'Unknown Delight - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of George Harrison' is available to buy now by clicking here!
Where George – with a little help from his gnomes – tells us that nothing is built to last forever, well nothing except great records like this one…
George Harrison "All Things Must Pass" (1970)
Track Listing: I’d Have You Anytime/ My Sweet Lord/ Wah-Wah/ Isn’t It A Pity?#1// What Is Life?/ If Not For You/ Behind That Locked Door/ Let It Down/ Run Of The Mill// Beware Of Darkness/ Apple Scruffs/ The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp [Let It Roll]/ Awaiting On You All/ All Things Must Pass// I Dig Love/ The Art Of Dying/ Isn’t It A Pity? #2/ Hear Me Lord// It’s Johnny’ Birthday/ Plug Me In/ I Remember Jeep// Thanks For The Pepperoni/ Out Of The Blue
"It
will hit you. It will hurt you. Make you sore, and what is more - it is not
what you are here for"
The four Beatles all ended the greatest musical
adventure ever known with various degrees of confusion and sadness. Paul spent
a year refusing to believe that something they had worked for so long for could
possibly be over and resented being painted as the bad guy, before shrugging
his shoulders and modelling Wings as closely as he could to the fab four before they were fab. Ringo, at
first deeply saddened, found the pill easier to swallow thanks to the acting
world that suddenly opened up for him near the end of The Beatles and the fact
that the others were still friends enough to grace him with their presence (if
only on their own terms). John acted as if the end of The Beatles was the break
he waiting for - before becoming more nostalgic than the lot of them. It's
George's response that's the most complex and the most telling. While John and
Paul both liked to think that The Beatles ended because they said so (Lennon
after calling an Apple business meeting in early 1969, McCartney after
including an answer stating as much in a questionnaire released as part of the
press pack for his first album in April 1970) The Beatles really ended the day
that George walked out of the Let It Be sessions and after toying with a few
names for the better part of an hour the others admitted it would be foolish to
contemplate having a 'Beatles' product without their lead guitarist there.
George seemed, at first at least, to be the happiest that the fab four circus
was over - he had a whole load of really good songs without enough space on the
albums to include them, the release of 'Abbey Road' had brought a mixed press
for John and Paul's contributions but almost unanimous praise for 'Here Comes
The Sun' and 'Something', whilst George could be, when pushed, every bit as
bitter about the Beatles experience and as angry in private as John and Paul
were about each other in public.
For decades now George has gone down in history as
having had the most to gain from losing The Beatles name and certainly seemed
to tire of the fame quicker than all the others (Robbie Williams likes to think
he's the Lennon of Take That, but everybody in the know can clearly see that
he's the Harrison, with half a foot out the door from day one). However George
was of all four Beatles the one who needed if not the fame or the money or even
the music the most then the people - losing faithful longterm assistants like
Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall was at least as big a wrench for him as losing
John, Paul and Ringo. While Lennon and McCartney are off making solo albums
with input only from their respective new wives and Ringo's busy crooning big
band or country standards with not a Beatle person in sight, which early solo
Beatles album is that includes everyone who was big in late 60s history? This
one: take a bow Badfinger, Eric Clapton, Phil Spector, Klaus Voormann, Billy
Preston - even Mal Evans gets his first ever official credit on a Beatles-made
album for 'tea, sympathy and tambourine'. (Its notable that everyone who played
on this album who still could appeared on the superlative 2002 tribute A
Concert For George—bet there aren't’ many superstars who have friends
enough for that 30 years on from a project!) Oh and while we're at it
which early Beatles solo album contains the first mention of Beatles fans? This
album's 'Apple Scruffs'. George shows several times across the album just why
at the age of merely 27 the Beatles was the best apprenticeship any aspiring
musician could hope for: he's wiser than wise across this album, having learnt
from triumphs and tears along the way, but like all good apprentices is half
eager to prove himself in the real world, whilst half realising that never
again will he be able to learn quite so much in such a short space of time.
While both John and Paul name their first solo records after themselves ('Two
Virgins' doesn't count!) note that George even seems to be speaking to the
Beatles fans buying this product: yes it was great but, 'All Things Must Pass!'
(There's also reportedly some cheeky Beatles digs on the cover with a serious
looking George in the middle of four gnomes said to represent the fact that
he's 'outgrown' the band!)
When people heard that George was working on this an
all-star cast, they wondered seriously if George would ever have the stamina
and creativity to make a full album on his own (never mind Ringo!) Harrison has
plenty of highlights among the Beatles’ output, especially on some of the later
albums and at his best is clearly challenging Lennon and McCartney’s best
efforts, but notably his solo LPs during this period were made up of
instrumentals, either with Indian instruments (Wonderwall) or weird
bleeping noises (Electronic Sounds) to the fore, not songs. With only
the two paltry songs a piece on the Beatles’ last two albums to go on, it was a
natural conclusion that George had little or no extra material ready after the
Beatles’ split and so had had to buy in these extra men (including, in addition
to the above, a few new names who'll be around in George's story for many years
to come: drummer Jim Gordon, bassist Car; Radle, guitarist Dave Mason, keyboard
player Gary Wright, as well as an un-credited teenage Phil Collins, reportedly
booked in a hurry to play congas on 'The Art Of Dying' in a hurry whilst in
town with the early line-up of Genesis. However George (with Phil Spector's
help) is doing what neither John or Paul were brave enough to do: tackling a
crowd of people, getting the best out of them, making something as big and
massive as the 'old' Beatles sound and yet still firmly stamping his own distinctive
sound on top of everything. John and Paul relished the freedom the end of The
Beatles gave them by pleasing no one but themselves at first - but George is
already eager to bring in other musicians (it was Harrison, after all, who
brought Eric Clapton and Billy Preston in to flesh out 'The White Album' and
'Let It Be' respectively). In terms of songs, too, George had been stockpiling
a huge quantity of songs for the better part of two years, leaving even such
discarded gems as 'Not Guilty' and 'Circles' on the shelf for later years and
confounded expectations by releasing not a single album as assumed but a whole
triple LP, going one better than even The White Album in terms of running time.
'All Things Must Pass' would have been a success on release for these reasons
alone - but it's not just quantity but quality that counts on this album and
it's a fan favourite for oh so many reasons.
