In just 58 years, George Harrison packed in a lot. As one-quarter of The Beatles and a seismic solo artist in his own right, he left no stone unturned when it came to showing his musicianship and songwriting skills to the world and is rightly considered among the best to ever grace the airwaves as a result.

It was the mark of the man that, despite lung cancer claiming his life at such a desperately young age, he continued to work, quite literally, up until the very end. In fact, the last song he ever recorded was released just a mere eight weeks before his passing, embodying the exact passion and spirit of a life with music overflowing from his veins.

That song was ‘Horse to the Water’, naturally penned by Harrison himself alongside his son Dhani. By this late stage in his life, he was too weak to play his classic guitar. The quiet Beatle opted instead to sing on the record but called in some star-studded pals to back him up. They came in the form of Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, whose accompaniment on the song provides the perfect toe-tapping, soul and funk-infused vibe for a true banger of a tune.

Sonically as upbeat as ‘Horse to the Water’ may be, its lyrics do draw some parallels to the difficult circumstances Harrison and his family found themselves confronted with as he neared the end of his life. In its opening verse, he contemplates, “A friend of mine in so much misery/ Some people sail through life, he is struggling”, but when said friend rejects his offers of help, he concludes: “You can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink.”

As the song takes us through various iterations of similar scenarios, we realise more and more how lyrically fitting this is as Harrison’s swan song. He’s maybe saying that despite all the luck afforded to him previously and the help given to him, in the end, he’s made his peace with what was to come. He’s saying goodbye.

With Harrison’s death occurring just weeks after the song’s release, Holland and his gang thought it would be the ideal tribute to perform at the memorial gig ‘Concert for George’ the following year, where it was also included on the associated filmed version. Here, filling in on Harrison’s part was English singer Sam Brown, finishing the story and rounding off the legacy of an unbeatable reign of power in the music industry.

Although ultimately George Harrison was mortal, both his iconic songbook and his impact on the world at large will never be. When the underdog of the Fab Four finally had his own moment in the spotlight, boy did he shine, which the calibre of his work and collaborations stands testament to. The making of ‘Horse to the Water’ may have been a close-circle affair, but the size of the impact it left on the world was bigger than he probably could have ever imagined.