“Bye Bye Love” is a popular song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and published in 1957. It is best known in a debut recording by The Everly Brothers, issued by Cadence Records as catalog number 1315. The song reached number 2 on the US Billboard Pop charts and number 1 on the Cash Box Best Selling Record charts. The Everly Brothers’ version also enjoyed major success as a country song, reaching number 1 in the spring of 1957. The Everlys’ “Bye Bye Love” is ranked 207th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
In 1974, George Harrison recorded “Bye Bye, Love” for his album Dark Horse. As well as inserting a comma in the song title, Harrison came up with additional lyrics and a radically different melody line. The new words were in reference to his wife Pattie Boyd having left him for their mutual friend Eric Clapton. Rumours circulated that Clapton himself guested on guitar and Boyd on backing vocals, but they were incorrect, although the new couple were credited on the inner sleeve notes. Harrison had scribbled their names along with his (as “Rhythm Ace”) among the album’s musician credits, whereupon an assistant then sought permission from Clapton’s record company and added the standard acknowledgment: “Eric Clapton appears through the courtesy of RSO Records.” In fact, Harrison plays all the instruments on the recording, using the multitrack facilities available to him at his state-of-the-art home studio: two 12-string acoustic guitars, drums, Moog bass as well as bass guitar, three electric guitar parts, electric piano, bongos, together with his lead vocal and backing vocals.
While he would soon dismiss the exercise as “just a little joke”, his reading of “Bye Bye Love” drew harsh reactions from critics when Dark Horse appeared late in 1974. Decades later, it still finds little favour with reviewers; Richard S. Ginell of Allmusic calls it a “slipshod rewrite”, Alan Clayson has written of the ex-Beatle’s “blatant … liberty-taking”, while Harrison’s musical biographer Simon Leng views it as “one track on Dark Horse that seriously fails the quality-control test … a desperately bad offering”. Leng does see Harrison’s wry cover in the context in which it was made, though: “In its own way, ‘Bye Bye, Love’ is a classic 1970s period piece, from the era when rock stars used music to settle their own personal scores.”

By The Everly Brotherse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTWOwUich78

Lyrics