My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 12: Harrison's Horse Sure Is Dark

While Lennon was having his “lost weekend,” Harrison was experiencing his own “naughty period.”  Alcohol and drugs were back in the picture for Harrison, fueled in no small part by the various sexual infidelities that both he and wife Patti experienced.  Basically a series of wife-swapping scenarios, where Harrison hooked up with Ron Wood’s wife, while Ron in turn was with Patti; Harrison’s declaration of love and subsequent affair with Ringo’s wife, Maureen, and, most notably, as was witnessed by the press and fans alike, Patti’s leaving George for George’s friend, Eric Clapton.

Add to the mix all of the things on Harrison’s plate, including the creation of his new record label, producing albums for other artists, executive producing a movie, dealing with the final death throws of Apple and Beatle related things, and organizing the first concert tour of North America by a former Beatle, Harrison had a lot on his plate in 1974.  All of these things, and more, help to explain Harrison’s third studio album, Dark Horse.  They don’t excuse the album, certainly his worst to date, but knowing these things helps soften the blow.  (His schedule may also explain Harrison’s absence on Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna, although his affair with Maureen may have played a part as well.)        

When I first listened to the album Dark Horse, I had no idea about Harrison’s trials and tribulations.  I vividly remember being underwhelmed after the first spin.  On the second go-round, I liked the album better, but only marginally.  Unlike his previous studio albums, All Things Must Pass and Living in the Material World, which, among other themes, focused on Harrison’s spirituality, for Dark Horse, if there even was a theme, it was more personal and considerably darker.  It took me a while to figure out, but I think Dark Horse was Harrison’s Plastic Ono Band.  Not as stark, of course, but still containing a lot of personal angst, anger and even a bit of snark.  Replacing Lennon’s scream therapy, Harrison’s obvious laryngitic vocal adds to the overall malaise that permeates the album.  Not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests, and not as preachy as his previous albums, Dark Horse is not exactly a fun listen.

The lethargic instrumental Hari’s on Tour (Express) opens the album.  It’s got some nice slide guitar work by George, and the repeated theme is fine, but leads nowhere and becomes boring rather quickly.  While an inauspicious opening to his album, Hari’s on Tour (Express) was also the opening song for all of Harrison’s gigs during his concert tour.  As a band warmup and introduction of Harrison onto the stage, the song works better.

Simply Shady is the Harrison autobiography for the last year or so and overflows with self-pity.  Worse, if Hari’s On Tour (Express) is lethargic, Simply Shady stops the record dead.  Harrison’s squelchy voice is cloying and is not the least bit contrite.  It’s as if he doesn’t care.  Then why should we?

Probably the most depressing song Harrison wrote, So Sad at least is a good song.  The pain of the separation from his wife Patti is obvious and, while Harrison’s singing is still strained, here that strain fits.  While it’s the sound of his dobro that takes center stage, it’s the lush sound of Harrison’s 12-string acoustic guitar that helps drive the song.

When I first heard Harrison’s version of Bye Bye, Love I hated it.  Ha-ate-ed it.  The key was off, the lyrics weren’t right and Harrison’s vocals were really smarmy.  That was back when I had no idea what was happening in his personal life.  Now, of course, the lyric changes make more sense.  “There goes our lady, with ah you-know-who/I hope she’s happy, an ol’ Clapper too…”

“Ol’ Clapper”?  Yikes!  

But knowing what the song means doesn’t make it any better.  It actually makes it worse.  Bitter, vindictive and petty, delivered with that condescending smarmy vocal, the song is also oddly placed in the album’s sequence.  Coming right after So Sad, a song expressing the heartbreak of loosing Patti, itself coming after Simply Shady, where Harrison details the sins he himself had committed, Bye Bye, Love becomes even more frustratingly juvenile. 

At least Harrison followed Bye Bye, Love with Maya Love.  An upbeat-ish bluesy slide-guitar song (with kicking piano licks courtesy of Billy Preston), Maya Love sees Harrison being a bit more philosophical about his split with Patti.  It’s one of the few highlights on the album, particularly refreshing coming after Bye Bye, Love, and a positive-ish way to end side one.

