Martin Scorsese's George Harrison documentary 'Living In The Material World'

On HBO 'in the autumn' then on DVD from October!
http://www.nme.com/news/george-harrison/58015

If it's half as good as No Direction Home, consider me psyched.

wtf

http://www.guitarworld.com/files/imagecache/featured-node/georgeharrison.jpg

super-stoked but also totally surprised by this

ok wau

bit gutted this is on HBO before coming to DVD. is there anywhere you can pay for/stream/ watch HBO if you're in the UK?

I hope we get an extended Paul monologue in which he finally admits how much he hated George's guts.

haha aw c'mon now. we'll get Macca on *mega* respectful form i'm guessing.

Sound more appealing to me than the Dylan doc tbh, since Harrison seems like much less of an already-analyzed-to-death figure.

I love that poster.

was reading a bit about this in a recent conversations w/ scorsese book, i think he said it was kind of like a sequel to Kundun, haha.

it was Lennon that hated Harrison's guts iirc

I think George hated Paul far more than the other way around. Paul was casually dismissive, and when George finally told him to go fuck himself, Paul was all, "Whuh? What'd I do? Oh, right, I ignored you and belittled your talents."

treated him like a little kid, refused to play on his songs, etc.

I think it was only later when Paul became totally overbearing that they became united in their disdain

I think George hated Paul far more than the other way around.

also this

The song "what is life" has been kicking my ass this week. Will watch this.

haha I can understand why John and Paul would belittle him or at best underestimate him. What's the Lennon quote? "It wasn't a conspiracy to keep him out -- it's that his songs weren't up to scratch."

John actually refusing to work on George's stuff is such a dick move tho

Looking forward to this, but I have a little less faith in Marty after his Stones doc. Also, the subject matter is dead, so who knows how this will go.

I don't know if he refused; he just wasn't in the room when "I Me Mine" and "Here Comes The Sun" were recorded.

I'm thinking of stuff earlier than that...?

I'm not sure I would play on "I Me Mine" either.

Lennon's not on Long, Long, Long

What's the Lennon quote? "It wasn't a conspiracy to keep him out -- it's that his songs weren't up to scratch."

if lennon actually said this then some annoyance on george's part is understandable, considering by the last year or so of the group's existence george was coming up with things like 'something' and 'here comes the sun' while john was coming up with things like 'dig a pony' and 'dig it.'

or Savoy Truffle

xp

I sympathize with George. The most terrible part about being George Harrison is becoming friends with bandmates you met when you were twelve and then realizing that two of them wre going to keep talking to you as if you were twelve for the rest of your life.

In related news, Gretsch announced this week the new George Harrison signature model Duo Jet, which he is holding in both these pictures:

http://beatlesblogger.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/harrison-gretsch.jpg

http://www.fakeplasticrock.com/wp-content/uploads/harrison-gretsch.jpg

xxxp Yeah, much more important for everyone to spend time on a 30-minute version of fucking "Dig It" than on "I Me Mine."

the three songs suck

'i me mine' is excellent!

I'll take "It's All Too Much" or "Long Long Long."

http://www.fakeplasticrock.com/wp-content/uploads/harrison-gretsch.jpg

can't wait for intel inside to issue their tie-in signature george harrison disgusting chipset shirt

'i me mine' is excellent!

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, July 14, 2011 6:03 PM Bookmark

I always hear it as a complaint about his bandmates, which gives it a nice bite.

the irony of which is that without Paul's tempo change the thing would be a dirge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnx87LIDO9k

First time I've heard him speak. Not exactly chock-full of charisma is he? And they're his best sound bites?

Yes, those are his best soundbites. You learned more from that 2-minute video than anyone else who has spent a lifetime keeping up with George Harrison.

The only anecdotal evidence I've read of how much fun Harrison could supposedly be is in Tom Petty's Conversations With, in which he describes what a hoot the Wilburys sessions were, thanks to George in large part.

George could be pretty funny: his little skit with Lorne Michaels on SNL, appearing in The Rutles, his guest voice on the Simpsons...

George has always been my favorite for that reason.

I like that trailer--I love No Direction Home, and the trailer makes me optimistic.

I'm assuming Marty was in on the ground floor of this one.

Relative to the Dylan doc, yes, he was.

You must mean something a friend told me, that No Direction Home was completely orchestrated by Dylan. Whatever the case, a great film came out of it.

