George Harrison: Search & Destroy

You guys, I'm listening to "Crackerbox Palace" right now and the arrangement on this is so freaking amazing.

I won't keep arguing the point about "Wake Up My Love" other than to say that I don't recall reading anything about continued record label pressure after Somewhere in England or about it being a reaction. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's in the vein of things like "Crackerbox Palace."

Several times he seems to hope that if he repeats the chorus enough it'll become memorable or powerful.

Totally otm. Just count how many times he repeats the chorus of Blow Away next time you hear it. George was pretty economical when hitting those three-minute quotas.

But yeah in general George doesn't strike me as someone that just thinks of great new songs every day; often it feels more like he has something he wants to say and is looking for a song to do it in. Which is also fine! Just that when he doesn't have something he wants to say you start to wonder why he's even in the studio.

George's not regarding his career as a job is one of his most charming qualities. The periods when he released unfocused, indifferent albums were brief (1974-1975 and 1981-1982 really). Forced to think of record making as a career, he wilted, as one might when the sullenness that served as a muse stopped rewarding the audience's attention, and the Indian philosophy that brought him peace couldn't inspire many good songs. In my youth George was my favorite Beatle because he was stifled, unappreciated, whatever; I adore Cloud Nine and the Wilburys records, especially since they validate the claim made by Tom Petty and others that George was a riot to be around; that it took the presence of Paul and Beatle chatter to provoke the sour, rather nasty guy beneath the surface (Cubans call this sort of person pesado).

When it came to collaborations, however, George deserves credit: as producer and enabler for Ringo’s best singles and Badfinger’s “Day By Day” and "Sour Milk Sea"; as player of solos as scabrous as his wit on John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep.” With the exception of his great friend Bob Dylan, the sixties never produced a less sentimental relic(“in Beatles lore alone, he’s something of a relief,” Bill Wyman wrote in 2011).

Yeah, George was wonderful, even if he'd accomplished nothing else, for his refusal to play along with 60s mythos, Beatles mythos, all that stuff. His Anthology segments made a big impression on me as a teen and maybe helped inoculate me against the too-earnest love of everything Sixties to which teens like myself are otherwise susceptible. On Haight-Ashbury: "...it was a bunch of spotty kids getting high." On LSD itself: "I put it under a microscope and it just looked like little rope and I said I'm not putting that in my brain anymore." On the adrenaline rush of Beatlemania: "We couldn't really do much."

You guys ever hear this? I never knew this had been put out as a Wonderwall bonus track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65kPFtxDis

it was ona Beatles single so yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a82-7ozS_MI

Watching this video cold, you'd think George had always been the leader. Ringo and Paul defer to him at the table.

Οὖτις, - alternate take, no vocals

oh right

although apart from all the talking at the beginning it sure sounds like the released take sans vocals

It does. It just struck me listening to it that it's a cool composition.

hahaha George references the Buddy Rich tapes!

My list of his best.

right on

Fish On The Sand!! **high five**

Extremely underrated track.

Not bad

Fish On The Sand!! **high five**

Extremely underrated track.

― and this section is called boner (Phil D.)

the first side of Cloud Nine really

Hmm. In the words of Shakespeare, "To listen to a lesser Harrison LP or to cheese grate my nipples off? That is the question."

"Handle me with care"?

Beware of Darkness is the song that haunted me, ever since I borrowed the triple album off my friend G as a teenager and taped my favourites. There is something about that wailing guitar as the flat 3rd kicks in, and George's almost whispered vocal, the sudden joy of "dancing down the sidewalk"; you forget the sermons then.

oh and "take kurr, bewurr"

One thing I will say about Harrison's songwriting is that he certainly could put together interesting - sometimes unorthodox - chord progressions that, when they worked, they really worked.

"Love comes to everyone" is smooth love

"Here comes the moon" is also great, surprised not mentioned yet?

"Love comes to everyone" is smooth love

― calstars, Friday, October 13, 201

The way he sings the verse-to-melody release in this trance-like lockstep is comforting

<3 Good album!

There's some good stuff on those Harrison records amongst the phoning-it-in dullness.

otm

used to own a tape of "Extra Texture" and had some good times listening to it even if the album is a blur

'You' and 'This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)' are good, even with the chipmunk vocals on the former and the self-referential title of the latter. Tasty Moog bass, though. The rest of the album is a snoozefest, though.