I was not used to hearing holiday songs on regular albums so when I first heard Ding Dong, Ding Dong I didn’t know if it was a song about New Year’s or not.  I did know that the song, while lyrically vapid, was one of those songs you could, and would, sing along with every time you heard it.  I didn’t quite realize that it was also a song you would be compelled to sing even when it wasn’t playing.  It’s the quintessential ear worm song.  It’s also a Phil Spector-ish wall-of-sound song that becomes almost overpowering.

As a holiday song, Ding Dong, Ding Dong comes nowhere near Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over), but is also not nearly as cloying as McCartney’s Wonderful Christmas Time.  It is interesting that, given his spirituality and all, the song is not a Christmas song but rather the much more rare, New Year’s song.   

Or is it?

Even before I understood Harrison’s personal issues of the day, I absolutely noticed that the picture that graces the label of the LP’s Side 2 is of the eyes of a dark-haired woman who is obviously not Patti.  Harrison’s own eyes are on Side 1, and those eyes are clearly smiling, and not in a sarcastic way, either.  (Which, given the tone of Side 1, would have been, perhaps, more appropriate.)  Of course the un-named woman on Side 2’s label is Harrison’s future wife, Olivia.  “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”  Indeed.

The title song is also the album’s best song, although it does, once again, seem to take dead aim at Patti.  Maybe Clapton too.  Or is it taking aim at McCartney?  Or Lennon?  Perhaps all four.  Or none of them at all.  That’s the interesting thing about the song.  While lyrically pretty specific, Dark Horse is also open to interpretation.  Once again it’s Harrison’s pulsing acoustic guitar that gets the tune a-hummin’.  Harrison’s vocals are about shot, and while it sounds as if he is really aching to clear his throat, that aggression works pretty well in the context of the song.

The smooth jazzy Far East Man sounds like it would be more at home on a Steely Dan album, but comes as a welcome surprise. Penned by Harrison and Ron “Would-if-you-let-him” (as Harrison’s hand-written credits describes him.  No doubt a reference to Wood’s dalliance with Patti.  Harrison doesn’t ascribe a similar credit to himself in regards to his own dalliance with Wood’s wife.), Far East Man seems to be Harrison’s accepting Patti’s leaving while also a welcoming to his new love, Olivia.  

Of course this being a Harrison album, some kind of spiritual song had to be included, in this case Harrison saving it for the last track on the album.  It Is ‘He’ (Jai Sri Krishna) has a bright, catchy, repetitive chorus, but the short, slowed down verses are where a bit of the preachiness comes in.  Given the turmoil contained in many of the previous songs, It Is ‘He’ (Jai Sri Krishna) is George reminding himself, as well as us, that “He” is what really matters.  While the song itself is okay, given the content of most of the album, the sentiment seems unconvincing.

I chuckled when I first heard Harrison’s introduction to the b-side to the Dark Horse single called I Don’t Care Anymore, “We got a b-side to make, ladies and gentlemen/We’ve not much time so we better get on with it” but the song is hardly funny nor fun.  For much of the Dark Horse album, Harrison laments and/or criticizes Patti for the dissolution of their marriage.  Here, Harrison unabashedly sings about having his own affair with a married woman, and damn the consequences.  It’s an eat-his-cake-and-have-it-too attitude, sung with a real bitterness; the laryngitis nearly strangling his delivery, adding to the venom.  The “I don’t care anymore” sentiment of the song feels all too real, like it’s a statement to us, for us, the fans.  As it’s only a b-side, it’s easy to dismiss, but it certainly could have been included on George Harrison/Plastic Ono Band.  

While Dark Horse isn’t an album I return to often, when I do I find I like it more and more.  I particularly like how the 2014 remix brings out the acoustic guitars, and on that same release, the bonus track Dark Horse (Early Take) shows what the album might have been had Harrison not recorded so many of his vocals while suffering his laryngitis.  Of course his tour dates were already set, and he needed an album to tour behind (although Dark Horse came out mid-tour anyway), so Harrison had little choice but to record with his voice the way it was.  He toured with his voice that way, too, and it wasn’t long before it was referred to as the Dark Hoarse Tour.  