It was great, definitely. It's just that most of it -- the archival stuff, obviously, but also the later interviews -- was shot before Scorsese came on board as "director."

marty was in the ground floor of everything: he helped make woodstock

he liked 'the ladies' shock horror. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/sep/04/beatles-george-harrison-martin-scorsese

According to Charlie Watts (in Peter Doggett's depressing but indispensable You Never Give Me Your Money), the attack on George by the intruder was far worse than it was made out to be at the time.

Two of the former Beatles being murdered would have almost defied credibility. It really is a weird world.

Also this is why McCartney tours all the time now and lives in the ass end of nowhere. "Nobody's getting' close to me, mate!"

yeah Dogget's book is an amazing thing; properly eye-opening.

According to Charlie Watts (in Peter Doggett's depressing but indispensable You Never Give Me Your Money), the attack on George by the intruder was far worse than it was made out to be at the time.

yeah. Keef's obit in Rolling Stone published at the time said the same.

A friend of the family was a schoolmate of Olivia, and got back in touch back in the day (mid eighties)..

For a long while, she'd go over to see her in Henley, George wasn't about, everything was cool. Then one day, he stuck his head round the door to say Hi, and she was like "OMGit'sreallyGeorgeHarrisonOTB, andhe'sgorgeousinreallifeOKmfghlgnhrrttrrrr"...

Some time later, Olivia was telling her that it was great that they could still be mates, because usually when she introduced her friends to George, they would all get giggly/flirty, and George, being "only human", would get all 'interested' etc... and she wasn't acting like that.

(Of course, she didn't have the heart to tell her she was being very restrained..)

So, yeah.

Other story..

So, she'd come over to visit (our friend, obv), and was telling us all this.

After she'd gone, my mother was quite keen for me to give her my copy of "I me mine" that I had bought second-hand for an autograph. I repliend that I'd be more interested in giving her one of my demo tapes instead. At which point my mother was "YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!!! TELL ME YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!!!"

At which point I confirmed that not only was I not intending to give her the tape, I wasn't even going to give her the book either, either of those things being a massive imposition on her, and actually they were both the same thing.

Next time she came over, I told her the above, and she confirmed that she'd love an autograph herself but it would definitely change the nature of the 'relationship'...

Film Comment sez it's short on "the material world":

http://www.filmlinc.com/film-comment/article/george-harrison-living-in-the-material-world

couple clips of MS video conf:

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/10/it_was_radicalm.php

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/10/scorsese_harris.php

I had forgotten George was raised Catholic... now it all makes sense.

this is beginning a 'one-week' theater run in NYC today, coinciding w/ HBO premiere; wonder if that will throw chaos into polls as to whether it 'counts' as cinema.

are you catching this, in either platform, morbs? i kinda can't get excited about it in more than a 'looking forward to watching it in the holidays at my parents'' kinda way, the talking heads thing not really like 'a scorsese film'. wondered if you were interested as a GH fan more than for late-period marty.

does Morbs live in the material world?

Can I bittorrent this yet?

If it doesn't count for year-end lists, I don't have time to see it! DVD will do just fine.

I bought that deluxe version of All Things Must Pass when it came out. Maybe I played it once. I don't focus on music anymore, and hardly ever listen to anything but WFMU.

Anyone read Bill Wyman's negative review in Slate?

There are two ways to look at George Harrison. The nicer one is that he was a top-line and underappreciated guitarist, good enough to have spent many years as a close friend and occasional collaborator of Eric Clapton's; that he wrote at least two classic songs ("Something," and "Here Comes the Sun," two more than most songwriters write) and another half-dozen quite good ones; that he was one of the original rock humanitarians; and that, all in all, given a career he could never have dreamed of, he made his way through it with a great deal of dignity. Like John Lennon, he suffered a grievous assault for no other reason but that he was famous (a knife attack on the eve of the millennium, which nearly killed him); and he died too young, of lung cancer, in 2001, not yet 60.

The other and arguably more realistic appraisal might be that George Harrison's contributions as a guitarist were pretty much limited to a few Beatles riffs and the fine and quite recognizable slide sound he developed in his solo years. That producing two great songs after 10 intimate years with two of the top songwriters of the 20th century isn't awfully surprising, and that even if you throw in the other half-dozen, the total isn't much for a recording career that spanned almost 40 years; that most of his Beatles songs are inferior; that his voice was weak; that he was more than a bit of a mope; that he thoroughly embarrassed himself on his only American tour; and that the greater share of his solo work was poor, and that some of it was dreadful.

