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Dark Horse is the title track to George Harrison's 1974 album Dark Horse, and later the name of his record label.
While "dark horse" is usually a reference to an unlikely or surprise winner, Harrison explained in his autobiography, I Me Mine, that he actually didn't know that meaning of the term, at the time. His lyrics instead referred to a man who carried on one or more clandestine sexual relationships with women; a "dark horse" in Liverpudlian terms. The song drew on his feelings toward his disintegrating marriage to Pattie Boyd, who had left him for guitarist (and mutual friend) Eric Clapton.
Harrison had begun the recording of the song at Friar Park, but it remained unfinished when it came time to mount his 1974 American tour. With the album's release date pending, and Harrison's throat wracked by laryngitis, the track was re-recorded quickly in an American studio, with his tour band.
A single was issued on November 18, 1974, reaching #15 in the American Billboard charts. The single's B-side was a non-album track, "I Don't Care Anymore." Copies of the 45rpm single contained a manufacturing defect, causing the B-side to play abnormally unless re-centred on turntables. Whether this was accidental or deliberate is not known.
