Badge (song)

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The 1969 song "Badge", by Cream, was penned by Eric Clapton and George Harrison during a collaborative effort between Clapton, Harrison and Ringo Starr. Although it was paired with one of Cream's less notable songs, "What a Bringdown", Badge was nonetheless a major hit when it was released as a single in April of 1969, following release of the album Goodbye in January.

It 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 discernible 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.

Harrison told 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".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Original "Goodbye" performers

Eric Clapton - lead guitar & vocals
Jack Bruce - bass guitar
Ginger Baker -drums
Felix Pappalardi - piano & mellotron
L'Angelo Misterioso (actually George Harrison) - rhythm guitar

[edit] Trivia

The song was used prominently in the 1983 UK television drama "Good and Bad at Games". One of the characters plays air guitar to the song using a tennis racket. He writhes over the racket during the guitar break and another character who is listening says "I love this bit".