Now about that infamous tour…  For years I’d read that Harrison’s only North American Tour was a disaster of epic proportions, and having no reason to doubt those claims, I believed it.  I have since heard several recordings of various shows on the tour, and it’s clear that the shows were a huge success.  As with the Bangla Desh concerts, a portion of the show was given over to Ravi Shankar and his group performing Indian music, which should have come as no surprise to Harrison fans.  Also like the concerts for Bangla Desh, Harrison shared the stage with Billy Preston, allowing Harrison’s voice to get some rest.  In the concerts I’ve heard, Harrison’s voice is strained, but not to any degree that lessened his performance.  He seems in good cheer throughout, like he’s enjoying himself, and that enjoyment is also reflected by the audience, particularly when Harrison starts to play one of his old tunes back from when he was with the Fabs.

Ah, George and the Beatles.  No other former Beatle wanted to shed that Beatle skin more than Harrison.  Or did he?  

The fascinating thing about Harrison vs. the Beatles is that, of all the former Lads’, he was the one to reference and/or return to them most often (save Ringo).  On his 1974 Tour, Harrison revisited at least four Beatles tunes.  Yes, to the astonishment of many, he altered the lyrics (the silliest being “My guitar can’t keep from smiling”), but the fact is, in a show that feature Harrison singing a dozen songs or so, nearly a third were Beatle tunes.  And one was by Lennon and McCartney!  (The very lyrically altered In My Life).  Contrast that with the few concerts Lennon gave.  When Lennon revisited The Beatles he played Come Together and/or Yer Blues.  (And, famously with Elton John, I Saw Her Standing There).  In order to distance himself as far as he could from his Beatle past and, instead establish his new band, McCartney didn’t revisit any of his old tunes.  (He would, of course, for the Wings Over America Tour; but that’s two hence.)

Harrison didn’t just revisit his past in concert.  His video for Ding Dong, Ding Dong has him donning both the ol’ collarless suit as well as his old Sgt. Pepper attire.  Ring out the old…?  Maybe.

Like Starr did years before in Early 1970, Harrison name checks all three former mates in Living in the Material World, and even name checks Sexy Sadie in Simply Shady.

I’m not suggesting George pined for the old days, just saying that, despite what he might have been saying out loud, George was occasionally looking back, and perhaps not always with disdain.

My Evolution Revolution of the Solo Fabs (Or Imagine Living in the Material World, say London Town, with Beaucoups of Blues) Part 11: Junior Takes a Bridge to Vienna

In the summer of 1974 McCartney’s single Band on the Run reached number 1.  In October ’74 it was Lennon’s turn.  Finally.  A number 1.  All his own.  Kind of.

While there’s no question that Whatever Gets You Thru the Night is a great, toe-tapping pop song just waiting to be cranked as high as your speakers can handle the raucous saxophone, it’s hard to tell it’s a song by John Lennon.  Unlike most of Lennon’s singles (and songs in general), lyrically Whatever Gets You Thru the Night is pretty innocuous, and, while musically the song barrels along at full-steam ahead (propelled by that sax.  Oh, and the bass!), Whatever Gets You Thru the Night stands out as being the least sounding like John Lennon single in Lennon’s canon.  And it reached number one.

Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” album, Walls and Bridges, is his best since Imagine, but lacks the focus and intensity of both Imagine and Plastic Ono Band.  The odd blend of songs, begging forgiveness from Yoko with love songs to May Pang, contributes to the overall confusion of the album.  Yet it’s hard to resist when Lennon gets his snark on and his funk groove a-happenin’.

“Got to get down, down on my knees” is the hard opening to the album’s first track, Going Down on Love.  While the overt and frankly schoolboy innuendo of the chorus contradict the self-pitying sentiment in the verses, essentially the song is Lennon taking a hard look at what his long weekend has cost and he’s literally begging for help.    

Old Dirt Road meanders aimlessly and leads nowhere.  Overlong, it’s Jesse Ed Davies’ country-style guitar licks that make the song even remotely interesting.  

