George Harrison: Search & Destroy

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

I would never trash Harrison's solos on the 1963 records - they could be pretty awesome too (see "I Saw Her Standing There"). At their best, they were a pretty distinctive fusion of his influences while taking the a step further, stuff that would make Carl Perkins proud.

When Harrison died, Sound Opinions (back when it was a two hour show on WXRT) did a whole show on him and brought in two guitarists who kind of showed why Harrison was so underrated as a guitarist, using examples throughout the Beatles career to make their point. He was incredibly innovative and evolving just as fast as the rest of the band. Wish I still had my cassette of that show, but it was lost ages ago.

I think Harrison gets knocked because he's not like most guitar virtuosos - he's really a composer's guitarist. His brilliance doesn't come in a live setting, it's purely in the studio. Almost all of his work is tied to careful planning and an enormous amount of discipline in getting it right. I think Tim Riley argued that he could seem inert in that way because he'll often play the same exact solo in concert rather than come up with something new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwAB3SECtc

I will not hear of anyone disparaging his solo in "Don't Bother Me."

From LA Times article on latest release of the box

The extra year proved beneficial for Dhani Harrison, George’s son, who guided the project — along with his frequent collaborator Paul Hicks — of remixing and unearthing unheard materials for the “mega” anniversary set. Manufacturing and shipping delays affected the vinyl edition, which includes eight LPs. The younger Harrison, 43, also oversaw the artwork and liner notes, featuring a trove of quotes, photos and scrapbook materials, and even the design of replica figurines of his father and the reclining gnomes from the original album cover.

Dhani and Hicks spent two years plumbing and remixing all 18 reels from the summer 1970 sessions at Abbey Road. Thanks to modern technology, the new mixes of classics like “My Sweet Lord” and “Isn’t It a Pity” spotlight formerly buried instruments and elevate Harrison’s voice above the famous “wall of sound” created by the late producer Phil Spector.

Olivia, who represents Harrison in Beatles business at Apple Corps Limited, was wary about that at first, “but actually they were right,” she said, citing her husband’s stated belief — from his introduction to the 30th-anniversary remastering — that these songs “can continue to outlive the style in which they were recorded.”

“There were things that were smothered in there,” she admitted. “He said, ‘I’d like to liberate some of the songs from the big production. That seemed appropriate at the time.’ So I think Paul and Dhani have been very balanced in how they’ve liberated some of them. You still have the power behind it, but I think George is more present — and very intimate. Much more intimate than it was before. You feel a connection with him.”

Dhani’s ears perked up at discoveries such as the synthesizers in “Isn’t It a Pity,” which were previously inaudible “just due to the clarity and the reverb and the digital compression on the remaster from 2001,” he said. “I thought there were tracks that we just had muted, but they were in there. The sonic soup in the middle was fogging it up. And then, suddenly, once you hear it you can’t unhear it. It was like rediscovering it again. It was kind of the same feeling I had when they did the remaster of ‘Sgt. Pepper’s.’”

More LA times — Some of the alternate songs and outtakes from the sessions have been leaked over the years, but are now available in radically higher quality. There’s a slower version of “Isn’t It a Pity” that Dhani called a “heartbreaker,” and what sounds to him like “an Allman Brothers version of ‘Run of the Mill.’” Early iterations of “Cosmic Empire” and “Down to the River (Rocking Chair Jam),” which wouldn’t appear on official records until many years later, were first captured in 1970. A “party disc” includes Harrison jamming with his musicians and doing punny versions of his serious lyrics.

“A lot of the laughing and the outtakes and the little bits of noise between the tapes, I’d never heard before,” said Dhani. “And that’s just priceless. It gives you shivers when you hear someone talking and it just sounds like they’re in the other room.

George Harrison, shyly strumming and harmonizing behind the competitive wattage of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, had been tending to a whole garden of his songs from 1966 through ’69. Many were auditioned and workshopped as Beatles songs but didn’t make the cut, and Harrison gave away the rejected “My Sweet Lord” and “All Things Must Pass” to his friend Billy Preston. “Isn’t It a Pity” was written in 1966 and almost made it onto the “Revolver” and “Let It Be” albums, but instead sat in darkness.

When the Beatles split up, the 27-year-old Harrison went to Woodstock, N.Y., and jammed with The Band and Bob Dylan in May 1970. Then he took that energy and his merry band of friends — including Preston, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and the group that would become Derek and the Dominos — into Studio Three at Abbey Road and poured his heart out.

“All Things Must Pass” went to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart after it came out in November 1970, and was nominated for album of the year at the Grammys. It outsold all of his fellow Beatles’ solo albums.

Didn't know it was nominated for an AOY Grammy - looked it up and he was apparently the first Beatle to get that (followed by Paul's Band on the Run, then the only winner, John's Double Fantasy, then several others...also Star Wars was nominated for AOY? Yeesh.)

solo Beatle that is

^^^ in the voice of Foghorn Leghorn

lmao

on one hand, "isn't it a pity" as i know it would not have fit in well with the sound of Revolver, imo. otoh, i'm sure with that 1966 beatles magic it would have been transformed into something absolutely perfect for the album

Embarrassingly* it’s only in the last 3 or 4 months that I’ve given any serious time to ATMP. It’s wonderful - I think it’s my favorite solo beatle record now (though Ram runs it really really close).

Convenient for me that the new box is now dropping with all the accompanying press and discussion.

*especially embarrassing because even as a child George was my “favorite beatle”. I guess I kind of blame My Sweet Lord which I’ve never liked (though I see now that it does have its place in the village of this album).

“The Uber Edition comes in a wooden crate, going all the way for George devotees: it’s got a wooden bookmark made from a fallen oak tree in his garden. It also has replicas of the gnomes from the album cover.”

alright, George Devotees: reveal yourselves!

I like seeing Brainwashed get some attention on this thread. I listened to it a ton when it first came out, when I must have been eighteen or nineteen, and I've never seen it mentioned that much, so I always sort of wondered if it was actually as good as I thought or if it's just one of those sentimental favorites. I really think it holds up and I'm glad to see that I'm not alone in that.