By the final years of The Beatles, no one could ignore the cracks anymore. Every single person in the studio could feel how strained the band’s relationships had become as the old friends began to turn on each other in life and in song. Suddenly, the group that had once been incredible collaborators, learning the craft of songwriting together, were beginning to use their music as a weapon to hurt one another. In one track, George Harrison took a swipe at Paul McCartney.

In the years after the split, Harrison would write many more sour songs about the band. In ‘Isn’t It A Pity’, he lamented the sad end of a good thing as it derailed into infighting and cruelty. On ‘Run Of The Mill’, the anger in his grief came out as he sang, “No one around you / Will carry the blame for you”, pointing a finger at the more volatile bandmates.

But in the band, Harrison struggled to get a word in edgeways, so he struggled to air his grievances. His whole problem with the group by the end was that no one would listen to him. His songs were ignored, his ideas brushed off, and he felt as if he was no longer in a band but more a backing musician to Lennon and McCartney. “At that point in time, Paul couldn’t see beyond himself,” Harrison told Guitar World in 2001. “He was on a roll, but… in his mind, everything that was going on around him was just there to accompany him. He wasn’t sensitive to stepping on other people’s egos or feelings.”

So when given a chance to be heard on The White Album, he took a swipe at McCartney, trying to make him stop the ego trip by taking him down a peg. ‘Savoy Truffle’ is one of the most confusing or even nonsensical Beatles songs, but under all the made-up confectionery, there is a poisonous little dig.

“You know that what you eat you are / But what is sweet now, turns so sour / We all know ‘Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da’ / But can you show me, where you are?” Harrison sings as if he’s staring McCartney down. Referencing the McCartney track that sits on side one of the same album, the two musicians are essentially fighting in real-time as their issues are being aired on the same shared tracklist.

But perhaps Harrison was just daring to say what they were all thinking. The dig at the track ‘Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da’ was a shared one between Lennon, Harrison and Starr as they’d tried to veto the track. It was a song that had led to major arguments, so the fact that it remained on the tracklist is somewhat proof of Harrison’s suggestion that McCartney couldn’t or wouldn’t see beyond himself. He later admitted, “It’s a very me song,” proving that he knew the track was really just for his own legacy or enjoyment rather than being part of the democratic good of the group.