Writing's on the Wall (George Harrison song)

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"Writing's on the Wall"
B-side face label
Song by George Harrison
from the album Somewhere in England
PublishedOops/Ganga
Released1 June 1981
GenreRaga rock
Length3:59
LabelDark Horse
Songwriter(s)George Harrison
Producer(s)George Harrison, Ray Cooper
Somewhere in England track listing
10 tracks
Side one
  1. "Blood from a Clone"
  2. "Unconsciousness Rules"
  3. "Life Itself"
  4. "All Those Years Ago"
  5. "Baltimore Oriole"
Side two
  2. "Teardrops"
  3. "That Which I Have Lost"
  4. "Writing's on the Wall"
  5. "Hong Kong Blues"
  6. "Save the World"

"Writing's on the Wall" is a song by English musician

Lennon's murder
in New York in December 1980, the lyrics' reference to how easily friends can be shot down and killed led listeners to interpret it as a further comment on Lennon's death.

Harrison recorded "Writing's on the Wall" at his Friar Park studio in England in 1980. A sombre and meditative track, it includes Indian classical instrumentation alongside the Western rock backing. The musicians on the recording include Ray Cooper, who plays various percussion instruments, keyboardist Gary Brooker, and Alla Rakha on tabla.

Along with "Life Itself", "Writing's on the Wall" marked Harrison's return to philosophical songwriting after his more subtle and light-hearted work since the mid 1970s. Several music critics and commentators recognise the song as a highlight of the otherwise disappointing Somewhere in England album. Harrison agreed to its use in the 1993 audio-book format of author Deepak Chopra's Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, where the track accompanies a passage read by Chopra.

Background and inspiration

Along with the

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, in November 1977.[6]

The song's title is a phrase from the biblical

Christ was in keeping with a concept espoused by the late Indian yogi Paramahansa Yogananda,[8][9] whose teachings had had a significant influence on Harrison since 1966.[10][11][12]

Composition

Allison describes "Writing's on the Wall" as "musically idiosyncratic".

drone, recalling Harrison's period as a sitar student under Shankar in the 1960s.[15] Leng adds that, such was Harrison's disinterest in contemporary musical genres such as disco, new wave and heavy metal,[16] the song represented "a genus all its own".[17]

In his lyrics, Harrison sings of the transient nature of existence[14][18] and warns against relying on material things.[19] Leng considers "Writing's on the Wall" to be the first song in which Harrison "equates music with spirituality" and explicitly evokes Nada Brahma, a concept espoused by Indian classical musicians such as Shankar that means "sound is God".[20]

Amid his warning of life's fleeting qualities, Harrison sings of friends who are "drunk away, shot away, or die away from you".[21][nb 1] Author Ian Inglis likens the song's message, regarding the need to accept and prepare for death, to a philosophical point espoused by Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Inglis writes that, like Borges in his poem "Limits", Harrison fully accepts the impermanence of life and so challenges Dylan Thomas's contention (in "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night") that the inevitability of death should be defied until the end.[23]

Recording

Harrison recorded "Writing's on the Wall" during the main sessions for Somewhere in England,

FPSHOT studio in Oxfordshire between March and September 1980.[25][26] Aside from Harrison, who also served as producer,[27] the musicians at the sessions were Neil Larsen and Gary Brooker (both on keyboards), Ray Cooper (percussion), Willie Weeks (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums).[24]

In July that year, Harrison was planning to produce an album by Shankar,

gubgubbi, a gut-stringed instrument he had also used on the song "It Is 'He' (Jai Sri Krishna)" in 1974.[33]

Harrison submitted Somewhere in England to

Lay His Head".[38][39] The song was remixed during the additional sessions for Somewhere in England.[24] Ray Cooper was credited as co-producer on the second version of the album.[40][41]

Release and reception

Somewhere in England was released on 1 June 1981.