'My Sweet Lord' is the track that everybody knows
and, yes, it's a good 'un with Spector's production magic turning a simple
prayer of devotion into a mass singalong. But it's far from the only highlight:
'Wah Wah', a song written the day an angry George got home from walking out of
the 'Let It Be' sessions with Paul's criticisms stinging in his ears, is
George's best vitriolic rocker. 'What Is Life?' is easily George's best rocker
without the vitriol, based around a funky riff and turning the art of asking
rhetorical questions about philosophy into a catchy hit single without diluting
the intelligence at the core. 'The Art Of Dying' is the best of George's many
attempts to put his irritation at the mundanity of life when the whole purpose
is to be practising for death into words, George's best song designed to scare.
'Jai Sri Krishna' and 'Life Itself' run it close, but 'Hear Me Lord' is
George's best 'religious' song, more about the creation asking its maker for
guidance than what the maker will do to people who don't ask or why we should
all be doing the same as per later albums. 'Apple Scruffs' is one of George's
sweetest songs, a sweet admittance now that the adulation and applause are
dying out that it wasn't all bad and that, yes, he really did love a lot of his
fans if not as exuberantly as Paul or as intellectually as John. However it's
the ballads that are the true gems of this album and of George's catalogue as a
whole: George's reputation as the 'wise Beatle' grows almost singlehandedly
from this album, which sighs longingly over the short but oh so perfect 'Isn't
It A Pity?' (a song so pertinent to the times George sings it twice!) 'Run Of
Mill' soothes every troubled soul that's ever laid awake at night worrying
about how something they said might be taken with two related sets of wisdom:
that there's no excuse to say anything bad because 'everyone has choice when to
and not to raise their voices' but at the same time a true friendship will not
be lost because of one ill-timed sentence or misguided sentence, only a
pattern, because 'no one around you will say they love you today and throw it
all away tomorrow!' The title track is the most single powerful song about
death and its inevitably bar none, played with a sweet solemnity that somehow
manages to be uplifting in acceptance as much as its depressing in realising
the fact. 'Beware Of Darkness' is perhaps the greatest unknown song George ever
wrote, warning us that those around us are only human, that politicians can be
corrupted, friends' minds can be swayed, enemies can make a quick buck and 'the
pain that often mingles in your fingertips' - and yet we don't have to be
caught out by any of this and that these are effectively 'bricks in the wall'
and not the bigger picture. Finally, 'The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp', takes
the mottos inscribed into George's new family home and turns it into a parable,
a treasure hunt based around knowledge and understanding that's pulled George
to this point in time and which still leads him a dance of merriment round his
own garden, waiting to find his next discovery. All of these songs are
masterpieces and even the rest of the album isn't bad - no not even 'I Dig
Love', the closest we come to a 'filler' song on the two main sides of the
album (at least it has a good riff, even if outtake 'I Live For You' deserves
its place far more!) Many fans have rightly praised the music on this album and
it is indeed truly beautiful, but it's the lyrics that make this album - George
never sounded so aware, or spiritual or more like a big brother taking it upon
himself to steer 'his' generation the way The Beatles together no longer can
(again interesting in the sense that John, Paul and Ringo seem to be all but
ignoring their 'responsibilities' in that department, the 'Lennon/Plastic Ono
Band' being the musical equivalent of 'go away don't bother me - shoo!')
That paragraph did once upon a time, before I got
carried away on the re-writes, lead rather neatly onto a discussion of George's
house, Friar Park which is dotted throughout this album like a compass. George
and Patti had looked long and hard to find a new house after deciding to move out
of their Esher bungalow when George fell in love with this Victorian 'folly',
built by eccentric architect Frankie Crisp with its multiple rooms, luxurious
gardens, a pond with stones just below the surface so that the rperson in the
know looks as if they are 'walking on the water' and even - hidden under so
many layers of plants that even the estate agent didn't know it was there
- an underground cavern. Crisp had left
it in his will to a nunnery, but the order had run out of funds and left the
house in a state of disrepair long before they finally moved out of the
property in the late 1960s. The house needed a lot of love and attention as
well as a lot of money and the estate agents feared they would never sell it -
just as Crisp had been criticised in 1875 for making the 'folly' at all, (with
'folly' used in all senses of the word!) However George was a most natural
caretaker who seemed to spend also the time he wasn't making this album in 1970
working on the house and gardens, with Patti too falling in love with the
place. Crisp's humour meant that all sorts of 'messages' had been left for him
to find, many of which will be turned into songs across the next few years:
'Ding Dong Ding Dong' came from a message over the fireplace**, while one of
the corridors includes a monk holding a bedraggled frying pan with the
inscription 'Two Holy Friars'.
Spirituality and humour: it's as if the two strands of the 'All Things
Must Pass' album had been turned into a building and you can see why George
should have 'got' this house no one else thought would sell! (As well as the
references to the house in 'The Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp' George shot the
album cover on the lawn and peers back at us from his new hallway windows for
the poster included in original copies of the vinyl edition or included in the
CD booklet; in later years he kept a ventriloquist dummy there in the same
pose, as can be seen in the '2000' CD box set edition of the record!)
Not that all of this record dates from 1970 and the
immediate post-Beatles year as so many assume. As a testament to how George’s
creative powers were being held back in The Beatles’ days, many of the songs
released on this album, notably the title track, Let It Down, Run Of The
Mill and Awaiting On You All were in fact submitted and rehearsed –
the term is used loosely – for the Beatles’ Let It Be project. However the other Beatles don't sound at all
interested - the title track is the only song that came even close to a full
rehearsal (with some quite lovely harmonies I have to say) and the fact that
Lennon dismissed it while compiling the LP in favour of fluff like 'For You
Blue' as well as nonsense like 'Dig It' and the revived 1963 rocker 'One After
909' suggests either that he didn't 'get' the song (to be fair he never 'got'
classics Let It Be or The Long and Winding Road either, both of which he hated
long after he admitted grudgingly to admiring other 'Paul' songs) or that he
got it only too well and was scared by the competition (sadly McCartney passed
on it for 'Let It Be...Naked' too). (George’s other song for the project
- I Me Mine – was only a last minute decision anyway, included on the
album simply because the Beatles had seen a rough cut of the film documentary
where George is playing his demo to the others (who look a bit non-plussed) and
decided it would be nice to have a finished version to compare it with. Contrary
to popular belief, this one track was taped long after the Abbey Road
sessions, although Lennon phoned in sick that day and only three Beatles
ultimately appeared on it). Had the fab four continued recording these songs
for their ’back-to-basics’ project, all four songs would no doubt have been unrecognisable
compared to what we get on this album anyway - wild sweeping horns, three sets
of drummers and oodles of Phil Spector echo to make the whole thing sound big,
as in B I G!
