No Matter What

Ham wrote it and sings lead; he first made a slower acoustic demo, later issued on 7 Park Avenue. The band demoed it on April 18, 1970 with Mal Evans producing and the final version was recorded in May 1970 at EMI Studios, dated May 13 by Wikipedia, with Evans producing and Geoff Emerick engineering. Molland played lead guitar, rhythm guitar and lap steel, Evans bass and Gibbins drums. Molland has said he first played a solo that slurred the strings; at Abbey Road during mixing a lap steel was lying around, he played along with the backing track and the others suggested keeping it, and the recording took an hour or two.

Apple released it as a single on October 12, 1970 in the US and elsewhere, with "Better Days" or, in the US, "Carry On Till Tomorrow" on the B-side. Apple executives reportedly did not want to release it until Al Steckler heard the tape in August 1970, and the band fought for it. It reached number five in the UK in January 1971, number eight on the US Hot 100 and number one in South Africa. The single runs 2:57 against 3:01 on the album, and a false ending about 17 seconds before the finish startled DJs, according to Songfacts. The band gave no statement on the meaning; AllMusic's Ritchie Unterberger calls it a pledge of eternal love.

Def Leppard covered it in 2005, recorded at Joe's Garage in Dublin, and it reached number 24 on the Billboard Adult Top 40; Songfacts says R.E.M. and Jars of Clay also recorded it. Setlist.fm lists it as the band's most played song, 63 times, on the main Badfinger entry. In a 1972 ITV Granada appearance it was in the set with "Day After Day" and "Suitcase".