Old Dirt Road finally fades with Lennon’s repeated “Keep on keepin’ on..” and we the listener are blindside by the balls-to-the-wall funk that is What You Got.  The sentiment is basically the same as Going Down on Love, but Lennon’s vocal-chord tearing “Oh baby, baby, baby give me one more chance…” rivals that of young Lennon’s Twist and Shout.  While he’s not saying anything new, the pure pleading for forgiveness is raw, intense, and rock and roll.

From the fun/rock of What You Got, Lennon next offers the electric piano-laden ballad Bless You.  The melody is nice, as are the sentiments, again addressed to Yoko.  But the heavy use of electric piano dates the song, and not in a good way.  But Lennon’s vocal is pure magic. 

A wolf’s howl opens Scared, and the ominous chords and lead guitar usher us into one of Lennon’s best songs.  Lyrically as open and honest as anything on Plastic One Band, the song’s relentless pulse, coupled with Davis’ baleful guitar licks are hard to forget.  In fact, on LP, where the song is the last song on side one, the fade-out lingers as one flips the album and is comforted by the lush guitar opening of side two’s #9 Dream.

#9 Dream is a perfect song.  Not a whole lot more to say about it.  Lennon’s writing, singing, performing and especially production is simply spot-on.  No other song about dreams, and there are plenty, capture that state between sleeping and waking so accurately, and Lennon’s vocal floats along, some of his best lyrics in years, providing ethereal imagery.  Perfect.

It came as quite a surprise (surprise!) that Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradise) was a love song written not for Yoko, but rather May Pang.  It’s a terrific song, filled with Lennon’s own doubts and insecurities, which, apparently, May’s love was able to help him to forget.  It’s just strange that on an album with Bless You, What You Got and Going Down on Love, songs imploring Yoko’s forgiveness and hope of reconciliation, that Lennon would include a song boldly declaring “I need, need, need, need” as well as “I love, love, love, love…her” with the “her” in question being May Pang.  Whoever the inspiration, the song is great. 

Lennon once again sharpens his acerbic tongue for the sequel to How Do You Sleep?, Steel and Glass.  But while there was no mistaking who How Do You Sleep? was directed at, the target of Steel and Glass is somewhat more ambiguous.  Lennon even taunts us with the song’s opening: “This is a story about your friend and mine.  Who is it?  Who is it?  Who is it?”  Who it is is likely Allen Klein, the former business manager of the Fab three, the one that McCartney had to sue, along with the other three, to dissolve the Beatles.  But Lennon was still a friend of Klein during the writing and recording of the song, so if it is about Klein, it explains why Lennon’s lyrics were more generic than specific, as they had been in his jab at Paul.  In any event, the song is good, and his reusing the How Do You Sleep? riff for another pointed song is interesting.

The riff-heavy instrumental Beef Jerky is some good ol’ funky, toe-tapping filler.  

Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out) depressed the hell out of me when I first heard it and for years after.  It felt directed right at me, hitting me right between the eyes.  While the song could be directed at his critics, it really seems aimed at us, the fans, and we are summarily dismissed by “All I can say, it’s all show biz…”

The song became even harder to bear after Lennon’s murder.  The last line, the prophetic one, still haunts me:  “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.”

This is Lennon at his most raw.  There’s anger, self-pity, anguish, depression, isolation, and resentment.  The kind of song written in the middle of a sleepless night, probably a drunken sleepless night, but one Lennon obviously felt was true even in the cold light of day.  Lennon’s sarcastic whistling at the song’s fade is the capper on what has to be his most depressing song.  After listening to it, I feel obliged to say, “I’m sorry.”  And I am.

While it was placed on the album to meet a contractual obligation (which didn’t work), the snippet of John and son Julien playing Ya Ya eases the heartbreak of Down and Out a little.  It’s Julien’s drumming that can’t help but make one smile.