Yes, Spector's production is the part of the album
that fans feel least sure of out of all its good points and is clearly not to
everyone's tastes - George included, if his rather defensive sleeve notes in
the CD issue of this set about Phil 'teaching him the value of the Hare Krishna
Mantra' are anything to go by - and at times ('Wah-Wah' 'The Art Of Dying'
'Hear Me Lord' ) do go a little over the top, drowning out George's often
fragile and occasionally hoarse voice. Many fans assume that Spector simply
steamrollered George's opinions the way he so often did - but I think it might
be more down to mischievousness: a response to Spector's part in the
no-overdubs policy of 'Let It Be' that so frustrated George, especially on the
quartet of songs begun at that project (no overdubs eh? I'll show 'em!!!') By
contrast, thanks to its ’no overdub’ policy, Let It Be is the Beatles’
tinniest and emptiest sounding LP since their first, Please Please Me.
Personally I rate the album's productions as one of its greatest strengths,
with these sad songs that are largely about loneliness and isolation and
wondering where to turn and what to do for salvation still sounding BIG thanks
to the deep rumbling echo and multi-tracked musicians playing the same riffs en
masse. George’s solitary voice (which is about the only thing not
double-tracked), is often lost amongst a sea of booming Spector echo, quadrupled
criss-crossing guitars and multiple drummers - but that's how it should be:
George is still the quiet humble heart of this album, even if all the ripples
coming out of it create huge sea waves. It's as if all the lonely scared little
narrators of the world have come together and found strength through unity -
the very thing The Beatles don't have any more - that gives this album much of
its power and majesty and which would have chimed in nicely with George's take
on religion of the time (while Buddhism for example is generally a personal,
solo belief both Hare Krishna and Sikhism believe more in the power of
believers when they 'come together'). Crazed, mood-swinging musicians they
might both have been, but Spector and Harrison are otherwise character
opposites, with Spector’s harsh aggressive style the antithesis of Harrison’s
spiritual love and his love of echo and claustrophobia the opposite of George’s
usual loves of sparse backing and honest, vulnerable performances. The two were
caught in an un-winnable power-struggle over this album and sadly never worked
together again which is a shame - both seemed to be rather good for the other. George’s
grand ideas and themes never sound quite this grand ever again, while Spector
never sounds this human and thoughtful, no matter how many more ex-Beatles he
crams into his overflowing CV.
Despite this record being a source of frustration
for George though, both in the writing (which was mainly done in the ugly
death-throes of the Beatles’ final days) and the recording (wrangling with Spector),
All Things is still a very peaceful album. Despite George’s public image
as some meditating superhippie, he spends most of his solo career acting as he
did his Beatles’ career – veering from lovely love songs to grumpy rants
against whatever section of society was annoying him most that day. All
Things isn’t like most of George’s other records: he sounds at peace here
pretty much throughout, at one with the world and open to sudden insights about
how the world works, even if he does at times get annoyed with people who can’t
see past their own bank balance and social status. Other later albums will come
in various shades of crossness: see 1981's 'Blood From A Clone' or indeed most
of 'Pass's sequel 'Living In The Material World', which largely ignores the
advice of this record for a diatribe about mankind's stupidity which harangues
everyone for falling short of perfection, George included. By contrast this
song's angriest pair of songs simply tell us that 'by chanting the name of the
Lord you'll be free' with the biggest dig kept for 'General Motors' and
'Wah-Wah', a song which sounds aggressive but basically says nothing more
accusatory than 'I know you're a big star but you don't always have to act it!'
The rest of this album is peaceful, despite the Spector production malarkey,
ranging from words of wisdom to pretty romantic ballads (the last lot of songs
written for Patti, although interestingly the two biggest are either written
solely by or co-written with Bob Dylan, not a figure known for his romantic
poetry!) Even the album's repeated theme of death always hanging over us (the
warning 'Awaiting On You All' the gloomy 'The Art Of Dying' and the
comparatively accepting 'All Things Must Pass') isn't the threat over writers
would make it out to be: everything comes to a natural end is the real message
of this album, else how can new beautiful things start? Gardener George, facing
the weeding experience of his life while trying to undo decades of neglect in
his garden, may well have realised that statement from his own handiwork: that
seeds will grow even where other have died and that the world needs a bit of
pruning to stay in shape. The religious content in these songs is definitely
there but not overpowering like it can be on George’s later albums (follow-up Living
In The Material World springs to mind, beautiful as much of it is…), with
George confiding in us his growing collection of ideas rather than ordering us
to join him as he does for the next few poorly-received releases. In fact, the
few ‘devotional’ songs on this set are often the best, either celebrating life
in God’s name on My Sweet Lord (there’s a lot of different deities
name-checked too so no one feels left out!), asking for love while admitting
faults (Hear Me Lord) or throwaway references to 'Sister Mary' and the
like. Many fans, especially those who own 'Material World', assume that
George's albums are full of devotional works but actually they tend to be few
and far between, a subtext as here rather than the full story. So, religious songs, pieces about death and
a search for spirituality and something bigger than Earthly frustrations:
All Things Must Pass is almost a confessional singer-songwriter album the
very same year that mood was in vogue, but wrapped up in 1970s' other passion
for excess thanks to recordings featuring three drummers, three guitarists and
four keyboard players per track! How could 'All Things Must pass' not succeed?!
Well, most of this record undoubtedly succeeds and
so far exceeded expectations on release in 1970 that George's career never
reached such a peak again. However there's one factor that's always seized upon
as evidence that 'All Things Must Pass' was just a self-indulgence after all.
The 'final' disc on this set, wittily titled 'Apple Jam', features the
assembled cast of players let loose on four lengthy jamming sessions (plus one
on-the-spot novelty intended to celebrate Lennon's 30th) and left many fans
scratching their heads. However compare these jams back to back with the
woefully tired-sounding jams on 'Let It Be' bootlegs and its clear why George
wanted them out: he was having fun playing with a room full of people who could
really play and loved the fact that as he himself was paying for studio time he
could be the nice guy and allow the room to goof off as much as they wanted. After
years of being told to the note what to play on John and Paul's songs, it must
have been a blessed relief and 'I Remember Jeep' especially is a whole lot of
fun if you're in the right mood, the only official place where you can hear
George and Eric Clapton duelling on electric guitars. Had 'All Things Must
Pass' been released today it would have been included as a 'bonus feature',
perhaps made exclusive to ITunes or available for free when you pre-ordered the
album; unfortunately that sort of thing wasn't around in 1970 so it had to be
included as a 'full' album' an equal size and length to the others (which is a
shame because it's clearly not meant to be anything more than a frivolous
extra). However patrons still had a right to be fuming - in the vinyl age
because they had to pay the price of a third disc effectively only receiving
two and a 'bonus' album and in the CD age when EMI messed up badly by splitting
the album in two, rather than fitting sides one to four together (where they'd
have fitted on a disc neatly with three minutes to go) and left the 'bonus
tracks' and the 'Apple Jam' nestling comfortably together on the 'extra' disc!
