George Harrison's Indian Songs for the Beatles

Right w you guys. I played through Doom and Doom II while discovering the Beatles albums. "White Album" I played over and over as I worked my way through Doom II. Though yeah those game soundtracks were great as well.

Wonderwall soundtrack is AMAZING. I agree that "Love You To" is probably the weakest song but I voted it. The instrumental parts are pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtZW7SQABt4

i was not expecting a reference to Hexen on this thread :)

Beatles Anthology + iD software shareware just a right of passage for some people

my favorite is WYWY by a long way -- don't like the other two much.

clemenza, you've never heard the 'past masters' cds? i probably like those as much as any of the actual albums.

I know about them, just don't have them. When they came out in the late '80s, I felt like I had enough Beatles stuff, and I wasn't listening to them much at that point anyway. ("Yes It Is" is on one of them, right? That's one of my all-time favourites.)

yes, it is.

hexen rules

probably voting Love You To, but The Inner Light is one of those elusive underrated Beatles songs

voted for paint it black

Love You To, mostly because I love those distorted backwards guitars, but Blue Jay Way was the first one I thought of when I opened the thread.

'The Inner Light', I think, is the only one here to have actually been recorded in India.

Doom soundtrack (and Doom 2 moreso) is pretty badass though.

― Doctor Casino, Monday, October 21, 2013 5:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea they were pretty good. my computer speakers were busted though, that's why i played the eno record

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

easily LYT.

WYWY

LUV U 2

hardest poll decision i've had to make in years

lyt/til even split, went for lyt almost arbitrarily

Love You To, mostly because I love those distorted backwards guitars,
― Defund Phil Collins (stevie)

Yeah, this. There's even more guitar on the 1999 Yellow Submarine Songtrack mix, just churning away. I don't think it's audible at all in the original mix.

love you to.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

giving all Harrison's Indian stuff a close listening lately. It's interesting how different all these three are from each other, in terms of structure and instrumentation. Also interesting that he pretty much never went in this direction on his solo albums and instead kept his subsequent stuff with Shankar separate. There's no tabla or tambura or sitar anywhere on All Things Must Pass, for ex.

My affection keeps switching.

have you heard Wonderwall? its a solo album and full of great Indian stuff. there's an incredible album by the London Radha Krishna society that released the Krishna mantra as a single and it's great.

from my understanding he was writing/supervising the material while Indian instrumentalists were actually playing it. makes sense he wouldn't want his solo career (the sparse thing that it is) to just be him doing that over and over.

like maybe he felt he was wading into in on a genre that was way deeper and required full-time dedication, the type of which he didn't even want to apply to his own rock career (thus the diversions, funding Monty Python films, etc.)

I have heard Wonderwall but it's been years, I should check that out again

was trying to think of other raga/indian-incorporating western pop - Kinks "See My Friends" and "Fancy", several Donovan songs (Three Kingfishers, Fat Angel, Peregrine), Stooges "We Will Fall", The Cure "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep", some Beck stuff, a couple Black Angels songs... I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting at the moment. Zep has some stuff that's obviously *influenced* by Indian musicians but I don't think they ever actually ended up using any on "Kashmir" or "Friends" (yes I have heard that session outtake of Page and the Indian orchestra)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radha_Krsna_Temple_(album)

^this is what i mention above. it's really great stuff. George produced this and they released in '71.

feel like maybe he realized he was better as a promoter/facilitator

thanks I'll check that out! sure I've seen it mentioned but never listened to it

huh "Red Lady Too" off of Wonderwall sounds like it's the same chord progression as "In the First Place"

To be honest, I like all of these songs!

feel like maybe he realized he was better as a promoter/facilitator

iirc, he said that he gave up trying to play sitar once he realized how intense a lifetime study it was, and that he couldn't hope to attain a fraction of Shankar's mastery.

anybody heard this "shankar family & friends" album? produced by george.

https://www.discogs.com/Shankar-Family-Friends-Shankar-Family-Friends/release/1784383

The only problem I have with this stuff is that it led to bands later grafting tablas and sitars onto their songs in a very lazy way thinking "indian classical music = psychedelic" ...

was trying to think of other raga/indian-incorporating western pop - Kinks "See My Friends" and "Fancy", several Donovan songs (Three Kingfishers, Fat Angel, Peregrine), Stooges "We Will Fall", The Cure "If Only Tonight We Could Sleep", some Beck stuff, a couple Black Angels songs... I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting at the moment. Zep has some stuff that's obviously *influenced* by Indian musicians but I don't think they ever actually ended up using any on "Kashmir" or "Friends" (yes I have heard that session outtake of Page and the Indian orchestra)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE3C1bX-6yk

I have that Shankar Family n Friends album, its p interesting. Contains maybe george's last attempt at an indian pop song

Xp

I always had 'Blue Jay Way' down as being a bit of an Indian-influenced composition in the sense that it's pretty much a drone, but I suppose it couldn't be included in this poll because it doesn't have sitars or a tabla on it. I like 'Blue Jay Way' a lot, by the way, it's "bad trip" music.

― Dog Man Star took a suck on a pill... (Turrican) Right on. Also I must admit how much better I like WYWY on the remastered Pepper's---mainly instrumentally, though admit the punchline, "Life goes on within you and without you", suits and indeed sums the album perfectly, or pretty well. Still get tired of the naggy vocal and most of the words.