You can imagine which side of this Scorsese takes.

Bill Wyman must have been stuck in fog when he wrote that.

Which is why you need to read the rest.

hat he wrote at least two classic songs

fuck off he wrote a bunch more than that

No he didn't. As Wyman says, during the Beatles he wrote several very good ones.

HELLO

hi, tim!

ILM trax poll ranked Long Long Long as the highest ranking George song btw

Taxman, My Guitar Gently Weeps etc

guessing Wyman is not a big "Crackerbox Palace" fan

guessing Dr. Morbius is?

haha, Wyman actually singles out "Crackerbox" as one of Harrison's better post-ATMP solo songs.

Wyman, though, is decidedly hit-or-miss. His review of Truth Or Dare complained about how some of the sequences were obviously staged. See, Bill, the point of the movie...eh, never mind.

You know whose song titles Charlie Manson didn't choose to leave behind at murders? JOHN LENNON, THAT'S WHO. Take that, Wyman.

The other and arguably more realistic appraisal might be that George Harrison's contributions as a guitarist were pretty much limited to a few Beatles riffs and the fine and quite recognizable slide sound he developed in his solo years.

This is just stupid talk.

i sat next to wyman at a dylan concert! nice guy. he seemed amazed that someone would know who he was -- i remembered a few things he'd written for salon.

i think george wrote at least a dozen 'great' songs for the beatles, but i'm one of those ppl who thinks 'don't bother me' is a great song. the only bad george tracks are the covers from the first few albums.

Even some of those are good. He shares lead vocal on the superb "You've Really Got A Hold On Me," and "Devil In Her Heart" is all-time when it comes to George tracks.

'm one of those ppl who thinks 'don't bother me' is a great song.

yes -- and better than a lot of what George wrote later.

Don't Bother Me is amazing - so murky/echo-drenched

It's amazing for coming fully formed: this, for better or worse, was the George Harrison persona we'd become familiar with.

Tremolo guitar is awesome on that.

I still need to pick up those post-Material World albums, I have the sneaking suspicion they might just be under-rated like some of Paul's 70's output...

he had to get the boys to help him with the words to Something aswell if one were to be uncharitable; there's a bit of taped in-studio banter where he's asking what to sing in the chorus. but yeah i mean he was George Harrison! cut him some slack.

also this: producing two great songs after 10 intimate years with two of the top songwriters of the 20th century isn't awfully surprising

i wonder if it's easy to come up with Here Comes The Sun just because you've been in studios for years with the blokes that wrote Maxwell's Silver Hammer and What's The New Mary Jane? i dunno. i mean.. maybe.

My retort: George could do it, and Ringo couldn't be bothered.

I still need to pick up those post-Material World albums, I have the sneaking suspicion they might just be under-rated like some of Paul's 70's output...

I've been making cases for the Dark Horse-period albums for many years. I think they have a nice, fairly unified sound throughout with a lot of brightness, not too cluttered, clever arrangements.

There's a lot to be said for his songwriting on those records, too, and his voice sounded good in that period.

i'm looking forward to this but i kind of wish scorsese had done a film about ringo.

I'll definitely check them out, tim!

A film about Ringo would definitely be something.... but what that something is I don't know

I still need to pick up those post-Material World albums, I have the sneaking suspicion they might just be under-rated like some of Paul's 70's output...

All of the Beatles solo material is uneven - there are some high points (of which ATMP is the highest and most consistent, imho) - George's 70s records are really no worse than Lennon's or McCartney's. And by the 80s, George still had a couple decent sneaky singles in him (Cheer Down, Dream Away) unlike Paul and Ringo.

Ringo kinda had the most interesting childhood of any Beatle!

xp Shakey pretty much OTM although I will rep for carloads of Paul's 80s singles. But even "Save The World" doesn't reach the depths of badness on, say, "Spies Like Us."

Like if you don't like "Take It Away" or "This One" or "My Brave Face" …

George sucked because he couldn't sing. At least Paul could.

George always needed help or worked best in collaborations, tense or otherwise: the Beatles, the Ringo singles he wrote and produced, Jeff Lynne, the Wilburys.

Paul as producer was so carried away by his own whimsy that the tension between it and his commercial instinct produced the fantastic batshittery of his best Wings singles and "Press."