Lennon's murder, particularly with the line referring to friends who are unexpectedly "shot away".[47] Author Robert Rodriguez comments that, had the scheduled release of Somewhere in England taken place in late 1980, "listeners would doubtless have been chilled by the song's prescience".[18]

Coinciding with the public's outpouring of grief in reaction to Lennon's death, the single was a top-ten hit in many countries around the world and became Harrison's most successful single since "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" in 1973.[48] Among the people he thanked on the inner sleeve of Somewhere in England was Yogananda,[49] and he dedicated the album to Lennon's memory[50] with a quote from Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: "There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you. Nor will there be any future when we cease to be."[51][nb 2] The quote was followed by Lennon's initials and accompanied by both the Hindu Om symbol and a Christian cross.[49]

Although unimpressed with Somewhere in England generally,

raga-rock than anything Harrison ever managed as a Beatle."[56] People magazine's reviewer said that "thoughts of eternity haunt even the jauntiest of these tunes … In Writing's on the Wall, Harrison writes that 'death holds on to us much more with every passing hour.' This record is both entertainment and a musical giant's defiant tribute to the value of life."[57] Record Mirror's Mike Nicholls paired the song with "That Which I Have Lost", saying their lyrics were "righteous homilies advocating his own God-head – one Sri Krishna, apparently", although he still found the tracks "simple yet unpatronising" and recognised a "quiet, inoffensive unpretentiousness" throughout the album.[58]

Retrospective assessment and legacy

In a gesture that Simon Leng terms "unprecedented", Harrison authorised the inclusion of "Writing's on the Wall", together with "Life Itself" and "That Which I Have Lost", on the 1993 audio release of Deepak Chopra's bestselling book Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.[59] The track accompanies a passage read by Chopra,[59] who became a friend of Harrison's in the mid 1980s and helped effect a reconciliation between the singer and his former meditation teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in 1991.[60][nb 3] Having interviewed Harrison for Guitar World magazine in 1987, Rip Rense cited the song as an example of the high standard that Harrison consistently applied to his songwriting as a solo artist, such that "his work is my choice for best among the ex-Fabs for being the most substantial in melody, structure, and content."[63]

While he considers both the 1980 and the 1981 versions of the album to be "mixed bags", former Mojo editor Mat Snow pairs "the gentle, thoughtful 'Writing's on the Wall'" with "Life Itself", as the two tracks that "stand out as deeply felt returns to singing of his spirituality".[2] Leng recognises the same pair of songs as "about the only reason to look into the 1981 Somewhere in England", with "Writing's on the Wall" representing "the ultimate expression of [Harrison's] introverted music in an extroverted age".[14] In his comments on the media attention afforded Harrison after his near-fatal stabbing in December 1999, Leng also remarks on the irony that the issues Harrison had addressed in songs such as "Writing's on the Wall" "were played out before his eyes, with himself as the leading man".[64]

Ian Inglis admires the synergistic aspect of the song's music and lyrics, a quality that he finds lacking in other tracks on Harrison's most artistically compromised album.[65] Inglis adds that the "poetic properties of his lyrics are seen here at their best" and reflect Harrison's continued ability to "use language in expressive ways".[66] Author Elliot Huntley describes the track as "pleasant" but seemingly "unfinished", and suggests that it would have been better served with a full Indian classical arrangement in the style of Harrison's Beatles composition "Within You Without You".[32]

Personnel

According to Simon Leng:[14]

Notes

  1. ^ Allison writes that, for Harrison in 1980, the mention of a friend's downfall through alcohol or drugs might apply to fellow musicians such as John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, without distracting from his own past excesses.[22]
  2. ^ One of Harrison's favourite quotes,[52] it also appears on the artwork of his final, posthumously released, studio album, Brainwashed (2002).[53]
  3. ^ Since 1968, when the Beatles studied Transcendental Meditation in India with the Maharishi, Harrison had long been troubled by how he and Lennon had abruptly left their teacher[61] and then publicly denounced him.[62]