Overall, then, we're running out of superlatives and
even the throwaway extra isn't all that throwaway: 'All Things Must Pass' works
as both a simply beautiful album and a work of art with something to each us,
full of some of George's most gorgeous melodies ('Beware Of Darkness' 'Isn't It
A Pity?' and 'Let It Roll' may well be his greatest on that score) and some of
his most perfectly crafted, deepest lyrics (heck, everything except 'I Dig
Love'!) The production turns what could have been s lightly soggy album into a
tour de force, with real power and panache (even if there's a bit much power
and panache for comfort at times) and there's a cast of dozens all perfectly
suited to the roles they've been given, although none of them get in the way of
the fact that there's only one genius in control of this room of madmen
producers and often madmen musicians. 'All Things Must Pass' shines most
brightly because it contains more undiluted George Harrison than any of his
other albums, full of his vision, his thoughts, his beliefs and his voice which
battle through the chaos with which this album was largely started and
generally made. In retrospect George should perhaps have kept something back to
make his next run of albums all the stronger, but no even then sometimes more
really is more and there's just so much going on in this album that you can't
possibly mistake it for a massive achievement, even with a disc of condiments
to go alongside the main dishes. 'All Things Must Pass' remains a remarkable
achievement, easily George's most consistent, deepest, moving and most
importantly enjoyable of is solo albums, with something there for everyone.
Sadly nothing can last forever - a message this record taught us all only too
well - and that creativity will fade and fade quickly, far quicker in fact than
anyone who bought this album on first release could reasonably have expected.
But why should we mind really? You can't improve on perfection and George got
about as close with this album as anyone can. Possibly the greatest solo Beatle
album of them all, in fact (though its polar opposite, the sparse, brittle and
shouty inward looking 'Lennon/Plastic Ono Band', out the same month and also
produced by Spector, runs it close).
The
Songs:
[20] I’d Have You Anytime
is a sweet, understated opener, with George and Eric Clapton going a bit
country with some haunting pedal steel added to the acoustic guitars for one of
George’s typically modest album openers. Co-written with Bob Dylan, this track
doesn’t sound like most songs in either men’s canon, being made up of two
simple verses and a middle eight (George wrote the former and Bob the latter)
about a gradual, growing love which could be equally suited to a potential
partner or God in general. Anyone expecting a song like those by the Travelling
Wilburys will be disappointed: despite a similarly perfectly positioned mix,
which brings in new washes of colour with every build in every verse, the sound
is stately, rather pompous and questioning, as if the narrator is hesitantly
unburdening himself of his feelings for the first time, rather than the
innocent and fun 50s doo-wap sound of the two musicians’ later band. Still,
George was a master at making simplicity sound deep and making depth sound
simple and this so-so song is given a wonderful arrangement, with rumbling
counterpointing basses suggesting an underlying threat and gentle single-note
organ chords offering stability.
[21] My Sweet Lord
is one of those songs everyone knows inside out, so suffice to say it works well
as both a commercial singalong with a classic ear-catching riff and as a
spiritual call to prayer. It also sounds terribly George-like and couldn’t ever
have been written by anybody else (no, the plagiarism court-case of the He’s
So Fine publishers doesn’t count – the song’s always sounded like it was
modelled on Oh Happy Day to me and sounds nothing like this song at all
when you study both closely—what were the jurors thinking?!) The last of the
great 1960s songs (in terms of values, ideas and production), it’s a fantastic
collection of all the values that had made up that decade’s search for
enlightenment – its effectively a re-write of All You Need Is Love with
even more emphasis on spiritual rather than sexual love, complete with acoustic
strumming and poppy chorus singalongs - and its all the more saddening that
songs of this beauty and sincerity were about to get trampled underfoot by a
rush of glib and glittering faux pas rock songs in the 1970s.This is also,
unbelievably, the last number one that any ex-Beatle would get in Britain until
McCartney’s Mull Of Kintyre in 1977 and marks the end of a jaw-dropping
era of influence for the four men who’d made the 60s the most influential
decade in music (so far, at least). A delightful mix of Western and Eastern
religious symbols, with nods to Christianity and the Radna Krishna Temple along
the way, this song says an awful lot about finding unity and spiritual harmony
across religions in remarkable few words. One long chorus repeated ad nauseum –
there’s a guitar solo but otherwise nothing to alter the tone, not even a
middle eight – it must be one of the simplest singles to ever make number one
in this country. It’s a tribute to George’s talent that its also one of the
best.
[22] Wah-Wah
takes the opposite tack and is in danger of over-simplifying this most complex
of albums. A noisy gruff guitar riff with only two short verses, this song
finds its heady drama from Spector’s overwhelming production and the absolute
battlefield of riffs going on behind Harrison’s surprisingly slight vocal. A
song about both a ‘foot pedal and a headache’, George wrote it the day he left
The Beatles after the argument with Macca you can see in the Let It Be film
and Beatle scholars have tried to fire this song up into a scathing put-down in
the manner of Lennon’s equally anti-McCartney song How Do You Sleep?
ever since it first came out. In truth, though, this is a song without a proper
target and its angst only really adds up to ‘you’re giving me a headache’,
although the line ‘you don’t hear my sighing’ does suggest George felt the
other Beatles were ignoring his talents. One of those songs that’s more about
atmosphere than message, this song could have worked equally well as a
bare-bones rocker in the manner of Harrison’s Beatles B-side Old Brown Shoe,
but by drenching the whole thing in echo Phil Spector somehow makes
this very slight song sound mightily powerful, with George’s voice trying to
cut through a wash of sound that doesn’t seem to be paying him the slightest bit
of attention.