George always needed help or worked best in collaborations

this is true of all the Beatles btw

always liked this one from 33 1/3

George always needed help or worked best in collaborations

er wait

i'm kinda serious -- i feel like i know all i really need to know about george and paul, maybe more than i needed to know about john, but ringo's kind of a total mystery. it's too bad he's never written a book.

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

True in the general sense. John and Paul were better record makers. In the seventies John was often boring but never sank below the perfunctory, while George simply didn't give a damn after 1973 and before 1987, and you can hear it.

I do like "Blow Away."

Cheer Down is the business, I know that :D Shall see what I find next time I hit up the record shops!

Shakey, do you mean ATMP is the highest point of all the Beatles solos? Cos I think I agree with that, not just in terms of individual songs, but in terms of a successful coherent statement. Paul obviously isn't thinking about it much in his haze of dope and encroaching mediocrity as the years wear on, and John just falls short either in lyrics or melodies on his records and so the whole suffers. But ATMP, as an album, seems to not really dip. (blah, blah, etc)

I guess I would say Paul needed someone to edit his worse ideas/reign him in more than he needed someone else's playing or input to prop up his stuff. I will grant that Paul is the only one who made a front-to-back classic all by himself (Ram - yes I know Linda "sings" on it)

Shakey, do you mean ATMP is the highest point of all the Beatles solos?

yes

The disgracefully titled Extra Texture (Read All About It) is in the running for one of the most wretched albums ever released by a supposed major artist. It's depressing in ways that listening to Joy Division never is.

Well, a lot of those ATMP songs were written at the high point of intraband tension, which was marvelous for George's muse but not his temperament.

George sucked because he couldn't sing.

This is a hobbyhorse of yours that I just don't get. His parts on, say, "Because" and "Yes It Is" and "All My Loving" and "This Boy" and many others are a) crucial to the success of the songs and b) as well executed as John's and Paul's parts. Not to mention his own "I Want To Tell You," "It's All Too Much," "WMGGW," etc.

this is true of all the Beatles btw

QFT

I guess I wasn't clear: George sucked when he went solo.

"Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" are lovely, and he boasts about five or six good Beatles songs. His guitar, harmonies, and absolute distaste for sentimentality -- a rarity with sixties artists -- are treasures.

But he's no neglected classic.

I'll grant that Extra Texture is pretty bad but it does have this gem on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKCLgEqd9x0

A little bleary, so my points confused - but I mean Paul's lyrics seem to me like nonsense/words that sound nice together and a lot of John's songs don't convince, like he's spreading an idea too thin over an album. This all seems a bit simplistic, reading it back. But there's a lot of even John's best records that seem really undercooked to me, like How? or Remember. He gets laboured with some of the conceits, I guess.

Xpost to Alfred, I don't think any Beatle's a neglected classic at this stage.... Even Ringo.

Pete best

Ringo's not neglected, he's the GREATEST!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_vKu2xoJaM

Ringo's unshaking self-confidence and reluctance to take himself seriously is his greatest gift.

*are

Eh, chacon a ses gouts, I guess. "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" is like GOAT territory for me. Among others.

On the other hand I will fight to the death to defend those Wilburys records, on which George's snark is essential.

xxxpost - I am the greatest sounds like the Nilsson/Beatle collaboration that never was :)

Phil, "Give Me Love" is a good example of what I mean. The melody is gorgeous and the arrangement intricately worked out, but George the singer can't hit those notes.

Again, though, Alfred he settled into a nicer sounding voice in the later '70s and after. I was always struck by that famous Wilburys song where they trade off verses. George holds his own voice-wise with everybody, including Orbison.

Also very much disagree that he "didn't care" and "didn't know how to make records." No one made records that sounded like those late-'70s/early '80s albums. They are really cool sounding and I never hear anyone else say it!

"Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" are lovely, and he boasts about five or six good Beatles songs

eh, i count more than that: 'don't bother me,' 'if i needed someone,' 'think for yourself,' 'taxman,' 'within you without you' (prob a divisive one, but i can't imagine pepper without it), 'old brown shoe,' 'long long long,' 'while my guitar gently weeps,' 'savoy truffle,' 'i me mine.' maybe 'not guilty,' if that counts.

i always had the sense that ATMP was mostly made up of songs he'd been stocking up over the previous few years since there wasn't room for more than 1-2 'george songs' on any of the albums, which accounts for its outstanding quality.

yeah I dunno how far back all those ATMP albums date - there are demos from the White Album for a few, but I doubt there's anything older than that.

