For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song about enjoying the outdoors.
The song I am featuring is probably not one that people associate with being outdoors. In fact, I used to think it was a love song where the singer was celebrating the fact that he and his girl had gotten back together after a difficult time in their relationship — metaphorically a long cold lonely winter — and now that they had reconciled, the sunshine had returned and the ice was melting. Thus, everything between him and his little darling would be all right again. But, that’s not really what the Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun” is actually about.
George Harrison wrote “Here Comes the Sun” while visiting Eric Clapton’s backyard garden in early spring of 1969. The song sprang from a light, relaxed moment when Harrison escaped the Beatles’ business pressures and felt relief at a sunny day returning after a long, difficult stretch.
Harrison later said he’d been avoiding a meeting at Apple (the band’s business side) and went to Clapton’s house, where, warmed by the sun as he walked around the outside and free from “dopey accountants,” he picked up a guitar and the melody and first lines simply came to him. The lyrics celebrate the arrival of spring after a long, cold winter and represent his escape from the band’s internal tensions.
The garden story is often told alongside a few connected facts: the song began there with Harrison on acoustic guitar. Clapton remembered it as a beautiful spring morning, Harrison finished some lyrics later while on holiday, and the band (without John Lennon) recorded it for Abbey Road that summer. This setting — a country garden, sunlight, friends, and relief from business hassles — helps explain why the song’s tone is one of renewal and calm.
“Here Comes the Sun” is essentially about hope and relief after a long, difficult stretch. George Harrison wrote it as a kind of emotional turning point: winter and darkness give way to warmth, light, and the sense that things are going to be okay.
In plain terms, it’s a song about feeling better after a period of stress and having endured hard times. It’s welcoming renewal, like spring after winter, and letting in optimism again. That’s why it feels so cheerful and restorative: the sun is basically a metaphor for better days arriving.
The Beatles had stopped touring by the time they recorded this song, so they never played it live. In fact, John Lennon did not play on this. Around this time, he was making a habit of not playing on Harrison’s compositions as the two were not on the best of terms. The first time Harrison played it live was at the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh, which he organized to bring aid to that country.
Here are the lyrics to “Here Comes the Sun.”
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Little darling, the smile's returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo
Here comes the sun, and I say
It's all right
Here comes the sun, doo, dun, doo, doo
Here comes the sun
It's all right
It's all right
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 
