George Harrison's Brainwashed revisited

If it makes you happy that's good. For me it sounds a little under produced. In spite of the serious tone the lyrics have, because he was so sick, the music itself, is kind of a catchy pop tune, without the bigger vocals, strings additional guitars or keyboards, one might expect. His voice was in a pretty weakened state, after a partial lung removal.... you might try & compensate with more doubling or tight close vocal harmony. Just stuff they chose not to do. They certainly heard what I'm thinking more or less, but agreed with you. I just don't think they brought this one all the way home. Sounds like it needs something to me. But remember Harrison admonished Jeff Lynne, not to bury the album in too much production, and Lynne didin't. He made a few songs 'bigger' cause he thought it was needed, Rising Sun, Any Road. I think Never Get Over you, needed something badly, strings, vocals, but he only gave in on a few songs, Rising Sun, Any Road, Stuck Inside A Cloud. I just think the ones where Lynne went a bit further, turned out the best. Just imo, no bd

 

ie posthumous releases. ..that's why I don't mind this cover. It's not a sentimental, tear-inducing photo of George one might have expected. He wanted to make a statement, through to the end. I'm not saying it is brilliant by any means (he seems stuck in his Wrack My Brain rut) , but I actually like the colors and the effort behind it.

 

Just curious, why do you think the cover was George's idea to make "a statement"?

 

There's a neat photo of him riding an elephant they should have used.I think it's in the album booklet

 

It has a dystopian feel: humans represented as inanimate figures in a family (?) portrait proudly holding a TV -- which is a quick trigger to suggest how people are brainwashed. Also the figures are a screen of their own, with stars from a flag (?) projected on them. The colors and lighting add to the same feeling of unpleasantness.

Edit: imagine if there were only four figures on the cover.

 

Yeah, dystopian is a good word, you really explained that well.

I hate that cover, it really is uncomfortable, especially since he'd just died young, from a hideous set of cancers. Most of the tunes are optimistic, positive. The title track, is a bit of a departure from the other tunes. But even that song, as sad as it is, is positive as well, with George & Dhani chanting, it's a disturbing cover, I was very disturbed when I heard that track. It took me years, to just listen to it, without pain. Good production, not that much on it, but what's there, is very powerful.

 

I have a hard time believing this. A new album from 2002 having different masterings on CD by region?

 

great analysis. What I like about the production on "looking for my life" is that it is raw and very immediate. You really feel the weight of his disease and what he knew was coming close at hand. This record feels like the wise man telling us what he's learned at the end of his journey, and this tune and its production really nail it for me.

I love the slight weakness/weariness we hear from his voice on the "down upon my knees Looking for my life, looking for my life" part

 

Certainly. George also believed that leaving this world was only the beginning, and that death was like exiting your body and "taking your suit off", as we live on. When one believes in the Afterlife, I think much of the fear in dying is soothed.

 

Big Jeff Lynne/ELO fan but the drum sound is always so muffled............ughhhh

 

I agree. Keltner did a great job of coming in and adding the drm tracks after the fact though..

 

Alongside Ringo, he was always the perfect man for the job when it came to solo Beatle releases.

I wonder why he never worked with McCartney, especially after Wings broke up?

 

My guess is just because he was so tied to the other 3.....very few sidemen that have worked with all 4 post Beatles!

 

Great analysis. You went in a completely different direction than I was expecting.

My gripe with the cover is that (like the album itself), I feel it's been shaped heavily by Dhani. I just don't think George would have approved of that cover. In the run-up to the release, there were reports that George had left detailed notes about artwork, tracklistings, etc. Odd that none of that was incorporated into the booklet, IMO. Wouldn't it have been nice to see a sketch of what GH had in mind? If one existed, why not use it? I've said this before, but some tracks inclusion seemed rather arbitrary. George "liked the number 7" so Stuck Inside A Cloud "had to be" track 7. Devil & The Deep Blue Sea "reeked of Dad" so it had to go on the album, etc.

Again, your interpretation is good, I just don't think George would've gone with that. Note: I've got nothing to base that on, other than my gut instincts, so everyone is welcome to completely dismiss that!

There's been a lot of discussion about how "weak" George was when he recorded this - did you guys get liner notes about when this stuff was recorded, because it must have been missing in my copy. Seriously, we don't have any idea when most of this stuff was recorded. We know "Devil" was done many years earlier, thanks to its broadcast on the BBC. We know several other songs were (mostly) done by at least the summer of 1999, since they were detailed in the Timothy White Billboard interview. We may want to infer that "Looking For My Life" or _________ has meaning in the wake of George's attack and/or advancing cancer, but we really have no idea, those songs could have been recorded in 1994 for all we know.

How many of you thought that lyric (from Writing's On The Wall) about "til they're drunk away, or shot away or die away from you" related to John Lennon's killing? Probably a good many - and yet that was on the recalled version of Somewhere In England, recorded well before Lennon's killing. There's a temptation to read too much into the lyrics, but without more detailed information about the recording of the Brainwashed songs, I think some restraint is needed...

 

Only one I can think of is Nicky Hopkins:

John: Imagine, Walls and Bridges
Paul: Flowers in the Dirt
George: Living in the Material World, Extra Texture
Ringo: Ringo

 

And how come Jeff Lynne never produced a full Ringo album? He produced a couple of songs on Time Takes Time, and of course worked with him on several other albums, but they never did a full album.

Ringo could have had his own Cloud Nine or Flaming Pie.

 

If you include live work, you can throw in Elton John. In fact, Elton had the rare privilege of introducing John (at MSG, '74), Paul (Prince's Trust, '86) and George AND Ringo (Prince's Trust, '87)!

Klaus worked with all 4 in the solo years, too.

 

If you count live work then Eric Clapton has done this too (John - "The Dirty Mac" group and Live Peace in Toronto, Paul - Concert for George, George - lots of stuff, Ringo - "Never Without You").

 

I don't think Klaus ever played on a solo Paul song. But Paul did contribute to Klaus' last solo album.

 

EC plays on Paul's "My Valentine", so Eric has been featured on studio work of all 4 solo Beatles as well.

 

That is a great point. After 'Time Takes Time' didn't do as well as Ringo had hoped, he should have recorded an entire album co-written with Jeff as a follow up, similar to 'Cloud Nine'.

It is interesting to think about what would have happened had Ringo tried working with young bands again, like he did with The Posies; I wonder whether any of the then newly emerging Britpop bands would have worked with him and given him songs (like when he covered 'Golden Blunders')?

 

And both Eric and Nicky played on Jackie Lomax's "Sour Milk Sea", along with George, Paul, and Ringo: The "Threetles Plus" Band.

 

Well Ringo's son joined Oasis. Maybe they could have given Ringo a try?

 

Ha! I can imagine him sitting at his drum kit in the studio, bored, listening to Liam and Noel argue with each other again and again, and thinking to himself 'this feels familiar'.