The former Beatle members reference their former band so much in their solo careers it's almost embarrassing.

Always felt that the Dark Horse albums were a big uptick from the last few Apple records. Much better sound and I don't think there are many sub-par songs on 33 1/3 or the self-titled album. Somewhere in England is a little less successful maybe but he comes back nicely with Gone Troppo.

These days All Things Must Pass, Thirty Three & 1/3 and a compilation of the highlights of the rest is all I need.

"Soft Touch" is another really good one on that album that maybe doesn't get mentioned much.

The former Beatle members reference their former band so much in their solo careers it's almost embarrassing.

― more Allegro-like (Turrican)

if i'd been in the beatles i'd sure as hell never let anybody forget it.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/1/12/I_am_not_Spock.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090427182556&path-prefix=en

was there ever a solo beatles tracks poll?

Like anyone would have forgotten it. It's like Billy Corgan telling everyone that he did most of the playing on Smashing Pumpkins records, like yeah we already know and we get it.

if billy corgan talked more about how he did most of the playing on the smashing pumpkins records and less about chemtrails i'd like him better

was there ever a solo beatles tracks poll?

― niels, Sunday, October 15, 2017 9:32 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think there was one scheduled on the ballot poll waiting list, I've no idea where we're up to with that now, though

Like anyone would have forgotten it. It's like Billy Corgan telling everyone that he did most of the playing on Smashing Pumpkins records, like yeah we already know and we get it.

its not like they had a choice when every fan journalist and tv show host asks them when the Beatles are getting back together on a daily basis

it would have been easy as fuck for John and George and Ringo to go on tour and do their Beatles stuff every night, cash in on that. John and George pretty much stopped playing out entirely. Ringo was off hanging w T-Rex. i dont exactly see them wallowing in nostalgia on the contrary it was a bit of an albatross

It's obvious that the Beatles believed their own myth and their own hype. All of them. Including Ringo, and especially Lennon.

its not like they had a choice when every fan journalist and tv show host asks them when the Beatles are getting back together on a daily basis

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, October 15, 2017 6:56 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and this has what to do with their songwriting, exactly?

Lennon's beliefs and feelings about the Beatles and associated hype seemed to change weekly, but he at least professed to think a large segment of their work was crap rushed out to meet deadlines.

Though that may have been prompted by a feeling that the only way to get out from under the Beatles thing post-breakup was to tarnish the myth as much as possible.

god knows what he'd make of his mid 70s period if he were alive today.

When he wrote "I don't believe in Beatles", he was contributing to the myth. You don't even write a line like that unless you believe your own hype. He knew what he was doing.

I feel like a key part of Lennon's story is that much of the time he didn't know what he was doing and was trying to not be miserable. I mean, the myth was already there, and it was pretty much impossible for someone as self-obsessed as Lennon not to engage with it.

As Adam Bruneau pointed out, every interview any of them did after 1970 was “When are you getting back together?” and “Remember when you were on Ed Sullivan?” And I think it’s safe to say no fewer than 95% of their interactions with fans (or hell, even close friends) were/are about their Beatle years. So yeah, it has to do with their songwriting because that’s what their lives were.

As for Lennon believing his own hype, kids brought massive LENNON SAVES banners to some of their 1966 shows, the Klan threatened a terror attack, records were burned, and later, murders were committed based on non-existent secret messages on the white album. Hype (an insufficient term) like that isn’t exactly easy to dismiss (and it’s not as if he didn’t try, saying, “It’s just a rock ‘n’ roll band breaking up, it’s not the end of the world”).

(x-post)

Indeed!

Moving on to the others: McCartney, as amazing as it seems now, initially tried as hard as he could to make a break from the Beatles thing. Yes, there's the songs about Lennon on Ram and Wild Life and a little Beatle hangover on McCartney, but from 1972 up until Tug of War there's not much Beatle-referencing stuff there, unless you count the odd Beatles track played at Wings shows.

It may have been Lennon's death, but I'd say from Tug of War onwards the Beatle references came back in McCartney's work - slowly at first with 'Here Today', the re-recordings on Broad Street and stuff like the 'My Brave Face' and 'This One' videos, before totally kicking into fucking overdrive from Flaming Pie onwards...