tour with

Ravi Shankar Ravi Shankar (; born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, sometimes spelled as Rabindra Shankar Chowdhury; 7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian sitarist and composer. A sitar virtuoso, he became the world's best-known export of North In ...

. Several commentators hold the song in low regard, finding the literal message in the title mirrored in Harrison's casual performance. Along with " Deep Blue" and "

Miss O'Dell "Miss O'Dell" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released as the B-side of his 1973 hit single " Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)". Like Leon Russell's "Pisces Apple Lady", it was inspired by Chris O'Dell, a former Apple emplo ...

", "I Don't Care Anymore" was one of three non-album B-sides issued by the artist during the 1970s. Having been unavailable officially for 40 years after its initial release, the song was included as a bonus track on the 2014 '' Apple Years 1968–75'' reissue of ''Dark Horse''.

Background and composition

"I Don't Care Anymore" is one of the few George Harrison compositions released before 1980 that he does not discuss in his autobiography, ''

I, Me, Mine ''I, Me, Mine'' is an autobiographic memoir by the English musician George Harrison, formerly of The Beatles. It was published in 1980 as a hand-bound, limited edition book by Genesis Publications, with a mixture of printed text and multi-colour ...

''.Spizer, p. 260. Authors Ian Inglis and

Dale Allison Dale C. Allison (born November 25, 1955) is an American New Testament scholar, historian of Early Christianity, and Christian theologian who for years served as Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsb ...

identify it as a song expressing lust for a married woman, written during a period when Harrison was romantically linked to, variously, Krissy Wood (wife of guitarist

Ron Wood Ron is a shortening of the name Ronald. Ron or RON may also refer to: Arts and media * Big Ron (''EastEnders''), a TV character * Ron (''King of Fighters''), a video game character *Ron Douglas, the protagonist in '' Lucky Stiff'' played by Joe ...

Maureen Starkey Maureen Starkey Tigrett (born Mary Cox; 4 August 1946 – 30 December 1994), also known as Mo Starkey, was a hairdresser from Liverpool, England, best known as the first wife of Ringo Starr, the Beatles' drummer. When she was a trainee hair ...

(ex-bandmate Ringo Starr's wife) and English model Kathy Simmons.Clayson, p. 329. When discussing another song from 1974, "

Simply Shady "Simply Shady" is a song by English musician George Harrison that was released on his 1974 album '' Dark Horse''. The song addresses Harrison's wayward behaviour during the final year of his marriage to Pattie Boyd, particularly the allure of t ...

", Harrison later referred to this time as "a bit of a bender",Mick Brown
"A Conversation with George Harrison"
''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'', 19 April 1979 (retrieved 8 June 2015). while his marriage to

finally fell apart.Doggett, p. 225. According to Inglis, "I Don't Care Anymore" is an example of the " usicalsynthesis of

jug band A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, bones, stovepi ...

skiffle Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from American folk music, blues, country, bluegrass, and jazz, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United State ...

, and

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...

traditions" that Harrison had grasped via influences such as

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

, the Band,

Lonnie Donegan Anthony James Donegan (29 April 1931 – 3 November 2002), known as Lonnie Donegan, was a British skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the " King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scot ...

David Bromberg David Bromberg (born September 19, 1945) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. David Bromberg biographyat Billboard.com An eclectic artist, Bromberg plays bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock a ...

and

the Lovin' Spoonful The Lovin' Spoonful is an American rock band popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, the band is widely known for a number of hits, including ...

.Inglis, p. 49. Author

Bruce Spizer David "Bruce" Spizer (born July 2, 1955) is a tax attorney in New Orleans, Louisiana, who is also recognized as an expert on the Beatles. He has published thirteen books, and is frequently quoted as an authority on the history of the band an ...

views the song as Dylan-influenced in its musical arrangement, like Harrison's 1973 B-side "

", but describes the chord sequence as "pure Harrison". On the released recording, "I Don't Care Anymore" begins with Harrison speaking in a deep growl.Leng, p. 158. These opening words – "Two old cowpoke went riding out one cold December day" – are a reference to Stan Jones's 1948 song " Riders in the Sky".Kevin Howlett's liner notes, ''Dark Horse'' CD booklet (

Apple Records Apple Records is a record label founded by the Beatles in 1968 as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Ma ...

, 2014; produced by George Harrison), p. 6. The casual nature of the performance is further reflected in Harrison's spoken introduction before the first verse: "OK, here we go, fellas / We got a B-side to make, ladies and gentlemen …" In the verses, he states a willingness to "kick down anybody's door" in order to pursue his affair.Allison, p. 145. Inglis notes a rare "wistfulness" in the lines "There's a line that I can draw / That often leaves me wanting more", which appear in the middle-eight. Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, considers that the song recalls the "teenage preoccupations" of Harrison's Beatles-era compositions "

Don't Bother Me "Don't Bother Me" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1963 UK album ''With the Beatles''. It was the first song written by George Harrison, the group's lead guitarist, to appear on one of their albums. An uptempo rock an ...

