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The 1969 song "Badge", penned by Eric Clapton and George Harrison during a collaborative effort between Clapton, Harrison and Ringo Starr, was originally an untitled track. During the production transfer for the album Goodbye, the original music sheet was used to produce the liner notes and track listing. The only discernable word on the page was "Bridge" — a notation intended to identify the transitional moment in the song. Clapton's handwriting, however, was so bad that Ringo Starr looked at it and thought it said Badge, so the band named it "Badge".
George tells the story differently, however. "I helped Eric write 'Badge' you know. Each of them had to come up with a song for that 'Goodbye Cream' album and Eric didn't have his written. We were working across from each other and I was writing the lyrics down and we came to the middle part so I wrote 'Bridge.' Eric read it upside down and cracked up laughing-- 'What's BADGE?' he said. After that Ringo walked in drunk and gave us that line about the swans living in the park."
The noteworthy mention of the bridge points to both Clapton's and Harrison's understanding that the musical transition they had crafted was the foundational construct through which the song would gain its power. To enhance the atmosphere, Clapton ran his guitar through a Leslie speaker.
They were remarkably correct about the bridge. Audiences and critics continue to tout Badge's bridge as the most powerful musical passage that came out of Cream. It was this musical bridge that provided the inspiration for Harrison's later Beatles song "Here Comes the Sun" for the album Abbey Road, and would appear again at the end of two other Abbey Road tracks, "You Never Give Me Your Money" and "Carry That Weight".
Original "Goodbye" performers
- Eric Clapton - guitar & vocals
- Jack Bruce - bass guitar & vocals
- Ginger Baker -drums
- Felix Pappalardi - piano & mellotron
- "L'Angelo Misterioso" (George Harrison) - rhythm guitar
External links
"Badge (song)"