ATMP SONGS that should say

Ringo doc would be awesome. Someone get the interviews in the can before he kicks the bucket, though he will outlive us all.

No one made records that sounded like those late-'70s/early '80s albums. They are really cool sounding and I never hear anyone else say it!

cuz it's not true? lol

They sound like any mainstream studio rock record. I get better kicks from Boz Scaggs and the Doobies.

My favorite Harrisongs besides the two obvious ones: "Don't Bother Me," "If I Needed Someone," "Savoy Truffle," "I Want to Tell You," "Long Long Long," and "Old Brown Shoe."

They sound like any mainstream studio rock record.

Nah, he very much had his own style. I like the guitar playing a lot on records like 33 1/3, the self-titled album, and Gone Troppo and the production's really crisp.

Tim, is there anything produced by R.E.M., George, or Barack Obama that you won't defend?

I do admire your instincts -- I want you in my corner!

Oh sure. I'm not saying those albums are huge blockbuster masterpieces. But I like him a lot and there are quite a few songs that I like on those records - songwriting, playing, production, the whole business.

xp

Like "That's the Way It Goes" on Gone Troppo, to give one *deep cut* as an example. Really nice song.

Savoy Truffle is so bad. Not quite Piggies bad, but fairly unlistenable all the same.

Harrison hits his high notes at least as well as Taylor Swift hits hers. (And I like Swift jftr.)

part of me wants to insist that 'plastic ono band' is better than ATMP, and the other part of me insists that the album i imagined when i first heard of 'plastic ono band' was always better than the actual album.

which one

haha

Damn, y'all. What happens if I say Geir Hongro Geir Hongro Geir Hongro itt?

You just killed Steve Jobs. Next time, be more careful!

Apple Scruffs

hasn't this been on tv in the states? anyone seen it if so? it's out on DVD over here on Monday!

haven't watched it yet, it was on hbo yesterday and today (haha).

george's beatles songs are almost all, 100%, classic. his post-beatles output past all things, not so much, I agree. there are real dregs in there. but there are cool bits here and there. i like a good portion of 33 1/3, george harrison, and lots of stuff on somewhere in england. but dark horse, extra, even living in the material world...blech.

Remaster of Somewhere in England sounds great!

Oh, and Gone Troppo - marvelous. Just listening to the clips on iTunes - never heard these remasters before.

Wyman review of the doc Al linked upthread is devastating -- and spot on, I think.

Alfred and Tim on a George Harrison thread are like these two guys
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NJVkvjUxyWA/SgJRSiGuvdI/AAAAAAAABWQ/oLqdnVuXd1U/s400/800px-Bele_and_Lokai.jpg

This version of Run of the Mill is the shit.

http://youtu.be/hSIJLUQOVcM

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

Just watched this. Eh.....alright. The Beatles stuff, you've seen it a million times, but feels like Scorsese has been watching all the Anthology and other docs and purposefully decided to leave in stuff you haven't heard. There are quite a few new stories and unseen footage (love that color bit where the early Beatles are playing a ballroom birthday party or something).

But the whole doc is like 60% Beatles, 20% ATMP, and 20% the rest of his life. Unfortunately, it sort of trails off from the "Living in the Material World" album and aside from the Travelling Willburys doesn't mention a single other song or album he did afterward. Not even a nod to "Got My Mind Set On You", which yeah is silly, but it's an effing awesome track.

I was kinda hoping to hear more about the Jodorowsky connection, what with him being considered for the Holy Mountain role (?) and all.

As Wyman notes, we get:

1. No explanation of why the guy needed so much spiritual healing, despite about 100 minutes dedicated to his meditating and chanting.
2. No insight into his musical gifts -- literally, we get 90 seconds on his slide playing, nothing about his unique harmonic stuff.
3. Two brief, conflicting stories about the Patti Boyd thing -- and nothing about the whole deal w George wanting to get w her sister.
4. Nothing at all about his endearingly odd lifelong hatred of the taxman (which might have dovetailed nicely w Dhani's story about him telling a cop to fuck off).
5. Some vagueness about him maybe having affairs...but nothing more.
6. One minor mention of his pathetic American tour -- and no discussion as to his massive creative collapse following it.
7. No discussion of a single song recorded between All Things Must Pass and Traveling Wilburys. Nothing from Jeff Lynne.
8. No insight into the re-recording of "All Those Years Ago" with Paul, Linda and Ringo after John was killed.
9. No discussion about how he felt about the Beatles reunion.
10. No medium at all of the trial around "My Sweet Lord" -- or the fact that he may well have intentionally ripped "He's So Fine."

