The Beatles had a ton of fans, many of whom never had the chance to interact with the Fab Four other than to scream at them from a distance or fawn over them via a television screen. But there were a lucky, loyal few who had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the group’s members and cross paths with them on a somewhat regular basis.
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George Harrison immortalized these folks in the song “Apple Scruffs,” which is found on his classic 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. It’s a charming, heartfelt performance by Harrison, dedicated with surprising affection to these intrepid fans.
The Scruffs Have Their Day
Because he was generally allowed just one or two of the songs he wrote on any Beatles album, George Harrison found material piling up when he prepared to start his solo career. But that didn’t stop him from writing even more fresh songs for possible inclusion on All Things Must Pass. “Apple Scruffs” was one of those latecomers.
Even though The Beatles were deteriorating circa 1970, the four men still had business to conduct at Apple, the company they had formed with much fanfare a few years earlier. Harrison often groused about these requirements, especially as more and more of the meetings at Apple involved lawyers trying to sort through the band’s various entanglements.
But Harrison received some consolation from the “Apple Scruffs,” the nickname that the band created for the female fans who hung around Apple headquarters waiting for their heroes to come and go. Saxophonist Bobby Keys, who played on All Things Must Pass, explained in the Graeme Thomson book George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door Harrison treated these fans with the utmost respect:
“There was always a little knot of them. They weren’t fashion model types, they were just little girls—just kids. He always took time to have a word with them, and I seem to remember him going out with tea for them sometimes when it was cold. I was impressed with how caring he was about these girls. I’ve been around a lot of other folks who have quite a different way of dealing with people, let’s put it that way.”
Examining the Lyrics to “Apple Scruffs”
On an album known for its cast of thousands, “Apple Scruffs” is a bit unusual in that it’s mostly Harrison on the track (save for some subtle percussion from Beatles’ associate Mal Evans). That approach renders the song somehow more intimate and tender, which is quite the tribute to these otherwise anonymous fans.
Harrison’s intent with the song was not just to thank these girls, but also to correct anyone in the listening audience who might have harbored the wrong idea about them. But there’s so much they don’t know about Apple Scruffs, he sings. He appreciates how they’ve stuck by him: You’ve been stood around for years / Seen my smiles and touched my tears.
The final verse clarifies how the Scruffs propped Harrison up through all kinds of Beatles-related drama: In the fog and in the rain / Through the pleasures and the pain. In the final lines, he asserts a deep connection between him and these fans: That beyond all time and space / We’re together face to face, my Apple Scruffs.
How I love you, he sings about them in the chorus. By that time, he’s built up a pretty solid case, through the earnestness of his words, that the song is more than hyperbole. George Harrison might not have seemed at times all that effusive in his emotions, but “Apple Scruffs” finds him downright sentimental about a bunch of stalwart strangers.
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