George Harrison: Search & Destroy

I even like "here comes the moon moon the moon the moon the moooooon"

no need for shame, this is a v pretty song

I dunno -- that SNL sax in "You"...

"pretty" is exactly the word i'd used for "here comes the moon" - have been a fan since first listen.

Interesting tidbit I just leaned—sax courtesy of Jim Horn of Wrecking Crew fame, who also supplied flute on Canned Heat’s Goin Up the Country.

learned

I’m realizing that I’m still not over that terrible Scorsese documentary. One of the few I can remember that left me thinking less of its subject.

Listening again to BRAINWASHED. I'm fond of this record. 'Looking For My Life' a favourite.

I like that record a lot. I tend to stop before it gets to the title track, but everything else on it is lovely.

That's definitely one of his better records. All Things Must Pass is hands down my favorite by a huge margin (sans the "jam" disc, which George originally intended as a free 'bonus' rather than an actual part of the album proper), but Living in the Material World, the self-titled 1979 album and Cloud Nine aren't bad albums, and I'd put Brainwashed on par with those three.

"Any Road" is especially good, he's had that since the late '80s and even played it in his last TV performance several years before he passed away. "P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night" and the gorgeous instrumental "Marwa Blues" are two more highlights - I think those three tracks are the ones I'd return to the most, but the rest ain't bad. I haven't listened to them in years but I still remember bits from "Pisces Fish," "Stuck Inside a Cloud" and I think a few others. ("Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" is a charming cover, I've seen the video it came from quite a few times.)

Once a year I get to come on here and say "I reviewed that."

I reviewed that.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2002/12/31/shiva-shiva-yall/

Clem, that's a lovely review. I especially liked your pointing out how unusual and protean Harrison's guitar was, soaking up Hawaiian as well as Indian influences.

and, yes, Cloud Nine, birdistheword, is one of the most assured of Beatles solo albums.

Thanks, Alfred.

The strongest memory I have of that album--more Harrison's death, actually--is that, on the news, it was the very first break in non-stop 9/11 coverage. I remember checking the national news that night, and one or two networks led with 9/11, and the other(s) let with Harrison's death.

I recently discovered this 1987 interview with Harrison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1wkRVUlCzM

Pretty funny spot around the 7-minute mark when the interviewer mentions that Lennon was quoted as saying young George idolized him. George's response is kind of hilarious.

He's lying, of course, but the lack of sentimentality endears me to him.

and of course he's right about Lennon -- the bit from the 1980 Lennon interview exposes the power relationship. George is course correct about his own contributions to John songs.

LOL, re: that interview that was an excellent response. (And more than the others, Lennon was very vocal about every little contribution he made to everyone else's songs - there's a book that tried to break down the contributions of each member to each song, and the author said figuring out Lennon's required far less guesswork because he was more prone to bringing them up in great detail.)

I loved George's blunt sense of humor as well. You see that next to his sentimental side in that interview alone. He's often like that with John's death, and I think he can be because of his spirituality (i.e. his belief on what will happen to everyone after death).

Another example of that humor:
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/01/arts/no-3-beatle-reunion-george-harrison-says.html

And I always loved how he talked about John and Paul during the Beatles' HOF induction (both absent for very different reasons).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO-HK_csGwk

I like George’s smile, it was slightly mischievous but warm

“Be here now” and “the day the world gets round” are good stuff

"Crackerbox Palace" at CVS yesterday, "This is Love" at Publix this morning. WHAT ARE YOU TELLING ME

Without you, there's no point to this song.

Quite a bit of his music is enjoyable in small doses, like when you hear a minute of it in the background. I noticed this in the Scorsese doc - there were a few Living in the Material World songs that were beautiful when they scored a few scenes, but when I tried listening to the album, the same tracks in their entirety came off as boring and monotonous.

I need you is some weak shit

i've warmed on it a little since my comments (probably like ten years upthread) about its droopiness, but it's probably my least favorite beatles number by him.

listened to Sgt. Pepper's last night for the first time in an age and really adored WYWY. as a teen i just took its message as generic "spirituality" or "mysticism" but paying attention as an adult, it really is deep/heavy/trippy stuff to try to get over to a hundred million teenagers, good job george imo.

he and George Martin outdid themselves with that string arrangementt.

*arrangemen

ack

i've warmed on it a little since my comments (probably like ten years upthread) about its droopiness, but it's probably my least favorite beatles number by him.

"You Like Me Too Much" is hopeless as well.

It sounds like half the backing track is missing.

"I Need You" sounds like he just starting figuring out how to use the volume pedal two minutes before recording and said, "That's good enough." The song is decent, unlike "You Like Me Too Much", which is a weak song weakly arranged.

Both songs feel (to me) very much like he's trying to write a Lennon/McCartney number. Can easily hear Paul crooning out the "I didn't realize, as I looked in your eyes" part of "I Need You." Maybe "You Like Me Too Much" would work better with John belting it out, throw some extra creepy resentment vibes in there etc.

read that as "extra crispy"

Pelican waffle, extra crispy, order up

They were all baked, they were on a tight schedule trying to make a film they weren't too invested in, and they didn't take George's songs too seriously anyway, so it'd be surprising if those two songs didn't sound half-assed and rushed-through. Obviously, some sorta switch got flipped for Rubber Soul, since "Think For Yourself" and "If I Needed Someone" -- and the arrangements/performances thereof -- are miles better than his Help! songs.