I found it enjoyable enough while I was watching. But I agree w Wyman that Scorsese really didn't do Harrison's legacy any favors avoiding all the things that made him interesting.

Yep.

I agree pretty much. Could have, should have been way better. But still, all that rare footage, the songs, etc. and it is well worth watching at any rate. I wouldn't recommend buying the DVD though.

I too, want that Ringo doc!

why the guy needed so much spiritual healing

He was, I think, a devout Hindu and Hinduism actually has an answer for this: that birth is the root cause of suffering. That may not explain the details of his particular situation, but it does explain the larger issue.

I like the part where Olivia says something like "He had to work out alot of karma over his life. If you asked someone if they wanted to live a standard life or go through 5 lifetimes to work the karma out, he would have chosen the latter." Sort of touches on that.

She actually says he would have chosen the former, right? I saw that clip.

Also, I think suffering can be day-to-day and not tied in with specific traumatic events. So the question is how one would deal with that in a documentary context.

Yeah, well I meant living 5 lives worth of karma in one. That's what he would've chosen.

Wish someone would dig up that "Something" harpsichord rehearsal from the "Piggies" sessions...

So, it was because he was born?

Getting out of the birth-and-death cycle of samsara ain't nothing.

karma's a bitch

What about cesarian?

How long did Wyman want this to be? Some of his objections seem pedantic. It's made pretty clear that GH slept around - do we have to have names and numbers?

There could have been more on the music I guess but I found all the non-musical activity filled out his personality and said more about how he saw his role as an ex-Beatle, ie using clout to get shit done while also having fun. I can't say that at any point I found myself thinking, "Fuck this, where's Jeff Lynne?" The studio footage of the Wilburys, with its horrific leisure wear and rich-guys-goofing-around vibe, told me more about them than Lynne could.

Put it this way: I'd rather watch Scorsese's take than Wyman's.

The studio footage of the Wilburys, with its horrific leisure wear and rich-guys-goofing-around vibe, told me more about them than Lynne could.

That they were confident about their ability to write funny, sharp tunes without putting on airs?

I didn't even mean that negatively (apart from the leisure wear). I just mean you get a powerful sense from the footage of why they were doing it and how much they enjoyed it - it doesn't need earnest talking-head explication. It is intensely redolent of life in the rock elite in the late 80s though.

srsly, if you want a full exposition of his life, influences and situations, buy the book.

If there is one, of course. The McCartney one "Fab" is excellent, is there one for George?

Well, for a documentary so interested in biography at the expense of music it's obvious that a few quotes from the Wilbury years would have illuminated how and why Harrison bloomed in their company – aesthetically too – and not, say, Paul's.

Maybe. The chemistry made sense to me just from the studio footage and Petty's comments but then documentaries, like biographies, are always going to have omissions that seem minor to some and egregious to others.

bloomed in their company – aesthetically too – and not, say, Paul's.

Weary of this meme. I suppose they had their differences.

Have to say, Paul gives 100% on bass and background vocals on George's Beatle songs.

^^^^ Seriously, Paul's work on "Something," "I Want To Tell You," "Think For Yourself, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," "Piggies," etc. is superlative. If asked to name Paul's greatest bass work in The Beatles, most people would almost certainly say "Something" or "Taxman."

Plus that blistering solo on "Taxman" which is also Paul.

That's not at all what I meant, which is my fault for not being clear. A more probing approach to this biography would have gotten to the roots of the Paul-George tension: interviewing Petty, Eric Idle, Lynne, and Clapton about why he loved their company.

Because those guys got to hang out with a Beatle, then found that they shared a sense of humour and/or outlook, and such like, and became firm friends.

As opposed to 'got a kid to join the band, became mates, spent a lot of time living in each others pockets, had a 'bro' relationship with all that entails, etc'

Didin't manage to stay up for all of last night's but this is quite interesting.

In the two-hour chunk I saw on Saturday, only one talking head (Clapton) made this explicit. I liked his remarks about the horror show he would have entered had he joined the Beatles.

Do they talk about Handmade Films at any point?

Yes they do, with some of the Pythons.

