Tags
Today George was interviewed at Apple HQ by frequent Beatle interlocutor David Wigg. This was toward the beginning of the long and awkward period during which The Beatles were for all intents and purposes broken up, but danced around the subject in public. To wit:
George Harrison: All I’m doing, I’m acting out the part of Beatle George and, you know, we’re all acting out our own parts. The world is a stage and the people are the players. Shakespeare said that. And he’s right.
David Wigg: Do you expect another part, later?
GH: (giggles) Oh, many parts. Yes.
DW: Is that why you’ve come to terms with it?
GH: Yes, because you just do whatever you can do. I mean, even if it’s being a Beatle for the rest of my life, it’s still only a temporary thing. And, I mean really, all we did was get born and live so many years and this is what happened. I got born seemingly to become Beatle George. But it doesn’t really matter who you are or what you are, because that’s only a temporary sort of tag for a limited sort of period of years.
From there George segues, unprompted, into the subject of finances. Three years after Revolver, he still has it in for the Taxman:
I can tell you, everything material that we have, every 100 pounds we’ve earned, we’ve got 100 pounds worth of problems to balance it….
It’s very ironical in a way, because we’ve all got, maybe, a big house and a car and an office, but to actually get the MONEY that you’ve earned is virtually impossible. It’s like illegal to earn money. Well, not to earn it, it’s illegal to keep the money you earn. “You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper.” You know, that’s what we get.
In general Wigg is a lot more respectful of George than he had been of John and Yoko five months previously, even when George goes off at length about Hare Krishnaism:
GH: “Hare” is the word that calls upon the energy that’s around from the Lord. Whichever Lord you like, really. But in this case it happens to be Krishna… which is like the words that Christ said [that] became the Christian Bible. And the words that Krishna said became the sort of Hindu Bible called the Bhagwat Ghita. So it’s just by merely the repetition of that. It’s the same if you were just to go round chanting Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ. If you say it long enough then you build up this identification. Whatever you identify with, you become one with it. So it’s really a method of becoming one with God.
DW: I see.
When Wigg brings up the subject of George’s contributions to Abbey Road, he gets a little snippy:
GH: I’ve been writing for a couple of years now. And there’s been lots of songs I’ve written which I haven’t got ’round to recording. So, you know, in my own mind I don’t see what the fuss is, because I’ve heard these songs before and I wrote them, you know quite a while back. And it’s really nice that people like the songs, but…
DW: You don’t look upon yourself as a late developer as regards songwriting then? Because it’s kind of hit everyone in that way, you know.
GH: Late, early, you know. What’s late and what’s early?
DW: (laughs) But you hadn’t really got the reputation as yet as a songwriter, had you?
GH: No, no. I wasn’t Lennon or I wasn’t McCartney. I was me. And the only reason I started to write songs was because I thought, well if they can write them, I can write them. You know, ’cuz really, everybody can write songs if they want to.
But at the same time George is careful to be positive about all his bandmates, praising “Because,” “Octopus’s Garden,” “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and “Golden Slumbers.” “You know, Paul always writes nice melodies,” he muses. “In fact, I don’t know where he finds them half the time.”
At the end of the interview the subject of the future of The Beatles comes up again, and George continues to be evasive:
DW: Would you like to see the Beatles performing on stage live again?
GH: Uhh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind playing, you know. I like playing the guitar with people and singing a few songs and stuff. But I don’t know as to going on clubs and things like that.
DW: Yes. You can’t split, can you.
GH: No, well, I think it’s mental. It’s a mental concept. But to physically or spiritually split is impossible. Well, maybe not physically, I mean, spiritually, it’s, you know, you can’t split.
DW: No. So that doesn’t bother you.
GH: Because, if you’re listening, I’m the Walrus too.
The Walrus. Always the Walrus. As it should be.