George Harrison: Living In The Material World

Living In The Material World, Part 2

** I look at the trouble and hate that is raging **

** While my guitar gently weeps **

** As I'm sitting here doing nothing but ageing **

** Still my guitar gently weeps **

** Gently weeps **

** Still my guitar gently weeps... **

I always felt really close to the public and where I grew up

and that's why, I suppose, I wrote some songs that were like,

"Hey, you can all experience this," you know?

It is, it's available for everyone.

Ravi, really, it was him who helped me

to get back into being a pop singer.

** Da **

** Da-da-da-da-da **

** Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da... **

He was the one who said to me, you know,

try to find my background, or some roots. What's my roots?

I mean, the first thing that meant something, really,

that I could call a root was riding down the road on my bike

and hearing Heartbreak Hotel coming out of somebody's house.

So, "Right, it's Heartbreak Hotel."

So from then, I went from Los Angeles,

where I was with Ravi with my sitar, went to New York on my way home.

That was the last time I really played sitar.

I checked in the hotel in New York.

Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton happened to be staying there.

Then I thought, well, maybe I'm better off to get back into being

a guitar player, songwriter, whatever I'm supposed to be.

Because I'm never going to be a sitar player, because I've seen

1,000 sitar players in India who's twice as better than I'll ever be.

You want to hear the song I wrote last night?

Yeah. It's just a very short one.

** ..doesn't last all morning **

** A cloudburst doesn't last all day... **

If there's people joining in, I'd appreciate it too.

It seems I've got... We can forget about the second part of it.

The only thing... The main thing is...

"January 2nd. Started rehearsing at Twickenham.

"Derek and I are going to do the musical Hey Man.

"January 3rd. Rehearsing at Twickenham.

"January 10th. Got up, went to Twickenham, rehearsed until lunchtime,

"left The Beatles, went home and, in the

evening, did King Of Fuh at Trident Studios."

'January 11th. Got up. John and Yoko came and diverted me at breakfast.'

I just thought, "Well, what's the point of this?"

I thought, I'm quite capable of being relatively happy on my own,

And I'm not able to be happy in this situation.

You know, "I'm getting out of here."

It's like... It's complicated now. See, if we can get it simpler...

and then complicate it where it needs complications.

But it's complicated in the bit... It's not complicated.

But, no, I mean, you know...

I'll play just the chord if you like, and...

C'mon, you always get... Always get annoyed when I say that.

I'm trying to help, but I always hear myself annoying you.

Shall we...try it like this, you know?

It's funny that I don't...

It's this one, it's like should we play guitar

through "Hey, Jude"? Well, I don't think we should.

Yeah, OK, well, I don't mind.

I'll play, you know, whatever you want me to play.

Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play.

You know, whatever it is that will please you, I'll do it.

I wish we could start hearing the tapes now.

Like, do it and then hear what it is.

It was just a very, very difficult, stressful time.

And to be, you know, even under pressure,

being filmed having a row as well.

That's what happened. I just got up and I thought,

"Well, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm out of here."

And so I got my guitar and I just went home.

And wrote Wah-Wah.

Did you ever hear the thing about John Lennon saying,

when George walked out of the Let It Be session in frustration,

"Let's get Eric Clapton"?

Yeah. Did you ever think what it would be like to be in The Beatles?

HE LAUGHS

Yeah.

The pros and cons of being in a band like that...

were massively extreme.

They were times when you just...

it was like the closest knit family you've ever seen in your life.

But as that can be, too,

the cruelty and the viciousness was unparalleled.

We didn't underestimate George. We knew that he was peaking,

you know, as we got to those records.

He'd not been really interested in the beginning, I don't think.

And because John and I did so much of the writing,

he could just leave it to us.

But, erm...

I think he realised, you know, that there was something in this.

That artistically and financially, it was a good thing to get into.

So by that time, erm, yeah,

we realised that he was really coming up with the goods.

I think, you know, with George, you know,

it wasn't his ambition to be in The Beatles for his whole life.

Sometimes it could be quite difficult to get a song on an album.

