George Harrison - Brainwashed

Since George Harrison's death last November, Jeff Lynne and George's son Dhani have been brushing up the demos the former Beatle left behind. At last they are released and in keeping with the man filled with sweet guitar, humour, intergrity and spiritual depth...

It is hard to remember so much fuss for the release of a Beatles solo album, never mind one from George Harrison, in nigh on a quarter of a century. Sadly Harrison had to die before it was to see the light of day, driven faster and with more purpose by his long time friend, fellow Wilbury and producer Jeff Lynne along with Harrison’s only heir, his son Dhani. Dhani has said how in his 24 years on the planet his dad has always been a gardener! That this album took 15 years to follow up his brilliant Could Nine (if you don’t count two Travelling Wilbury’s albums, a double Live In Japan and a Best of The dark Horse Years) that brought him back to the very top of the charts with its single Got My Mind Set On You, it leaves you wondering how he went about assembling the demos that were left to be polished off or polished up as Lynne has confessed to doing.

And yes, there could be no Jeff Lynne without that comfortable cushion production but though it is well in evidence here, I do think, he has compromised a little. The story goes that Harrison wanted more of a demo feel and that Lynne couldn’t just leave things alone but it might just be that had Harrison have lived to fight over it this might be the place they wouldn’t have ended up. Yes, there are a few snatches of ELO whooshes as in Rising Sun and he has certainly given a gentle bed for Harrison’s trade mark guitar to lie but he has not over cooked it as some might have feared (their apprehensions might even be making them hear things that are not even here!). All in all it is that unmistakeable guitar playing that is allowed to shine and remind us of what we have lost. Indeed, a decade and a half or not, this is a timeless follow up to Cloud Nine and there are traces of all that is best about the Harrison solo years.

The looseness not very common in Jeff Lynne’s canon is evidenced from the very beginning when a few scouse words from George introduces the shuffling almost skiffling opener Any Road. There is a live band feel to Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea a thirties standard originally aired on British television way back in 1991 and including Jools Holland on piano linking the album to Harrison’s last release before his death, a song on Holland’s Small World: Big Band. Here as on most of the album there is a celebratory, humorous and light feel to the proceedings. This is not gloomy posthumous stuff but neither is it frivolous. Harrison has never been throwaway when it comes to making music nor has he ever been happy just sitting back and putting his philosophical feet up.

We are treated to exactly what we might expect from George Harrison’s last statement to the world. As always it is not as lyrically smooth as his late mate John, nor as melodically sweet as his old pal Paul but it has spadefulls (to use a George gardening term!) more spirituality, humour and integrity than the more esteemed former colleagues. There is that familiar quirkiness to Harrison’s poetry. He uses clumsy words that no one else would even attempt and yet he can come up with a few cracking rhyming couplets and overall the content is so personal and conversational that words are just a vehicle to saying so much more.

On Pisces Fish we are led into a false sense of idyllic security in the opening line “Rowers gliding on the water.” Seconds later we are shaking our heads to rewind the next line and then are smashed across the cerebral ear with that dry wit that wakens the soul from dreaming in some bubble – “Canadian geese crap along the bank.” You’ve got to smile and then we are led into similar pastoral images ending up with chains tangled around cranks and “the churchbell ringer’s tangled in his rope.” The conclusion of the sermon is the need for serenity to find that which lies beneath the madness of our world.

That too has been the Harrison bee in the bonnet since he discovered eastern mysticism in the mid sixties and found some way of chanting his way beyond the material world to find some peace on earth. As his last will and testimony we are treated to lots of God in the mix. Indeed there is little else that has any consequence. The album begins with him trying to navigate “through the dirt and the grime” and rightly suggesting we need some kind of destination to aim for or else:

"But oh Lord we’ve got to fight
With the thoughts in the head with the dark and the light
No use to stop and stare
And if you don’t know where you’re going
Any road will take you there"

We end with more blatant exposure of the “dirt and the grime” as Harrison shows us that he didn’t cut himself off completely from the real world in his Henley-On-Thames Crackerbox Palace as he lists the accused who have brainwashed us and “turned out the spiritual light”. Again his answer is “God, God, God” and we eventually get a reading from How To Know God (The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali) and a chant seemingly called Namah Parvati performed along with Dhani. It is the perfect end to a final album of the man who took the world to the feet of the Maharishi and became Krishna’s most famous convert. As someone who follows another faith I have to agree with his diagnosis if the medicine I sing is on a different road.

In between the top and the tale we are given some serious issues to come to terms with as to how we are leading our lives on the planet and most importantly about our own sense of worth and identity and place of our hope if we can find any. Mind you he did say “Everything else can wait but the search for God…”

A conclusion? Well up until there were five essential George Harrison albums – All Things Must Pass, Living In The Material World, 33 & 1/3, George Harrison and Cloud Nine. Add Brainwashed, as good a Beatles solo album as there has been in quite a time. It is not All Things Must Pass but indeed they must and have so as goodbyes go this is as good a biography as you might get of the Beatle who refused to be brainwashed.