Hmmm... this "Crackerbox Palace" song sounds new...

I love "Crackerbox Palace" and the album is actually my favorite George solo album (sorry, ATMP fans).

 

I too first heard this song and saw the video for it on SNL in 1976 the year I got married. Great little song and one of the first music videos.

 

My disappointment with George's efforts after the spectacular All Things Must Pass was that he issued so many slow, maudlin ballads. As a result, after Dark Horse in 1974 I gave up on buying his albums until Cloud Nine appeared in 1987. During that time he would only rarely return to the same George Harrison who was capable of giving us such great upbeat, melodic rockers as Here Comes the Sun and Crackerbox Palace. I understand that he had an apparently overwhelming desire to infuse so many of his songs with sprituality, but it often seemed as though he lost sight of the fact that sprituality could also be expressed in joyous terms.

 

I was in jr. high school when that song came out. It was on the radio enough, but I never thought too much of the song. Also, at that time, the name George Harrison wasn't on my radar. Seriously!

This all should have been part of that "Confessions" thread.

Uh...no.

 

I like the song a lot, I bought the single when it was released. I think I have another copy, I know I have 33 and 1/3 on an album.

 

I'm okay on Crackerbox but I much prefer This Song. George rocked out in the style of Delaney & Bramlett's glorious Soul Shake.
Great production, a jaunty piano and wailing sax is about as joyous as he got outside of Here Comes The Sun.

 

It's a sweet song. Off a sweet album. Must be the production

 

Loved it when it came out, love it now. Some of the lyrics (that really struck me way back when) are more relevant now than in 1976:

While you're a part of Crackerbox Palace
Do what the rest all do
Or face the fact that Crackerbox Palace
May have no other choice than to deport you

 

It's a pleasant, listenable George song, and so much better than some of his other work. But I don't think it's anywhere near his greatest.

I always thought there was a tongue-in-cheek nod to MMT in this video.

 

I didn't know this song till it just popped on on suggestions on YouTube, and I absolutely adore the fun video for it!

 

Right around the minute mark of the video, you can see George as he was on his way to rehearse with his AC/DC cover band.

 

Maybe someone else can find a better picture of it, but this was the real Crackerbox Palace--Lord Buckley's home:

 

Always liked that song from day of its release.Like what was mentioned a glimpse into Friars Park.

 

I liked how George looked so much happier than on the cover of ATMP, and how the stone gnomes came to life in this video...

No surprise, given the participants and of George was apparently a funny guy, funding Python projects and the like...

 

I don't think I heard this song until obtaining an old aircheck tape from WPLJ-FM NYC about 15 years ago - i forget the year of the tape but it was probably 1977 or even 1979.

HAD to track this song down once I heard it there.

 

I'd have to still go with "All Things Must Pass" as my absolute fave, it's got the breadth being a double (triple), & it's everything it's cracked up to be & more, but... I think that "Thirty-Three & 1/3" is right up there with "All Things Must Pass" in pretty much every way- a total masterpiece and one of his two greatest solo works. Not far behind that at all would be my bronze medal winning, 3rd place album "Brainwashed"! I think "Concert For Bangladesh" & "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" are that great too.

After that it's a second tier trio of albums in a log jam- "Living In The Material World", "George Harrison" & "Cloud 9" (and "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3")...

 

Heck, I remember hearing this song a lot on AM radio when I was a little kid and all I had was a little transistor radio. I'm a little surprised the OP had never heard it before, but maybe it was just a right time/right place kind of thing.

 

Yes indeed, that's what I was thinking - he looks so healthy and like he's really having fun with all the dressing up and his mates being there as well - and the gnomes of Friar Park is a great touch as well

It all reminds me somewhat of those classic Madness videos of the early '80s

 

Is that Pattie at 1:10 in the video? She already would have been separated from but not divorced from George at this point.
Is that Olivia on the left at 2:23 in the video? Looking real good to me....
That would be so cool to tour Friar Park. Does Olivia live there alone now? She could open it up for tours like Graceland.

 

No, it's not her.

I think so. It looks like her.

Given the incident with the knife-wielding intruder years ago, I doubt she'd be eager to open up her home to strangers.

 

I'd say yes to Olivia but Patti would have been doubtful I would have thought - wiki also agrees that Olivia is in the video...

A whimsical promotional film accompanied the single and was first shown on 20 November 1976, episode of Saturday Night Live. Directed by Monty Python's Eric Idle, the film featured Harrison, Neil Innes (as the carriage-pushing nanny/mother, a bathrobe-clad man with a duck on his head, and as a church authority),[2] future wife Olivia Arias, John Cleese and various other friends, in an array of wild costumes.

 

John Cleese's cameo is a bit of an urban legend I think. He doesn't appear in the video but there is someone who almost resembles him.

The general also seems to be based on Graham Chapman's character from Monty Python.

 

Lovely song that flashes me back to a very good time in my life.

 

Yep, no Cleese in that clip. I just edited the entry in wikipedia to remove his name.