[23a] Isn’t It A Pity?
is such an important song in Harrison’s canon that its included in full no less
than twice on this album. The first version is more epic and the second
slightly rougher and looser, but both do a pretty good job of expressing one of
George’s greatest philosophical lyrics. Melodically a simple shrug of the
shoulders, the lyrics of this song tries and fails to work out why humans cause
each other so much heartbreak and why these often accidental hurts blinds
people’s eyes to the beauty in the world. Fittingly this song is wistful in the
extreme, especially in the superior first version where George’s vocal sounds
on the edge of tears throughout. Cutting through centuries of racism, class
wars and countries fighting each other, the song goes on to ask why people are
so scared of seeing anybody different from them and why us humans spend so long
fighting each other we forget to take in the beauty and wonder of the world in
general. There aren’t actually that many lyrics in this song again – two verses
is all you get – but the message is clear enough without repetition. Instead,
George is content to put most of his feelings into his guitar playing, with one
of his best solos on the first version of the song which seems to spend most of
its time rolling around the riffs being played by all the many other musicians,
knocking on doors and looking for an answer it never quite gets. The long
fadeout suits the song’s meditative mood perfectly and doesn’t outlast its
seven minute playing time at all. Despite being one of George’s most typical
songs, its more than deserving of its status as something of a modern standard
among record-loving cognoscenti, with Matt Monro doing a fine, even
slower-paced cover version of this song, among other artists.
[24a] What Is Life? puts
some funk back into the album again, with a swinging horn
arrangement and a catchy, uplifting melody line underpinning one of George’s
better songs about devotion. ‘I’m nothing without you’ sings George – although
the song is pretty ambiguous as to whether he is singing to wife Patti Boyd or
God or both. What could have been one of George’s most delicate love songs
takes on a rather new form when underpinned by the crashing double drum attack
of Ringo and Jim Gordon and no less than three guitarists, but the fragility at
the core of the song remains intact nevertheless. Highlighted by an inventive
horn lick, the rather doubting lyric is this time attached to a rather
celebratory melody-line, giving the whole song a neat double-twist as the
narrator celebrates his long-time love while questioning why on earth they ever
got together in the first place! The second single taken from this album, it
very nearly outperformed My Sweet Lord in America sales-wise, despite
being rather forgotten and neglected in the United Kingdom, a state of affairs
this archive site will do its best to try and put right. Put simply, What Is
Life? is the poppy George Harrison at his catchy but deep best.
[25] If Not For You
is a Dylan cover, chosen from Bob’s more or less contemporary LP New Morning (where in contrast to George's sweetest
vocal on the album Bob sounds as if he's gargling jelly while sitting in a
working cement mixer). Like many a Dylan cover artist before him,
George quickly dispenses with Bob’s wayward and sarcastic delivery and takes
this song at face value. The song is remarkably sparse and tender for a Dylan
composition, warm and emotional in a way that his songs are usually complex and
intellectual, with only the characteristic hurry to get from A to B revealing
this as a Dylan track rather than a Harrison one. Along the way George uncovers a rather urgent
melodic edge, which gives the undercurrent of the narrator's fears of losing
his loved one ('Without your love I'd be nowhere at all - I'd be lost if not
for you'), tinged with a shade of melancholy courtesy of some very Dylanesque
harmonica work and some pedal steel. A lovely song in the country-rock mould, it
fits this album's themes of quiet moments and even if its simpler than most of
George's own work takes on a profundity in context, as if George is stripping
away the smaller pictures to reveal the main image: that, in the words of
another song, 'All You Need Is Love'. Interestingly the song's intense
simplicity couldn't be less like the normal fare by either men - including the
future laidback fun of their adventures together in The Traveling Wilburys.
[26] Behind That Locked Door continues
the theme by being, apparently, a Harrisong ‘about’ Dylan, but you
wouldn’t really know it from the words or the arrangement, which find the
guitarist even further down the long and winding country road. It could be that
Dylan is singing about Dylan's 'recovery' form a motorbike accident in 1968 that
was really just an excuse for his friend to 'hide' and hang out with The Band
without the world and his photographer waiting to pounce on his creations. For
years though I wondered iof this song was about Lennon and his primal scream
therapy ('Why are you still crying? Your pain has now ceased') or even George
himself, shedding bitter tears over wasted opportunities at Apple and the fact
that even after The Beatles had officially dissolved they still had to face
each other at occasional Apple meetings. Door’s slow and stately pace is
impressive and worth a quick mention for being quite unlike anything Harrison
ever did again but, as the lyrics are just a riddle without a key and don’t
progress beyond the ‘stop crying’ motif of the chorus, the end result is an
uncharacteristically boring song among the lesser moments on this album and
even George sounds like he’s having trouble trying to stay awake until the end
of it. There's a good tune in there somewhere, though, and while George never
did get the hang of country songs (unusually Ringo got the hang of them better)
this recording gets closer than most rock-stars do to 'understanding the genre.
[27a] Let It Down
is another minor song turned into a stupendous epic by Phil Spector’s cavernous
mix. A strange hybrid of quiet laidback verses and loud booming choruses, this
song shows off the production work on this album more than any other – even the
quieter passages have two drummers, two keyboardists, a bassist and a quartet
of guitarists tinkling away behind George’s vocal. Pulsating drums, millions of
guitars flying away into the ether, some lowly mixed brass and a choir make for
a memorable rowdy recording of what could again have been a rather simple song
of two verses and a very simple chorus. The curious lyrics, obscure and surreal
compared to most of this album, seem to be one of George’s early messages to
God, the figure sitting ‘in another chair’ that George feels most powerfully
whenever he is at work making his music and leaving his subconscious open to
other spheres of thought. George again hangs his head over ‘wasting away all
these moments so heavily’ and even questions the divine wisdom of his new house
guest, ‘wondering what it is they’re expecting to see’ when they look at him
because he doesn’t feel worthy enough to accept their love (strange sudden use
of the plural there, by the way, as if there is more than one God looking over
George or if he has more than one life-partner by this time). Liverpudlian
comic to the last, however, George negates the impact of one of his potentially
deepest and spiritually conscious lyrics by ending on the line ‘let your hurr
hang all around me’, showing his earthy Mersey burr like never before, just in
case anyone thinks he’s getting a bit too mystic.
[28] Run Of The Mill
rounds off the first album with one of George’s greatest set of lyrics and
follows the same ideas as the Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP (coming down
fast on this list, incidentally), but with a lot more in the way of words and
melody. A sombre song about other people letting us down whether they mean to
or not, even George at his most melancholy still can’t hide the fact that this
song oozes a love for life. Giving us the philosophical message that even at
our lowest points we can choose whether to get upset or put things down to
experience and carry on, its simple homespun wisdom is compelling, especially
the way the song cuts to the bone but in an entirely different way to Lennon:
‘no one around you will love you today and throw it all away tomorrow’. ‘Forget
all these niggling upsets and small arguments’, George seem to be saying, more
to himself than anything, ‘the spark of trust that made us friends will always
be there’. No one else has ever made the connection that I know of, but this
song sounds very much like another product of the end of the Beatles’ days,
trying to seek a compromise with lifelong friends without sacrificing one’s
pride, and this was indeed one of a handful of this album’s songs
half-heartedly taped for Let It Be. If this song was indeed written for
his fellow Beatles then it makes for a better coda to the Beatles days than Wah-Wah.