"Don't Bother Me," his first, has grown on me simply because it's an excellent snapshot of George's prickly personality. You don't really get a clearer picture of that in their music until Rubber Soul, which came out two years later but feels much longer than that given how much music they made and how quickly they progressed.

But you are right about Rubber Soul - musically he takes a big step forward on that album, even if the most appealing thing about the better song is the riff he lifted from the Byrds ("Bells of Rhymney"). I think George mentioned this in the Anthology doc, how he didn't want his songs on the LP's to be, "oh, we're getting to his 'slot' now."

Few songwriters came with as confident and fully formed a sensibility as Harrison.

i've warmed on it a little since my comments (probably like ten years upthread) about its droopiness, but it's probably my least favorite beatles number by him.

listened to Sgt. Pepper's last night for the first time in an age and really adored WYWY. as a teen i just took its message as generic "spirituality" or "mysticism" but paying attention as an adult, it really is deep/heavy/trippy stuff to try to get over to a hundred million teenagers, good job george imo.

he and George Martin outdid themselves with that string arrangementt.

i've warmed on it a little since my comments (probably like ten years upthread) about its droopiness, but it's probably my least favorite beatles number by him.

listened to Sgt. Pepper's last night for the first time in an age and really adored WYWY. as a teen i just took its message as generic "spirituality" or "mysticism" but paying attention as an adult, it really is deep/heavy/trippy stuff to try to get over to a hundred million teenagers, good job george imo.

"Stuck Inside a Cloud" is a song by George Harrison and is the seventh track to his posthumous album Brainwashed. It was released to radio stations in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2002, peaking at number 27 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart in the US in 2003.

Harrison's favourite number was seven, and his favourite track on any of his albums was always the seventh.[citation needed] Dhani Harrison chose "Stuck Inside a Cloud" as his personal favourite track from his father's Brainwashed album, and thus gave it the "honour" of being the seventh track. Dhani Harrison explains in detail his late father's system for picking the sequence of songs on his albums on the Brainwashed DVD bundled with the bonus edition.

a few things. first, "stuck inside a cloud" rules. the chorus is one of harrison's best. secondly, the 7th song on ATMP is Behind That Locked Door, and the 7th song on Dark Horse is "Dark Horse", which RULES[no citation needed]. Third, here's the playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3NNStvmcjQqeqmj7xqbELq?si=230718535e7f4442

fourth, what is the "7th song" situation with All Things Must Pass? Clearly, Behind That Locked Door. but it's a 3xLP set. so is the 7th song of the second LP ("Art of Dying") also a "7th song"? (There is no 7th song on the third LP, which has 5 songs)

The seventh song on Cloud Nine is "Devil's Radio," which also rules:

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

Interesting that, in the LP era, he would have mostly been stranding his favourite songs somewhere in the middle of Side 2, not the best place to attract attention.

La Times has an interview with wife and son ( but it’s paywalled)

I won't let him down
Got to do what I can
I can't let him drown
He's a far east man

I remember reading that about "Stuck Inside a Cloud" when Brainwashed came out. I think it's a pretty great album overall - maybe excepting the title track - but that song is something special.

xp I wonder if not attracting attention is part of what he was going for. Putting his favorite songs in a spot where people can discover them slowly.

Besides the first two vinyl slabs of All Things Must Pass, compilations (or rather a homemade compilation) is the way to go with Harrison's solo career IMHO, but Brainwashed is definitely one of his best and most consistent albums. The instrumental and the first two tracks have always been my favorites - wonderful examples of his distinctive guitar playing.

FWIW, the lead-off track (they made a nice video for it) - it's also one of the last songs he played in public thanks to that VH1 appearance in 1997 with Ravi Shankar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fFdc-karA

Also track #2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7awp7tIxAU

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5HEeNRJFMg

"Dhani Harrison: 'Marwa is, uh, uh... It's just a name of a raga in an Indian raga. Say you if you have... you could have... you could have a raga in the key of Dhani if you wanted to. Y'know, you could have a raga in a key of sa, um, or rag something or rag charakeshi. Um, it's just rag marwa was a, a raga that, uh, is an ancient Indian raga and, um... On some level that I'm not sure if I even understand this Marwa Blues contains the same notes in the chord that can pose, uh raga marwa.' Jeff Lynne: 'It was a big challenge because, uh, George had played probably four or five lead guitars, lead slides and things on it and, uh, they're all great. And, it was our... our job to find which was the real tune.' Dhani Harrison: 'Yeah, that was a bit confusing, 'cause he'd always do a live mix on the fly, you see, and he knew where all his favorite bits were, um, out of all these four or five guitar tracks. So whenever we heard it, we only heard a small bit of what was actually there then when we came to do the mixing of it, we had everything and the tune kind of disappeared into five guitars all going on top of each other and we had to like...' Jeff Lynne: 'So it was like a treasure hunt.' Dhani Harrison: 'Yeah, Jeff managed to find the tune and then it was alright from there.'"
Jeff Lynne and Dhani Harrison (November 19, 2002 - All Things Considered NPR radio show)

"There were 4 (guitar) takes and of that 2 weren't usable. So it was a sort of, the real essence of the song lay in one track and there were accompany harmonies from two other tracks. It wasn't a composite, it was a take."
Dhani Harrison (November 19, 2002 - MSN Webchat)

It enrages me when he's still called an average or okay guitarist. Besides an identifiable sonic stamp, I can't think of a guitarist whose slide was so cosmopolitan in the ease with which it integrated Hawaiian, raga, and blues styles.

His guitar solos are usually the worst moments on 1963 Beatles records, though.

well, yeah