Re: whether or not it's probing enough, I like the way it chooses to show rather than tell. The anecdote about George inviting Hell's Angels to hang out for days on end at the Apple offices and then being called on to get rid of them says so much about his sense of humour and his sense of remove from the business of the Beatles. I got a clear sense that he set out to be a different person after the Beatles, to seek out the right company and pursue his own varied interests. I think the Paul friction was more to do with the situation than the personalities. The strain was intolerable.

For me the first part was about the effect of intense fame and the second was about how you deal with it for the rest of your life.

1. No explanation of why the guy needed so much spiritual healing, despite about 100 minutes dedicated to his meditating and chanting.

this is a stupid question, stopped reading

See, I wanted a five-minute section explaining how George fell in love with Belinda Carlisle's music.

Maybe in the DVD extras?

Apparently he was very fond of her voice

i really want to see this

I liked the TW part alot. Mainly because as soon as I saw Roy Orbison my heart lept. But I like how they described the writing process, sort of like that Metallica movie where everyone throws out words, but with actually good songwriters and no psychiatric involvement.

Also, I got the impression from the film that they wrote "Handle With Care" purely as instrumental and then only came up with the words later, based on Tom Petty randomly seeing a "Handle With Care" sticker. Is that true?

According to Petty in Conversations With..., George already brought the chordal structure and most of the music (it was supposed to be a George b-side), then he and Lynne wrote the music for the Orbison section (Orbison presumably wrote the words; Petty doesn't say). Petty and Dylan wrote their section.

That Orbison section SLAYS.

Also every time I see Bob Dylan in that part it's LOL time.

The rest of the songs were true collaborations. The clip from the Orbison documentary released a few years ago shows George and the rest with legal pads testing rhymes for "Last Nite."

Well, this was pretty underwhelming, not sure what Scorsese was bringing to the party, the BBC docu. on Beatlemania that followed it was better. Maybe I'm just not interested enough in George Harrison. I've not heard any GH solo albums beyond "All Things" because an old flatmate of mine had this book:

http://ca.pbsstatic.com/l/51/0451/9780517520451.jpg

... and they just absolutely flay his solo albums mercilessly as humourless, self-righteous preachy bores.

^^^ I haven't read that book in years – since I was fifteen. It was one of my first exposures to the killing of sacred cows.

I don't at all agree with his hyperventilating over Band on the Run though.

Watched this over the weekend; thought it was rather dull. It does seem like George made some great friends and they miss him dearly, which was nice to see. I didn't feel like those interviewed were at all disingenuous about their affection.

For people who liked the Wilbury footage, I can't recommend the documentary that came with the re-release a few years ago highly enough. One of the few "throw in" dvds that I've watched more than once.

(x post)

Thats the book where (1975 version) they estimate in the afterword that John is down to his last £50k. Only about £200m out.

If I remember correctly he does like George 's 33 1/3.

Ha, I read that 1975 version too, which was of course before Thirty Three & 1/3 (aka Thirty Three & 1/ॐ

i turned it off after about an hour. boring

I thought this dragged a bit midway through the second disc, but for the most part I liked it. It became evident pretty quickly that chronology and facts weren't a big concern--you go from Hamburg to Sullivan in what seems like two minutes. And Scorsese is invisible; I'd read that he was going to be more hands-on here than in the Dylan film, but I couldn't see any evidence of that. Lots of great still images--there's a really beautiful colour one mid-'60s of George with his parents that I wish I could find online. Not that much explanation or analysis of things that have been explained and analyzed a million times already; footage of a bearded David Hemmings arriving at some strange event is sometimes enough. I always love listening to George Martin, and Paul and Ringo speak movingly of George's death.

yeah Ringo on George at the end was especially heartbreaking. most surprising bit = George trying to sue Ringo at one point in the 70s, as retold in that 1980s Micheal Aspel interview. never knew anything about that beforehand!

The one thing that stuck with me on this was the footage on the beach George and Olivia shot near the end of his life. The shots of their shadows on the sand definitely captured something -- a kind of peacefulness and wonder that, frankly, was missing from the rest of the thing.

"George Harrison was a very sensual person. If you ate food he wanted it to have a flavour."

Thought this may have been a Scorsese documentary on Madonna for a second. Read George Harrison last.

http://i.imgur.com/0Psd4.jpg

wow!

Just finished part one of this. Man, this is a slog. And I say this as one who has loved every other Scorsese music doc (yes, even Shine a Light).