Asking in a hurt voice ‘how I lost your friendship’ George could be speaking to
either Lennon or McCartney here, finding the thin line between chastising his
friend for ‘raising his voice’ and starting the argument when he had a choice
to keep his thoughts to himself – and offering an olive branch of forgiveness
in that line about how long-term friendships never die overnight out of one
single incident but realises that people just naturally grow apart. With lines
like ‘I see it in your eyes’ and ‘I may decide to get out with your blessing’,
this may well be George coming to terms with the fact that he doesn’t want to
be a Beatle anymore and if so then it shows just how much talent – and how much
friendship – was lost when the band outgrew each other and went their separate
ways. The whole song is underlined by one of Phil Spector’s more fitting
productions, with a gentle brass section that stands calm and proud over the
whole ensuing argument in the song, just as George’s narrator is trying to do.
Philosophical rock at its best.
Following on from this album peak, side three almost
makes up for the patchy side two with its opening track alone. [29a] Beware Of Darkness is
one of George’s best goosebump-inducing songs, with a wistful meandering melody
allied to some almost spitting guitar phrases and another classic lyric. Beware
of politicians, bad karma and people out for themselves George warns – dealing
with these obstacles isn’t our purpose in life and we shouldn’t get too hung up
about them and their three different methods of control during our quest to
discover ourselves. With memorable lines about bad thoughts lingering in its
narrator’s head ‘in the dead of night’ and ‘falling swingers’ whose career and
confidence is over after one single fall from grace, this is one of the
greatest cautionary lyrics ever written, but married to such a yearning
mournful tune that its one of the loveliest too. The middle eight is
particularly impressive, the way it suddenly rises up to snap at the heels of
the narrator despite his warnings (‘It can hit you! It can hurt you!’) giving
this otherwise laidback song a sense of urgent staccato bite. Incidentally,
George’s analogy of the atlas cedar growing in his garden, oblivious to the
chaos happening around it, is the only mention of George’s favourite past-time
of gardening in one of his lyrics. One of the undisputed highlights of the
record or indeed George’s canon as a whole, this is big brotherly advice
matched to genius songwriting, a punchy and potent combination that George
should have written more of. The song
seems to mean a lot to Eric Clapton. As well as playing more
guitar on this track than George does, Eric revived the song for an even more
moving version on his self-organised Concert For George (2002). If you
like this song (how can you not?) the DVD of the concert is well worth tracking
down. Incidentally, this song is perfectly placed in the set between George’s
poppier songs and a tongue-in-cheek appearance by the Monty Python team, a
great reminder of the musical duality (or should that be triaulity) going on in
George’s life.
The album then moves on to [30] Apple Scruffs an –
aptly – scruffy song with a buried, claustrophobic mix at odds with the song’s
lovely tune and harmonica accompaniment, plus lyrics that are a tribute to the
fans who used to hang around outside the Beatles’ Apple buildings waiting to
catch a brief glimpse of the fab four. The Beatles might have moaned their
little socks off at the time, but secretly they were all quite fond of these
fans (Paul especially), but surprisingly it took the anti-hysteria
anti-publicity Harrison to pen the only true Beatles ‘love’ song to a fan
(although at least one of them is – obscurely – referred to in Abbey Road’s
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window). The earliest example of one of
the Beatles getting nostalgic for their recent past, George seemed to have a
great knack writing these sorts of songs, no matter how much he tried to hide
his affection for his old band in public (see All Those Years Ago and When
We Was Fab for two other witty examples). A delightful observational lyric
has George showing real affection for his subject matter, topped off by a
chorus of ‘how I love you’ – not the sort of message George would be giving his
fans in the years to come – making for one of the album’s silliest and lightest
yet also one of its most delightful, songs.
[31] Let It Roll (The Ballad Of Sir
Frankie Crisp) is another atmospheric philosophical
ballad with some unrelated verses about different people linked by a classic
downbeat Harrison riff and a sombre mood. Frankie Crisp, by the way, was the
previous owner of Harrison’s beautiful Friar Park house and is one of several
songs George based on little phrases the house’s architect left dotted around
the estate (almost the complete set of lyrics to Ding Dong Ding Dong
came from Mr Crisp – perhaps his ancestors should have asked for royalties?!)
Many of the pictures painted in this song were genuinely scenes from inside
George’s house as well – the hallway you can see pictured on the original
packaging of this album, although sadly the best-kept staircase of the lyrics
is absent. Meanwhile, outside, there really was a ‘fountain of perpetual mirth’
(or a fountain anyway) a garden maze, woods and even underground ‘caves’
discovered only after George bought the property in the late 60s. Compared to
most of George’s lyrics, this song about love following its characters all
around a building is rather fragmented and confusing but nonetheless
delightful, with its tale of two cleaners (‘Joan and Molly sweep the stairs’)
an amusing parody of Macca’s Desmond and Molly on Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da to
boot, although I’d be surprised if that’s what George really did have in mind
when he wrote the song.
[32] Awaiting On You All
is another scary atmospheric song that finally deals with George’s religious
devotion head on. George urges us, for the first of many times, to get our life
in order before we go out enjoying ourselves in this more up-tempo re-write of My
Sweet Lord, but compared to the other deeply balanced and poignant
religious hymns on this album its a lot of shouting about nothing.
George’s single-tracked vocal is also for once poorly mixed, with the
multi-tracked horns drowning him out almost completely. That George wants to
save our souls is a lovely thought, but if he has to order us to chant the
names of the lord in order to do that rather than convince us why we should listen
to him or telling us what chanting has done for him, then that makes the
religious aura of this song as double-standardising and as morally doubtful as
the ‘send money now to reserve your place in heaven’ TV stations that appear on
cable with such alacrity nowadays (George would have so hated God TV!) I sense
this song would have been nothing without Spector's bold production - but with
it the track still manages to sound like a tour de force, thanks to a piercing
Eric Clapton guitar part that really does sound like an Earth-bound soul
sticking its fingers in its ears and refusing to listen to George's mantra and
a powerful horn section (mainly Bobby Keyes on loan from The Rolling Stones)
that really rocks.