As with Mind Games, I wound up listening to both the 2005 Remastered and the Lennon Masters CD versions of Walls and Bridges, and as with Mind Games, there is more to hear in the ’05 Remastered editions.  The mix brings more separation and clarity to the various instruments and especially to the vocals.  This is most pronounced in Whatever Gets You Thru the Night.  In the Lennon Masters mix, the dominate voice seems to be more John, he of the Elton persuasion, rather than Lennon’s.  It’s for this reason, among others, that the song doesn’t sound like a Lennon song.  The 2005 mix brings Lennon’s vocal a bit more to the front, and the better separation of the two voices, on the ’05 mix, helps to distinguish between the two.

Finally, the album cover, of the actual LP, with it’s funky flaps that fold over to create various faces for Lennon… Wonderful!  It adds a sense of humor and lightness that perhaps belies some of the songs on the album, but does perfectly reflect others.  Inside the LP is also a wonderful 8-page booklet with the lyrics, performers, pictures of John as well as some of his drawings.  Plenty to look at and read while listening and listening again. 

Nearly a year since he released Band on the Run, McCartney and Wings released the single Junior’s Farm.  For a song recorded in Nashville, Junior’s Farm is a flat out rocker.  Paul’s pounding bass and especially new lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch’s scintillating solo and fills (“take me down, Jimmy”), Junior’s Farm picks up right where Band on the Run left off.  

Flipping the single over we discover Sally G, a song greatly influenced by it’s Nashville birthplace.  The story-song is bone fide country-western, complete with fiddle and steel guitar.  And it’s terrific.  When it comes to music styles, McCartney is a chameleon.  What better way to show that off than on a single-only rocker paired with a pure, down-home country song?

As with his previous album, the best song on Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna is the first track on side one written by Lennon.  Opening with Lennon’s jaunty “One and a two and a one, two three, four!” (It’s All Down to) Goodnight Vienna is a terrific little rocker perfectly suited to Ringo’s vocals.  Billy Preston’s clarinet pulses along with Lennon’s pounding piano and the song is just plain fun.

You’ll be singing, or at the very least humming Occapella for weeks after hearing it.  I don’t know if that’s good or not, but the song works and is just long enough to not overstay its welcome.

Oo-Wee is over-produced, with too many background vocals, horns and the like.  It’s a fairly innocuous song with a big lyrical plus for name-checking Jean Harlow.

The album crashes to a halt with Husbands and Wives.  Such an out-of-place snooze, a dreadful song dreadfully sung by Starr, simply stops the album dead.  Dead.

Another jaunty count-in, this time by Elton John, Snookeroo erases the aura created by the previous song (dreadful) and is a toe-tapping faux-Ringo-bio tune.  Cool guitar solo and licks by The Bands’ Robbie Robertson are highlight.

Ringo co-wrote side-two’s opening All By Myself.  Not much to the song, really.  The horn solo sounds a bit like the theme from The Dating Game.  That’s something.

Ringo was the sole author of Call Me.  Not much to this song either.  Lyrically and musically bland, with not even an interesting solo, game-show inspired or otherwise, to help shuffle it along.  

The No No Song got a lot, and I do mean a lot of radio play when I was growing up.  And I never tired of it, and found it funny every time I heard it.  Given Starr’s substance abuse, perhaps the song isn’t quite that funny after all, and it clearly wouldn’t fly today, but really, the song is simply hard to resist.  Harry Nilsson’s backing vocals are fun.

Ringo has a breathy quality to his singing on Only You, and at first it’s hard to tell it’s him at all.  Good choice for a cover, but the production is just too perfect.  Lennon’s dynamic acoustic guitar strumming at the open is the only place where the song has an edge.  

Over-over-over produced, Harry Nilsson’s Easy For Me is another album stopper. 

Fortunately the album doesn’t stop, and we get the reprise of Lennon’s opening song, this time introduced with Lennon saying “Okay, with gusto boys!  With gusto!”  At just over a minute, Goodnight Vienna (Reprise) is a nice bookend and it’s clear that everyone on the recording is having a good time.

While it has its moments, Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna is definitely a let down when compared with the previous album, Ringo.  Like Ringo, Goodnight Vienna has plenty of guest star talent, but obviously missing are Ringo’s two other former band mates, McCartney and Harrison.  It’s a bit surprising that McCartney didn’t even have a song to offer, but it’s really Harrison, who was so prevalent on Ringo, whose absence is most felt.