" and " I Need You", but he adds: "The difference is that this time there's a menacing undercurrent of aggression and just a hint of one drink too many."

Recording

In October 1974, shortly before leaving for Los Angeles to begin rehearsals for his North American tour with Ravi Shankar, Harrison recorded an interview with

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

Alan Freeman Alan Leslie Freeman, MBE (6 July 1927 – 27 November 2006), nicknamed "Fluff", was an Australian-born British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years, best known for presenting '' Pick of the Pops'' from 1961 to ...

in which he performed three new songs, along with a snippet of his ''

All Things Must Pass ''All Things Must Pass'' is the third studio album by English rock musician George Harrison. Released as a triple album in November 1970, it was Harrison's first solo work after the break-up of the Beatles in April that year. It includes the h ...

'' track " Awaiting on You All".Badman, p. 138.Madinger & Easter, p. 445. The final song Harrison played was "I Don't Care Anymore", sung in a cleaner-sounding voice than the officially released version, and with lyrics amended to thank Freeman for his support over the years. This interview was broadcast on 6 December 1974 in Britain but delayed until September 1975 in America, where it was used to promote Harrison's 1975 album, '' Extra Texture''. Speaking to '' Musician'' magazine in 1987, Harrison recalled that he recorded the song hurriedly for release as the B-side of his 1974 single, " Dark Horse", which was also the name of his new record label. Having overextended himself throughout the year on projects by his Dark Horse signings Shankar and the English group

Splinter A splinter (also known as a sliver) is a fragment of a larger object, or a foreign body that penetrates or is purposely injected into a body. The foreign body must be lodged inside tissue to be considered a splinter. Splinters may cause initia ...

, Harrison was forced to finish his own album, '' Dark Horse'', in Los Angeles while rehearsing for the North American tour. The resulting strain on his voice, together with his overindulgence with drugs and alcohol, led to him contracting laryngitis. Following Harrison's reference to needing a B-side during the song's intro, Inglis finds a "sense of haste permeat ng the recording of "I Don't Care Anymore", as if the singer was "hurry ngto meet a deadline". Leng describes Harrison's performance on guitar as "Dylanish upmarket busking" in the style of "Miss O'Dell". In addition to playing 12-string acoustic guitar and singing, Harrison

overdubbed Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...

a part on jew's harp, an instrument that was among his many contributions to Splinter's debut album, '' The Place I Love''.Bruce Eder
"Splinter ''The Place I Love''"

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

(retrieved 6 June 2015). Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter view the song as an obvious "one-take affair", with Harrison's half-heartedness apparent in his "barely in-tune" guitar and the underlying message that " ecordingthis B-side is a pain in the ass".Madinger & Easter, p. 444.

Release and reception

released the "Dark Horse" single on 18 November 1974 in the United States. In Britain, "I Don't Care Anymore" was similarly the B-side to the album's

, issued on 6 December, but with "

" as the A-side. Both of the lead sides also featured vocals by Harrison that were affected by his worsening throat problems in the build-up to the tour. As a Harrison solo performance, "I Don't Care Anymore" shared common ground with the Dylan-styled " Apple Scruffs", a track from ''All Things Must Pass'' that was then issued as a 1971 B-side. Asked at his pre-tour press conference on 23 October 1974 whether he planned to perform any songs solo in the upcoming concerts, Harrison replied: "I hope not. I'd like to do some acoustic tunes, but I still like a little back-beat."Anne Moore, "George Harrison on Tour – Press Conference Q&A", ''

Valley Advocate The ''Daily Hampshire Gazette'' is a six-day morning daily newspaper based in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, and covering all of Hampshire County, southern towns of Franklin County, and Holyoke. The newspaper prints Monday through ...

'', 13 November 1974; available a
Rock's Backpages
(subscription required). Harrison's vocal affliction was evident in his singing throughout the subsequent tour,Spizer, p. 259. which the press began calling "the Dark Hoarse Tour". Describing the largely unfavourable critical reception towards the ''Dark Horse'' album, author Elliot Huntley writes that the title of "I Don't Care Anymore" appeared to be "a literal reflection of arrison'sattitude, circa 1974". Bruce Spizer recalls of the song's release: "While the whole affair may have been intended as a joke, listeners were left with the impression that George really didn't care anymore." In his 2001 feature on Harrison's Apple recordings, for ''

Record Collector ''Record Collector'' is a British monthly music magazine. It was founded in 1980 and distributes worldwide. History The early years The first standalone issue of ''Record Collector'' was published in March 1980, though its history stretches ba ...