References

  1. ^ Rodriguez, pp. 386, 433.
  2. ^ a b Snow, p. 69.
  3. ^ Lavezzoli, pp. 196–97.
  4. ^ Tillery, pp. 114–15.
  5. ^ Allison, p. 59.
  6. ^ Tillery, p. 128.
  7. ^ Allison, pp. 56–58.
  8. ^ Allison, p. 56.
  9. ^ Tillery, p. 154.
  10. ^ Harry, p. 320.
  11. ^ The Editors of Rolling Stone, pp. 36, 50–51.
  12. ^ Lavezzoli, pp. 177–78.
  13. ^ Allison, p. 160.
  14. ^ a b c d Leng, p. 224.
  15. ^ Schaffner, pp. 115, 159.
  16. ^ David Cavanagh, "George Harrison: The Dark Horse", Uncut, August 2008, p. 48.
  17. ^ Leng, pp. 211–12, 224.
  18. ^ a b Rodriguez, p. 386.
  19. ^ Allison, pp. 62–63, 80.
  20. ^ Leng, pp. 24, 224.
  21. ^ Inglis, pp. 76–77.
  22. ^ Allison, p. 100.
  23. ^ Inglis, p. 77.
  24. ^ a b c d Madinger & Easter, p. 459.
  25. ^ Badman, p. 263.
  26. ^ Inglis, p. 72.
  27. ^ Badman, p. 266.
  28. ^ a b Badman, p. 254.
  29. ^ Lavezzoli, pp. 195–96, 197.
  30. ^ Shankar, pp. 227–28.
  31. ^ Lavezzoli, pp. 105–07.
  32. ^ a b Huntley, p. 182.
  33. ^ Leng, pp. 157–58, 224.
  34. ^ Doggett, p. 267.
  35. ^ Huntley, pp. 178, 181.
  36. ^ Rodriguez, p. 433.
  37. ^ Snow, pp. 68, 69.
  38. ^ Clayson, pp. 377–78.
  39. ^ Huntley, p. 178.
  40. ^ Leng, p. 213.
  41. ^ Harry, p. 349.
  42. ^ Badman, p. 284.
  43. ^ Tillery, p. 164.
  44. ^ Madinger & Easter, pp. 461, 636.
  45. ^ Harry, pp. 17, 86.
  46. ^ The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 181.
  47. ^ Madinger & Easter, p. 461.
  48. ^ Clayson, p. 378.
  49. ^ a b Inner sleeve credits, Somewhere in England LP (Dark Horse Records, 1981; produced by George Harrison & Ray Cooper).
  50. ^ Woffinden, p. 107.
  51. ^ Inglis, p. 73.
  52. ^ The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 240.
  53. ^ Allison, p. 29.
  54. ^ Huntley, p. 183.
  55. ^ Leng, p. 177.
  56. ^ Harry Thomas, "George Harrison: Somewhere In England", Rolling Stone, 6 August 1981, p. 44 (archived version from 24 November 2007, retrieved 19 November 2016).
  57. ^ "Picks and Pans Review: Somewhere in England", People, 27 July 1981 (archived version from 27 December 2013, retrieved 19 November 2016).
  58. ^ Mike Nicholls, "George Harrison: 'Somewhere in England'", Record Mirror, 13 June 1981, p. 17.
  59. ^ a b Leng, p. 326.
  60. ^ Tillery, pp. 137–38, 154.
  61. ^ Tillery, pp. 63–65, 137–38.
  62. ^ Harry, pp. 261–62.
  63. ^ Rip Rense, "There Went the Sun: Reflection on the Passing of George Harrison", rense.com, 29 January 2002 (retrieved 1 December 2016).
  64. ^ Leng, p. 283.
  65. ^ Inglis, pp. 76, 78.
  66. ^ Inglis, pp. 76, 77.

Sources

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