Miss O’Dell by George Harrison: Great B-Sides

Born in Oklahoma, Chris O’Dell found herself in The Beatles‘ inner circle when she worked as a PA for Apple.

Leon Russell wrote ‘Pisces Apple Lady’ about O’Dell. She’s also “the woman down the hall” in Joni Mitchell’s ‘Coyote’ and the “mystery woman” pictured on the Stones album Exile on Main Street. She’s also the subject of George Harrison’s light-hearted B-side, ‘Miss O’Dell’. Harrison wrote ‘Miss O’Dell’ after he invited her to visit him in Los Angeles. O’Dell took a while to visit, struggling with drug use that left her listless. It’s almost like a diary, with lines like:

I’m the only one down here who’s got
Nothing to say about the war or the rice
That keeps going astray on its way to Bombay …

George Harrison, Miss O’Dell

I’ll let O’Dell explain:

That night at the beach he wasn’t all that interested in small talk; instead he wanted to talk about the situation in Bangladesh and how Ravi Shankar was asking for his help to bring attention to the starving people and the terrible suffering in that country caused by military upheavals and a disastrous cyclone. He talked for a long time, educating me about what was happening there politically and how the Bangladeshi people were affected. I didn’t know much at all about the situation and listened in amazement as he detailed the horrors that had befallen the country.

He suddenly looked at me, his eyebrows raised, as though he had just remembered something.

‘I have something for your,’ he said. He jumped up from the couch and headed for the bedroom. I felt my heart beat faster. Uh-oh, I thought. What if he comes back with a negligee and asks me to try it on? You just never knew with George.

He returned half a minute later with his acoustic guitar and sat down next to me on the couch. Pushing his hair back behind both ears, holding the pick in his right hand between his forefinger and thumb, he looked at me, his head tilted, and said, ‘I’m going to make you famous.’

I had no idea what to expect. He began singing, looking straight at me. It was such a fun song. So light and folksy.

As George sang I tried to cling to every word, hoping to remember them. He sang about the rice that never made it to Bombay, the smog polluting the shores, and how he couldn’t care less about the broken record player on the floor.

I was dumbstruck. I didn’t knew what to say. I felt – awkward. That was the word. Totally awkward.

Chris O’Dell, The Beatles Bible

‘Miss O’Dell’ is an interesting, memorable B-side. But it works best as a B-side – it’s low-key and intimate, while Harrison’s laugh in the final verse confirms that it’s light-hearted. There’s a simple band, with Klaus Voormann on bass and Jim Keltner on drums.

It’s similar in tone to ‘Apple Scruffs’ from All Things Must Pass. But for Beatles fans, it’s fascinating: less guarded and more intimate than most of Harrison’s songs.