When you think that in Let It Be,

they rehearsed All Things Must Pass and a couple of other

of George's songs that didn't make it on to Let It Be, right,

and didn't make it on to Abbey Road, right,

but made it onto his first solo album,

he was stockpiling stuff. You know, stuff was building up.

** Something in the way she moves **

** Attracts me like no other lover **

** Something in the way she woos me **

** I don't want to leave her now **

** You know I believe and how... **

I don't honestly believe that giving

Something to Joe Cocker, or giving My Sweet Lord to Billy Preston

had anything to do with his confidence as a songwriter.

I think he was totally confident about the songs.

The insecurity may have been if The Beatles kept going,

"How many songs am I going to be able to get on each album?"

And with the backlog sort of mounting up of songs

that he had, get it out there and get something from it.

** Somewhere in her smile she knows **

** That I need no other lover **

** Something in her style that shows me **

** I don't want to leave her now **

** You know I believe and how. **

Something was a great song, is a great song,

and John just said, "That should be a single."

And that was the first time that George's song was a single.

It was usually Paul's, and George was usually the B-side.

But, you know, he just said, "This should be the single."

Because he always cared about George.

They had something going, you know.

** You're asking me Will my love grow? **

** I don't know, I don't know **

** You stick around, now it may show **

** I don't know, I don't know... **

Can you describe the scene at Apple Corps, a typical day?

It was a bit like spin the top and see where it goes.

You know, George met the Hells Angels, right, and said,

"Hey, if you're ever in London, pop in to Apple.

"We'd love to see you." You know.

Never thinking it's going to happen.

Six months later, you know, 30 motorbikes, you know,

Harley Davidsons, are outside the offices in Savile Row,

you know, with the Hells Angels. "Well, George said it was OK."

Right, they're all living in Apple.

At a Christmas party,

John and Yoko came as Father and Mother Christmas,

and we had this 24-pound turkey

that only had to make it from here to that couch.

That's where the table was. Didn't make it, right?

Two guys were carrying it in,

and the Hells Angels just ripped it to pieces.

By the time it got to the table, there was nothing left.

And then, you know, they were sleeping in the studio and stuff

and so we asked them to go.

You know, "Could you please leave." And they said, "No.

"George asked us. It's nothing to do with you. George said it was OK."

Right. "Well, George is going to have to tell them to leave." Right?

So...

George knew the situation and knew he would have to ask them to leave

but he had to figure out how he was going to ask them.

And, er...

So he did it very well. He was talking to them and he said,

"You know, there's yin and yang, in and out, up and down,

"you're here, you go."

And they said, "OK." And went.

I think we'd kind of come to the end of our tether.

We'd sort of done about all we wanted to do.

We would get a bit testy with each other. It was like a marriage.

You know, you love each other, but you're getting fed up.

And then we'd solve it, and we're good friends.

We'd realise we loved each other, and it was all cool.

But then we'd argue again, you know.

My house was like the reconciliation house.

We all shouted at each other and talked it over

and then we went back to work.

He comes in, he'd been to India again, I think,

and he says, "I've got this song. It's like seven-and-a-half time."

"Yeah, so?"

You know, he might as well have talked to me in Arabic,

you know what I mean?

** Here comes the sun, do-do-do-do-do **

** Here comes the sun **

** And I say, It's all right... **

Da-da! And that's how I come off.

I had to find some way that I could physically do it,

and do it every time so it came off on the time.

That's one of those Indian tricks.

I had no way of going, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven."

It's not my brain.

So as long as I did, "Der-der-ler, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do da-da!"

"OK, that's seven. Good. Got it."

It was one of those beautiful spring mornings. I think it was April.

We were just walking round the garden with our guitars.

And that was... I don't do that, you know.

I'd only ever do... This was what George brought to the situation.

He was just a magical guy and he would show up with his guitar,

get out the guitar, get out of the car with the guitar

and come in and you'd start playing.

And we'd walk around the garden.

We sat down at the bottom of the garden, looking out over the...

And the sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning