Chris O’Dell, a former Apple employee, and variously assistant and facilitator to musical acts such as the Beatles, Derek & the Dominos, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Santana. Harrison wrote the song in Los Angeles in April 1971 while waiting for O’Dell to pay him a visit at his rented home.

By April 1971, O’Dell was back in California, working with former Apple Records A&R manager Peter Asher on developing the careers of singer-songwriters such as James Taylor, Carole King and Linda Ronstadt.

At the same time, Harrison, having recently contributed to the debut solo album by Bobby Whitlock, formerly of Derek & the Dominos, and finished the Radha Krishna Temple (London) album^– both acts that O’Dell had been involved with professionally in 1969–70 – was now in Los Angeles to begin work on Shankar’s Raga film soundtrack. He had also been informed of the tragic events occurring in Shankar’s homeland, following the Bhola cyclone and the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War.

This was an issue that Harrison dealt with in the opening verse of a song he began writing, “Miss O’Dell”, while waiting for his eponymous friend to visit him at his rented Malibu home:

I’m the only one down here who’s got
Nothing to say about the war or the rice
That keeps going astray on its way to Bombay …