George was a solid producer -- of the four members he could've had a profitable sideline doing it.

That's true, the random stuff he produced for others generally sounds v good

What random stuff should I check? Of course he co-wrote "If Not For You" with Dylan---big hit for Olivia Newton-John! Maybe teamed up for writing and/or producing some Wilburys tracks? Don't think I've ever heard a whole GH album, though liked some of the solo singles. Also wondering about Electronic Sound and the Bombay sessions, source of "The Inner Light"and much more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderwall_Music

Yeah, I agree about Harrison being a solid producer - the stuff he did for Badfinger in particular springs to mind. It's tempting to imagine an alternate timeline in which Harrison jacks in his solo career after All Things Must Pass and becomes a full-time producer. It would have spared us all a lot of lousy records, and I reckon Harrison would have only got better as a producer the more he did it.

otm. He was the only Beatle interested in it, and he had the chops and studio knowledge.

Here, dow! I tried to show range.

Of course he co-wrote "If Not For You" with Dylan---

Actually, he didn't -- you're thinking of "I'd Have You Anytime."

Underrated GH co-production
https://youtu.be/LjhRmOnoFBo

It's worth noting too that for about three years George was the best-selling solo Beatle -- and did it again in the late eighties. I wonder how Paul felt about it.

He has a production credit on some of the wilbury stuff too.

This aint bad
https://youtu.be/xqXIeYTiJic

xpost:

He was probably surprised at Harrison's early solo success (as all the Beatles were) but by Cloud Nine I doubt he gave much of a shit - he'd already chalked up numerous hit singles and albums without The Beatles by that point, 'Mull of Kintyre' even being a UK million-seller.

I couldn't imagine McCartney as a producer - he's suitable as a producer or co-producer for his own records, and that's it. If he tried to produce anyone else, he'd just try and turn it into a McCartney record.

That's what happened with "Come And Get It." Badfinger would say, "Can we try it this way?" and Paul would be all, "No, because if we do it my way, it'll be a hit. Also, I'm Paul McCartney."

Dig this one - Macca had bought the rights to LMD and PSILY, so he gets it his way round and published by himself alone!

https://img.discogs.com/pjGEk5ST4L9TJ9dCiYjBu_wVm5g=/fit-in/600x599/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-4411022-1397392446-3720.jpeg.jpg

I think it's always been "McCartney-Lennon" on that record. First pressings it is.

I had a '70s pressing, same thing.

True, it was always McCartney-Lennon on PPM. But the songs on Broad Street were Revolver-era, and originally listed as Lennon-McCartney (not that Lennon hand much to do with writing "Eleanor Rigby," but still).

On which version of Broad Street are they "McCartney-Lennon?"

None that I've been able to find looking on Discogs.

Even the most recent UK 45 of "From Me To You" is Mc-L on both sides! ("Thank you Girl" is very Lennon song)

On which version of Broad Street are they "McCartney-Lennon?"

― timellison, Sunday, June 25, 2017 10:13 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wikipedia sez:

A notable switch from past album song credits is the crediting of song writing to "McCartney-Lennon" as opposed to the usual "Lennon-McCartney" on all other albums.

It doesn't specify which issue. I don't remember anything in the music press about it at the time; it wasn't until Paul reversed the credits on his Back in the U.S. live record that people made a big deal about it:

On Back in the U.S., McCartney reversed the songwriting credits for nineteen Lennon–McCartney compositions to read "Paul McCartney and John Lennon"[11] – a move that author Howard Sounes describes as the live album's "chief point of interest".[12] This gesture was a further attempt by McCartney to establish his legacy following Lennon's death in 1980,[13] having been vetoed from adopting the McCartney–Lennon credit during the Beatles Anthology project in 1995 by his former bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr.[14]

The revised credits on Back in the U.S. incensed Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who threatened to take legal action,[11] while Starr said he found McCartney's actions "underhanded".[12][15] Some commentators observed that McCartney had similarly credited his Beatles songs to "McCartney–Lennon" on the 1976 live album Wings over America[16] and that Lennon had never publicly objected to the reversal;[13][17] in addition, the compositions in question were written with little or no input from Lennon.[12][18] When compiling Back in the U.S., McCartney had decided to act in response to Ono's dropping of his co-writer's credit for "Give Peace a Chance", on the 1997 compilation Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon.[citation needed] Despite their differences on this issue, McCartney and Starr united on stage for the Harrison tribute concert shortly after the release of the live album.[19]

Citation here, hi.

I noticed the solo "Lennon" credit for "Give Peace a chance" at the end of the "Live Peace In Toronto" movie.

np.

I looked at a bunch of versions of Broad Street on Discogs including a '93 CD reissue and every one is Lennon-McCartney.

I thought it was Wings Over America on which the credits are reversed.

Yes

aw man for a second i thought y'all were all talking about macca's awful "P.S. Love Me Do" from the late 80s.

did he really?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJkRxeoBY70

a move that author Howard Sounes describes as the live album's "chief point of interest".

Cold.

That "P.S. Love Me Do"...it's too obviously bad to be as bad as it is. It's like when your car gets broken into, and you see the broken window and you have a split second of disbelief like, "No, there's no way that's my car, because if it was, man, that'd really suck." Paul manages to sustain that split second of disbelief for 3:44. That's pretty impressive.