Harisongbook:
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
(September 9th, Abbey Road Studios)
Actually, a collaboration of the Beatles with Eric Clapton in a piece that had been written by George Harrison. Many people say it is the real highlight of the White Album.
It hat that certain something, this wonderful weeping guitar, and George with his sharp pointed and biting lyrics. (I dont know how you were diverted / You were perverted too / I do not know how you were inverted / No one alerted you.) It went right under the skin. These critical questions of who misleads us all the time, and why we allow this repeatedly, wow, George speaks plain text, there it gets down to the nitty-gritty.
On the White Album, four great songs by George Harrison are represented. Savoy Truffle, Piggies, Long Long Long and now My Guitar Gently Weeps, probably the best-known song by George Harrison, the song with which he will always be associated with the Beatles, and is also something like his trademark.
This crying sighing guitar, enchanting so gently with his melody. A promise of happiness, so slim and beautiful and elegant and with such a wistful look at the world. This beautiful sadness could be felt so much stronger as a teenager, and although we didn't understand the words of the song properly yet (I was only 16 when the White Album came out), we somehow felt from the heart what the song wanted to tell us. (I do not know why nobody told you how to unfold your love, I dont know how someone controlled you / They bought and sold you.) We could not sing along really well, because the words were too complicated then, but we sensed the music of the Beatles, before we understood completely. I liked the"Hey Ho" right at the beginning best, with which a kind of a spring-like world of melancholic knowing happiness was opened. It was appealing to me deep in the heart, and it as so refreshing.
In the Beatles Anthology book, published in 2000 (the story of the Beatles first told in their own words and with their own pictures), George Harrison himself says about the origins of his song:
"The experience of India and all that had happened to Sgt Pepper, is included in the new White Album. Most of the songs that emerged in Rishikesh, were the result of what the Maharishi told us. When we came back from India, it became clear that we had more songs than would fit on one LP, and so the "White" became a double album. What should we do otherwise when you have so many songs and want to get rid of them so that one can write new ones.? The Band was on a fairly ego trip, and there were a lot of songs that could have been better thrown out completely, or be used for B-sides. But the only consequence would have been that much more bootlegs would exist now, because all the discarded songs would now be available as predatory pressures somewhere.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps, I've written in my mother's house in Warrington (the spiritual home George Formby). I was just thinking about the I Ching, the Chinese "Book of Changes". In the West, we thought the accident was something that happened just like that - purely by accident I'm sitting here and the wind is blowing through my hair, and so on. But the eastern concept is that everything that happens is predetermined, and such a thing as coincidence does not exist - every little thing that happens has a meaning.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps was a simple experiment with just this theory. I decided to write a song that should be based on the first thing that came into my eyes when I opened any book, in a sense because it would belong to that particular moment, at this time. So I took at random a book in my hand and opened it, I read 'gently weeps', put the book down again and started the song.
We tried to take, but Paul and John were so used to always patter only their own songs, that it was sometimes very hard to seriously sit down and take one of mine. No chance. They didn't take the matter seriously, and I think they even did not play all of them, so I went home that night and still thought "pity" because I knew that was a pretty good song. The next day I wanted to go with Eric Clapton in London, and I said: "What are you doing today? Why don't you come into the studio and join us playing this song?" He said: 'Oh, no - I cannot make it, nobody else has played on a Beatles record, and the others would certainly not like it.' I replied, 'Look, it's my song, and I want you to join playing.' So he came. I said: 'Eric is playing this piece,' and that was good because now have all snapped together. Paul went to the piano and played a nice intro, and all took the matter seriously. (A similar situation came later when Billy Preston came to play along with Let It Be, and all were at loggerheads. It was enough that an outsider joined to get all of us calm down again.) "
("While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at YouTube)
Paul, in the same book, recalls the scene as follows:
"Eric came over and he was very nice, very polite and humble and a very good musician. He was very excited, and we all did the stuff. It was really fun. His style corresponded very well to the song, and I think it was very important for George that Eric played it - which was nice of him, because he also could have played it by himself, and then he would have been on the hit single ".!
A beautiful new version of Sir George's My Guitar Gently Weeps is also on the latest album of the Beatles, a now legendary cooperation between the Beatles' company Apple Corps. Ltd. and the Cirque du Soleil. The album LOVE, which is also part of the equally named stage production in collaboration with the Beatles which was performed at the Mirage in Las Vegas, was already eagerly anticipated. The gala premiere of LOVE, taking place on 30 June 2006, was the first joint artistic venture between Apple Corps Ltd.. and a theatre company.
The project grew out of personal friendship and mutual admiration between George Harrison and the founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberte. "The Beatles have always been interested in new forms of expression, and this is a new step forward for them ," said George Martin (the former Beatles producer), for whom LOVE is definitely the last musical project. In this way, the magic of Cirque du Soleil combines with the spirit and passion of the most beloved rock band of all time, just to create an experience of pure joy.
(I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping. While my guitar gently weeps.)
This is the message of George Harrison. You were never alone, you are never alone and you never will be alone. You always were, you always are and ever will be. Unity never could be unity without you. Nothing exists outside of it, otherwise it would not be one, united and unique. Unity wouldn't exist for a moment if it would lose you.
In this unity, God is just as close to you as you are standing close to him, with all that you are in your immortal soul essence. And who doesn't want to perish, must drill down on himself and on happiness and must find both inside himself.
