Tag: Savoy Truffle

I love the horns in this song. It wasn’t George Harrison’s best on the album…that would be While My Guitar Gently Weeps but this one is fun.

George was good friends with Eric Clapton and was watching his friend with toothaches and getting dental work. Clapton’s weakness was candy and he would eat all of it until it was gone.

Harrison got the lyrics for this from the inside lid of a box of chocolates. Montelimar, Ginger Sling, Cream Tangerine, and Coffee Dessert were names of candies in the Mackintosh “Good News” assortment. The names “Cherry Creme” and “Coconut Fudge” were invented by George, however, to round out the verses.

Press agent Derek Taylor came up with the line  ‘You know that what you eat you are‘.

Derek Taylor: “George said, ‘We need a bit here, da da, da da da da, da da,’ and I thought again of my good friend, Alan Pariser. He had done a film called ‘You Are What You Eat,’ which was a very pippy thing; ‘Don’t eat meat, man, or you’ll be filled with the adrenaline of frightened animals.’ So I said to George, ‘You know that what you eat you are.’

The MacIntosh’s Good News box where George got some of the lyrics.

Harrison wrote the line “We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da” as an in-joke with the band. McCartney had pushed Obla-Di-Bla-Da so much that the band played endless versions of it and were not happy about it.

The White Album was released in 1968 and peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Chart, #1 in Canada, #1 in the UK, and #1 about everywhere else…and it would be #1 as well on my list.

The White Album is as diverse as you can get… Pop, Rock, Country, Folk, Reggae, Avant-Garde, Blues, Hard Rock, and some 20’s British Music Hall thrown in the mix. It has plenty of songs that you have heard of and many that the masses have not heard. The Beatles more than many bands could bend to a style of music and play that style well.

Some critics said they should have taken the best of the two albums and slimmed it down to one. I understand that argument but as a Beatle fan…Nahhhhh. It’s the Beatles White Album!

George Harrison: “At that time he had a lot of cavities in his teeth and needed dental work. He always had a toothache but he ate a lot of chocolates – he couldn’t resist them, and once he saw a box he had to eat them all. He was over at my house, and I had a box of ‘Good News’ chocolates on the table and wrote the song from the names inside the lid: ‘Creme Tangerine, Montelimart’…” 

“He’d got this real sweet tooth and he had just had his mouth worked on. His dentist said he was through with candy. So, as a tribute, I wrote ‘You’ll have to have them all pulled out, after the Savoy Truffle.’ The truffle was some kind of sweet, just like all the rest, ‘crème tangerine,’ ‘ginger sling,’ just candy, to tease Eric.” 

Savoy Truffle

Creme tangerine and montelimar
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee dessert, yes you know it’s good news
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle

Cool cherry cream, a nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we’re apart
Coconut fudge, really blows down those blues
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle

You might not feel it now
But when the pain cuts through
You’re going to know, and how
The sweat is going to fill your head
When it becomes too much
You shout aloud

You’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle

You know that what you eat you are,
But what is sweet now, turns so sour
We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da
But can you show me, where you are?

Creme tangerine and montelimar
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee dessert, yes you know it’s good news
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle
Yes you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle