If You Believe (George Harrison song)
| "If You Believe" | |
|---|---|
| Song by George Harrison | |
| from the album George Harrison | |
| Published | Oops/Ganga, Warner Bros. Music |
| Released | 20 February 1979 |
| Genre | Pop-rock |
| Length | 2:55 |
| Label | Dark Horse |
| Songwriter(s) | George Harrison, Gary Wright |
| Producer(s) | George Harrison, Russ Titelman |
| George Harrison track listing | |
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10 tracks
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"If You Believe" is a song by English musician George Harrison from his 1979 album George Harrison. Harrison began writing the song with Gary Wright on New Year's Day 1978 and finished the lyrics a month later while in Hawaii. The song appears as the final track on George Harrison. Its lyrics are a statement on the power of faith to bring about a desired outcome.
Harrison recorded "If You Believe" at his home studio, FPSHOT, in Oxfordshire. The track includes a synthesizer contribution from Wright and was co-produced by Harrison and Russ Titelman. The musical arrangement also features multiple acoustic guitars, a heavy drum sound and orchestral strings, and so recalls Harrison's early 1970s recordings with Phil Spector. The song was considered for release as a single after "Love Comes to Everyone" but the release did not take place.
After completing promotion for his first album on his Dark Horse record label, Thirty Three & 1/3, in April 1977, George Harrison spent the remainder of the year following the Formula 1 world championship itinerary and having little involvement with the music industry. He later described this as "skiving [off]" after a period of difficulty regarding Dark Horse's distribution, which changed from A&M Records to Warner Bros. in November 1976, and problems he had encountered since 1975 with some of the artists signed to the label. Having returned to songwriting late in 1977, refreshed from the recent diversion, Harrison began writing "If You Believe" with his friend Gary Wright on New Year's Day 1978. The writing session took place at Friar Park, Harrison's home in Henley, Oxfordshire.
The song was the first official collaboration between Harrison and Wright. For Wright, the period from late 1977 was one of self-doubt due to the commercial failure of his album Touch and Gone, which continued the downward trend of his career following his long-sought-after breakthrough with The Dream Weaver over 1975–76. The song addresses the importance of self-belief and the knowledge that this quality is conducive to avoiding misfortune. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison recalls that the collaboration was initiated by Wright offering a segment, which the two of them then developed into a song. Harrison wrote the lyrics to the verses in Hawaii, where he holidayed with his wife, Olivia Arias, in February 1978, and enjoyed an intensive period of writing for his next album, George Harrison.
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