When We Was Fab

When We Was Fab is a song written by George Harrison and Jeff Lynne. It appears on Harrison's 1987 album Cloud Nine and was later released as the second single from that album in January 1988.

Inspiration
The song is about the days of Beatlemania, and the title refers to The Beatles nickname, "The Fab Four".

Cover Art
The cover shows the line drawing of Harrison from the Revolver album, but in colour. In the bottom left the letters ER are visible, from REVOLVER. Below that is an updated, 1988 line drawing of Harrison.

Music Video
The music video made references to the other three former Beatles. In the beginning, Ringo Starr appears in the video, giving George an instrument. About 58 seconds into the video, George suddenly appears dressed with his Sgt. Pepper's costume. Throughout the video, you can hear voices quietly yelling "Woo" just like the voices in I am the Walrus (the voices after John sings "I am the egg man...Woo"). Two minutes and one second into the video, Ringo appears on George's left playing the drums. On George's right, a man dressed up in a Walrus costume is playing a bass left-handed, which is actually Paul McCartney (George Harrison revealed this during a 1988 interview by quoting the famous lyrics, "here's another clue for you all, the walrus was Paul"). John Lennon, who died eight years earlier, was referred to by a random passer-by (Julian Lennon) carrying a copy of John's album Imagine. The video received six nominations at the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards.

The video is one of those in the The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992 box set.

Trivia

 * Although this song is called "When We Was Fab", Harrison actually sings the grammatically-correct "When We Were Fab".