Eventually a No. 8 smash, “No Matter What” endured the kind of difficult journey that now seems sadly familiar in the Badfinger narrative. No one at the UK offices of the Beatles’ Apple Records imprint wanted to release this song, which went through several incarnations before becoming one of the very first power-pop hits.
“I listened to the tune meself recently,” stalwart Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland once told us in an exclusive Something Else! sitdown. “I like the way the band sings; it’s such a loose harmony—not perfect fifths or thirds. It’s a melody harmony. I really enjoyed that. We all had an instant sense about that, and that was something different from many bands of the day.”
Molland revealed something about the song’s memorable conclusion and how a slide solo found its way onto the final master: “We just kind of arranged it in the studio. [Late Badfinger singer-songwriter] Pete [Ham] had the song, and it was a good one. We just worked it out in a studio. Mal Evans was the producer and Geoff Emerick engineered. I think we took about an hour or two hours to do the record. We worked out those little guitar lines, and then the harmonies.”
Suddenly, a moment of last-second inspiration struck. “I originally had a different guitar solo, one that kind of slurred the strings,” Molland added. “But we were at Abbey Road mixing the song, and there was a lap steel. I got that out and started playing along with the backing track. Everybody said: ‘Why don’t we put that on there?’ That’s how it became a slide guitar solo.”
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