'',

Peter Doggett Peter Doggett (born 30 June 1957) is an English music journalist, author and magazine editor. He began his career in music journalism in 1980, when he joined the London-based magazine ''Record Collector''. He subsequently served as the editor ...

similarly remarked that, with many viewing "Ding Dong" as "a joke", the title of its B-side "seemed to say it all". In Simon Leng's opinion, "Whether intentionally or not, on 'I Don't Care Anymore', Harrison sounds in danger of coming off the dark racecourse completely", and he comments that, while the "growled gibberish" at the start of the track was designed to be comical, "the real gag was that it mirrored exactly what his voice would sound like on the Dark Horse Tour." Like Leng,

editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine dismisses the song as a "throwaway".Stephen Thomas Erlewine
"George Harrison ''The Apple Years''"

(retrieved 6 June 2015). Writing in '' Goldmine'' magazine in 2002, Dave Thompson considered "I Don't Care Anymore" to be "pleasant enough" among the songs from Harrison's ''Dark Horse'' period, few of which "could be compared to past triumphs". More impressed, Doug Gallant of the Canadian newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' describes the track as a "little gem". In his book ''The Love There That's Sleeping'', Dale Allison, a

Christian Theologian Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis ...

, dismisses "I Don't Care Anymore" as "the nadir of George's musical corpus". He adds: "The lyrics, which wantonly defend an adulterous relationship, must be condemned, to borrow from '

Devil's Radio "Devil's Radio" is a song written by George Harrison that was first released on Harrison's 1987 album '' Cloud Nine''. It was not released commercially as a single, but a promotional single was released and the song reached #4 on the '' Billboar ...

', as 'words that thoughtless speak.' This is not what we need to hear from anybody."

Reissue

"I Don't Care Anymore" was not included on any Harrison album and was therefore long unavailable after its original release. In 1999, the song became available unofficially, however, on the bootleg compilation ''Through Many Years'', which also contained " Deep Blue" and "Miss O'Dell", Harrison's other two non-album B-sides from the 1970s. Following the appearance of "Deep Blue" and "Miss O'Dell" as bonus tracks on the 2006 ''

Living in the Material World ''Living in the Material World'' is the fourth studio album by English musician George Harrison, released in 1973 on Apple Records. As the follow-up to 1970's critically acclaimed ''All Things Must Pass'' and his pioneering charity project, th ...

'' remaster,John Metzger
"George Harrison ''Living in the Material World''"
''The Music Box'', vol. 13 (11), November 2006 (retrieved 16 December 2012). "I Don't Care Anymore" remained the only one of Harrison's formally released recordings not to have been officially issued on compact disc. In September 2014, the song was included as a bonus track on the '' Apple Years 1968–75'' reissue of ''Dark Horse'', along with a sparse acoustic

demo Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

of "Dark Horse".Nick Murray
"Hear an Unreleased Early Take of George Harrison's 'Dark Horse'"
rollingstone.com, 16 September 2014 (retrieved 6 June 2015).

Personnel

* George Harrison – vocals, 12-string acoustic guitar, jew's harp

Notes

References

Sources

* Dale C. Allison Jr, ''The Love There That's Sleeping: The Art and Spirituality of George Harrison'', Continuum (New York, NY, 2006; ). * Keith Badman, ''The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970−2001'', Omnibus Press (London, 2001; ). * Harry Castleman & Walter J. Podrazik, ''All Together Now: The First Complete Beatles Discography 1961−1975'', Ballantine Books (New York, NY, 1976; ). * Alan Clayson, ''George Harrison'', Sanctuary (London, 2003; ). * Peter Doggett, ''You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup'', It Books (New York, NY, 2011; ). * George Harrison, ''I Me Mine – The Extended Edition'', Genesis Publications (Guildford, UK, 2017; ). * Olivia Harrison, ''George Harrison: Living in the Material World'', Abrams (New York, NY, 2011; ). * Bill Harry, ''The George Harrison Encyclopedia'', Virgin Books (London, 2003; ). * Elliot J. Huntley, ''Mystical One: George Harrison – After the Break-up of the Beatles'', Guernica Editions (Toronto, ON, 2006; ). * Ian Inglis, ''The Words and Music of George Harrison'', Praeger (Santa Barbara, CA, 2010; ). * Simon Leng, ''While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison'', Hal Leonard (Milwaukee, WI, 2006; ). * Chip Madinger & Mark Easter, ''Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium'', 44.1 Productions (Chesterfield, MO, 2000; ). * Chris O'Dell (with Katherine Ketcham), ''Miss O'Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved'', Touchstone (New York, NY, 2009; ). * Robert Rodriguez, ''Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970–1980'', Backbeat Books (Milwaukee, WI, 2010; ). * Nicholas Schaffner, ''The Beatles Forever'', McGraw-Hill (New York, NY, 1978; ). * Bruce Spizer, ''The Beatles Solo on Apple Records'', 498 Productions (New Orleans, LA, 2005; ). * Ronnie Wood, ''Ronnie'', Macmillan (Sydney, NSW, 2007; ). {{authority control 1974 songs George Harrison songs Apple Records singles Songs written by George Harrison Song recordings produced by George Harrison Music published by Oops Publishing and Ganga Publishing, B.V.