page_title: Soft Touch
section_title: Background and composition
hierarchical_section_title: Soft Touch / Background and composition
caption_attribution_description: Sunset by Cottage 7 at Caneel Bay — United States Virgin Islands.
context_page_description: "Soft Touch" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison from his 1979 album George Harrison. It was also issued as the B-side of the album's lead single, "Blow Away", in Britain and some other countries, while in markets such as North America, it was the B-side of the second single, "Love Comes to Everyone". Harrison wrote the song while in the Virgin Islands with his future wife, Olivia Arias, shortly before recording his 1976 album Thirty Three & 1/3. The song is a love song in which Harrison also conveys his wonder at the idyllic island setting.
  Harrison recorded "Soft Touch" in 1978 at his home studio, FPSHOT, in Oxfordshire. The track includes synthesizer contributions from Steve Winwood and was co-produced by Harrison and Russ Titelman.
context_section_description: George Harrison began writing "Soft Touch" in March 1976 while holidaying with his girlfriend, Olivia Arias, in the Virgin Islands. The holiday served as a songwriting session for Harrison's first album on his Dark Horse record label, Thirty Three & 1/3, and also as an escape from the problems he faced with the copyright infringement suit relating to his 1970 hit song "My Sweet Lord". The title for "Soft Touch" came from American musician Jim Keltner, who used to call Harrison a "soft touch" because of his generosity towards his friends and fellow musicians.
  Harrison based the melody on the horn line in his 1970 track "Run of the Mill". In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he recalls that the new composition originated from his playing the horn part on a guitar. He says that the song's lyrics convey "everything that was going on in the Islands … the wind, the cool breeze blowing, the palm trees, the new moon rising". As with the early drafts of "It's What You Value", which was also inspired by his friendship with Keltner, the handwritten lyrics are reproduced in I, Me, Mine on stationery from the Caneel Bay Plantation in Virgin Islands National Park.
  In her foreword to the 2002 edition of I, Me, Mine, Olivia Harrison refers to Harrison's brief commentary on "Soft Touch" as an example of how his handwritten notes reveal significant details that may not be apparent at first glance. She comments on his inclusion of the phrase "Bridge (noch ein mal)", which uses the German for "One more time", a phrase that the Beatles took to calling out to each other on stage during their shows in Hamburg in the early 1960s. As further background to "Soft Touch", she recalls that she and Harrison were joined in the Virgin Islands by comedian Eric Idle of Monty Python, and that the noise they created attracted complaints from television producer Norman Lear and his wife, activist and journalist Frances Lear, who were staying in the neighbouring house. Olivia adds that, once the Lears learned that it was George Harrison who was responsible for the loud music, Norman Lear "again knocked on our door, this time apologising and pleading for George to play as much music as he liked".
  "Soft Touch" is a secular love song and, in the view of theologian Dale Allison, lacks the religious aspect commonly found in Harrison's love songs. Author Ian Inglis writes that whereas the term "soft touch" usually refers to someone who is easy to convince, in Harrison's song, it describes "a caring and gentle nature", with the lyrics evoking "physical and emotional tenderness". He says that the words work in tandem with the music, which includes a "delicate" descending riff. Inglis describes the narrative as a mix of "warm contentment", through phrases such as "eyes that shine", "treetops whisper" and "a new moon", and the idyllic surroundings, evoked through the references to ocean waves and sailing.
caption: Sunset at Caneel Bay in the Virgin Islands
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