[33] All Things Must Pass itself
rounds
out side three with a much gentler, hopeful and – let’s face it – better song
about how obstacles do not last forever and all things come right sometime, if
not always when we want them too. Sporting one of its author’s most
breathtakingly beautiful tunes, its philosophical message is fatherly without
being patronising and optimistic without belittling life’s problems in any way.
In the song the cause of grief is the narrator’s partner suddenly getting up
and leaving him but he doesn’t fight the fact, recognising that all great
friendships must come to an end when the time is right. In this context, how
fitting would this song have been for Let It Be? (a song for which it
was intended and even rehearsed). Overwhelmingly poignant in the first place,
this song is almost unbelievably heartbreaking to Beatles fans since Gorge’s
death despite its upbeat message – not that that stopped McCartney giving a
heartfelt rendition of the song on A Concert For George, which almost had the whole band of
hardened musicians in tears and you sense even George would have approved of
it.
Side four can’t quite keep the momentum going and at
first it doesn’t even seem to be trying. [34] I Dig Love is empty, breezy filler that seems
to have nothing much to say - although the band do cook up a storm by the
song’s end, especially the chirping organ riff that rolls up and down the
scales to eerie effect only to be delivered a hammer blow by some typical Ringo
drums. George has little to say except that he quite likes love, really, which
must have been good news for Patti even if the demented cackle with which
George sings and a 'California Girls' style verse about any girl being suitable
points to this song being more about lust than true love and perhaps an early
sign of George's adulterous nature (a much-reported rumour has it he tells a
shocked Ringo he's in love with wife Maureen Starkey in 1971 and wants to run
away with her, although understandably neither were very keen to talk about
this in public afterwards; what with John supposedly also making a pass at
Linda McCartney there's a really bad soap opera that can be made out of The
Beatles story by somebody at some time). George loses out badly when he tries
to go all Lennon too, recalling 'Fig It' with the muddled phrasing of the second
verse ('I Love dig!') Compared to the other All Things Must Pass songs, this
should have been a B-side at best, having more in common with tongue-in-cheek
pretty ditties like Miss O’Dell and I Don’t Care Anymore than
this album’s soul-baring honesty (amazingly this is the first real ‘filler’
track we’ve had on this album —not bad going for an hour in!).
[35] Art Of Dying is
more scary philosophical musings about getting our lives in order before we
pass on to whatever is waiting for us on the other side of this life. Like Awaiting
On You All but far better,
it’s religious condemnation dressed up to sound like a killer pop song, with a
heavy Phil Spector mix that makes it sound like Armageddon, what with Clapton’s
terrifying banshee-wailing guitar solo and the sound of a brass band working
over-time. Dismissing the whole of the music movement in one line, George asks
why we spend so much of our time putting stock in little things when the only
‘art’ we need to learn in the end will be the art of ‘dying’ gracefully.
Touching on the negative ‘karma’ that is thought to restrict our growth in life
and prevent us from reaching nirvana (we’re meant to be ‘recycled’ into a
different body to live out our lives again inside another body - This probably isn’t the place for a
discussion but, what the heck, George would have approved of the debate if not
the dimwit question: If man really is being re-born back on Earth into new
bodies every generation or two, minus the souls that solved their past problems
and achieved salvation to live in a higher sphere of experience, why is that
there are more and more people on our planet than ever before and our
population is continually expanding, not shrinking? ** see note 4 while
I get busy cursing my predecessor for the mess he’s got me into), this song is
about the importance of having a free and easy conscience that will enjoy a
safe passage to the afterlife and will not pass into another body, leaving us
with work still to do in our next life (‘There’s no point lying there on your
deathbed thinking ‘darn I forgot to put the cat out’ was George’s own typically
dry take on the subject). As you can probably tell, The Art Of Dying
isn’t your typical pop song, but so addictive is the groove and so hard-hitting
the production that you soon get swept up in the song before realising what it
all really means.
The reprise of [23b] Isn’t It A Pity? – perfectly placed
after the last track to act as a sort of coda, reflecting once more on why we
spend our lives looking at the smaller picture when the bigger one is all that
matters in the end - is even slower and even more thoughtful than its
predecessor. I've often wondered why George chose to include the track on the
album twice - he wasn't short on songs as 'If Not For You' on the CD re-issue
attests and if any track was going to be recorded twice then it surely ought to
have been the title track. This song isn't even arranged particularly
differently, although this one is far more stark and solemn, with more of a
stop-start feel to the rhythm than the flow that kept the first version
a-gushing. Both are lovely, but the first is arguably the superior making this
second largely redundant (it could be that this second version was intended as
a 'demo' - although it sounds far more built up than the other demos later
appendaged to the album as bonus tracks - or that an out of it Phil/George
'forgot' they'd already recorded it, which happened a lot on Lennon's 'Rock and
Roll' album!)
By [36] Hear Me Lord, George really has given up
pretending his religious songs are about anything else and this track - his
most personal statement yet, matched with Spector at his most bombastic and a
recording that never quite finds its way to a full stop - sounds on paper as if
it should be terrible. Instead, this closing number is glorious, being very
much the heart of the album and a very personal plea from Harrison for someone
to come and rescue him after years of never even considering the possibilities
that there could be more to life than what he could see around him. By showing
us the true well of frustration that Harrison drew on throughout this period
and why this religious conversion means so much to him, Hear Me Lord
manages to be a far more moving track
than any of George’s other religious epics. George tries again and again to
make his deity listen to him, getting more and more worried that his pleas are
falling on deaf ears in the process, with his humble vocal matched to a
cyclical unhearing piano riff that musically does George’s pleading for him.
Like much of the previous 70-odd minutes, this song is at once soothing and
terrifying, with George looking for an inner peace that he can only find after
years of turmoil. The choir on this track – a big no no in most gospelly rock
songs - is used pleasingly sparingly and simply adds to the overbearing weight
of the track. Credited as the George o’Hara Smith Singers on the LP box, this
assortment of professional singers and professional friends work wonders, they
straddling the line between gospel and pop surprisingly well and giving the
piece a soothing tranquillity offset by George’s deep, growling guitar. Hard
going its true, but well worth the effort of sitting through if you can.
Oh dear. Now comes the hard bit of this review. Five
cacophonous jamming sessions come next, all instrumental and while far from the
worst thing ever recorded (have you heard 'Two Virgins' recently?!) make the next 28 minutes of the record sound
ten times longer than the 75 or so preceding it. The best part of the ‘apple
jam’ disc is the name (the original sleeve even came with a picture of a jam
jar on the front!) and without saying so directly is a glorious side-swipe at
the Beatles and their self-made company, jocularly suggesting that the whole
mess has got a bit stewed, if not pickled. Of course, the ‘musical’ sort of
jams were all the rage too in the early 70s, but despite the presence of typical
Harrison foils like Eric Clapton, Dave Mason and Ginger Baker on the record,
Stephen Stills-Neil Young fierce guitar duels these aren’t, being more
understated phrases for tired musicians to calm themselves down by after a
heavy night’s recording. Like most jam sessions, these songs must have been far
more fun to play than to listen to and only spark very very briefly, but the
best of them do have some sort of hypnotic magic about them and its easy to see
why George wanted to release them in some form or another.
[37] Its Johnny’s Birthday is
first up and - confusingly - it isn’t actually a jam at all. A quick ad libbed
birthday message cooked up by George, friend Eddie Klein and Beatles roadie,
companion and all-round nice guy Mal Evans in honour of John Lennon’s 30th
birthday (on October 9th 1970, two months before this album’s
release, so I hope George sent a ‘sorry its late’ card as well). The tune of
the song is so close to that of the godawful Cliff Richard Eurovision entry Congratulations
that the song’s original composers Martin and Coulter had to be credited
too, involving Harrison in another long-running legal case which served as an
idea for what he’d be getting himself into come the My Sweet Lord, He’s So
Fine debacle. A minute’s worth of frivolous fun, its one of those
you-really-had-to-be-there-Happy-Birthday moments from a time when even
superstars felt the urge to let us listen in on their home-made tapes. Aww, you
shouldn’t have guys. Believe me, you really
shouldn’t have.
The best thing about next track [38] Plug Me In is the
name– this is an electric jam session that cuts in suddenly with George, Dave
Mason and Clapton already in the middle of a fierce three-way battle. Clapton’s
playing is slow and bluesy, more like his work in late-period Cream than
his forthcoming Blind Faith or solo works, while Harrison’s playing is
more rhythmical than normal and Dave Mason gets busy holding everybody
together. The whole jam is perhaps a little too slow for its own good, but
could have been the basis for a cooking track with some words added to it.
Groovy man, yeah, outtasite (I think that’s how the parlance of the period
went, was it not?)
[39] I Remember Jeep is head and shoulders above the rest of the apple jam
disc and quite possibly the reason this album got released at all.Unlike most off-the-cuff jam sessions,
this one at least sounds like it has a beginning, a middle and end (though it
probably naturally fell like that and is unlikely to have been painstakingly
worked out). Ginger Baker’s drumming playing against Eric Clapton’s growling
lead makes the whole sound more like a Cream album than anything most
Beatles scholars would play, but George’s guitar licks are thankfully more
prominent than normal and you get to hear old friend Billy Preston adding some
typical blues-funk-gospel-pop-soul piano riffs in there too, when the others
shut up long enough for him to get a note in edge-ways that is. Not bad at all,
especially when you reach the four minute mark when the band slow to what
sounds like a proper finish, but never quite get it together enough to get
there (the band simply add back into the original rocking riff one by one
instead).
[40] Thanks For The Pepperoni is
more unnecessary ephemera, with some Johnny B Goode riffs rolled out by Harrison,
Dave Mason and Clapton to a backing of excitable Bobby Whitlock boogie-woogie
piano chords and Jim Gordon’s characteristic lopsided Ringo-type drumming.
Chuck Berry with feedback, but not as exciting as that description makes it
sound.
Final track [41] Out Of The Blue at least ends the album on a
relative high, with a wide-circling ominous riff bringing out the best in the
players, who this time include George and Clappers with Gary Wright’s churchy
organ and a bunch of horn players getting funky. This jam is at least five
minutes too long but cooks up some sort of a fine groove, especially near the
end when George’s guitar (at least it sounds like his but there are so many
guitar players stuffed on this track its hard to tell!) really bounces off Wright’s
swirly organ and the whole piece suddenly becomes really slow and eerie,
changing styles in the blink of an eye (it’s around the eight-minute mark I’m
talking about, if you want to scroll through the rest and get the highlight).
Hard going as a jam session, this could have been the foundation of a really
great song.
But all things must pass, even this triple album,
and so sadly must this review. A towering achievement, mixing the personal with
the epic, All Things Must Pass is one of the best solo Beatles albums
around and it goes without saying that this also means its one of the best
albums you can buy, full stop. Some of the early 70s’ finest players performing
some of the early 70s’ best songs, no wonder this album is the well-loved
classic that it is. Thanks for the pepperoni, George, you deserve to find your
inner peace after giving the world this great souvenir of your talents.
A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF GEORGE HARRISON ARTICLES TO READ AT
ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:
'Wonderwall Music' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/george-harrison-wonderwall-music-1968.html
'All Things Must Pass' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-42-george-harrison-all-things.html
'Living In The Material World' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/news-views-and-music-issue-58-george.html
'Dark Horse' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/news-views-and-music-issue-127-george.html
'Extra
Texture (Read All About It)' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/george-harrison-extra-texture-read-all.html
'Thirty-Three
And A Third' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/george-harrison-thirty-three-and-third.html
'George Harrison' (1979) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-74-george-harrison-1979.html
‘Somewhere In England’ (1981) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/george-harrison-somewhere-in-england_20.html
'George Harrison' (1979) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-74-george-harrison-1979.html
‘Somewhere In England’ (1981) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/george-harrison-somewhere-in-england_20.html
'Gone
Troppo' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/02/george-harrison-gone-troppo-1982.html
‘Cloud
Nine’ (1987) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/george-harrison-cloud-nine-1987.html
'Brainwashed'
(2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/george-harrison-brainwashed-2002.html
'Hidden
Harrison - The Best Unreleased Recordings' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/george-harrison-hidden-harrison-best.html
Live/Compilation/Spin-Off
Albums Plus The Occasional Wilbury http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-live.html
Non-Album
Recordings 1968-2001 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-non-album-recordings.html
Surviving
TV Appearances 1971-2001 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-surviving-tv.html
Essay: Why The Quiet Beatle Always Had So Much To Say https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/george-harrison-essay-why-quiet-one.html
Essay: Why The Quiet Beatle Always Had So Much To Say https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/george-harrison-essay-why-quiet-one.html
Five
Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Songs https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/george-harrison-five-landmark-concerts.html
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