It’s been nearly two months since the second in my new occasional series A Classic Album, and that seems a sufficiently long gap for it to be time for another. If you missed them, the first one featured The Beatles and their Rubber Soul album, and the second was Steely Dan’s debut release, Can’t Buy A Thrill. I’m staying in that era for my third Classic Album, and it is kind of back to The Beatles again. Today, I’m going with this one:

You probably don’t need me to tell you that All Things Must Pass was the record that proved how good a songwriter George Harrison was, once he had been able to give full rein to his talents away from the Fab Four. It was released in November 1970 as a triple album package in a proper box: two albums of songs and a third, Apple Jam, which George described as a ‘free gift.’ I, like many others I’m sure, listened to that when I first bought the album and never went back to it. Not wanting to be critical of one of my musical heroes, but to my ears it really is boring and self-indulgent! But that mattered not a jot, as the first two records were superb, absolutely stuffed with great songs. It got to #1 in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and many other countries, and went 7x Platinum in the US, where it has sold more than 7m copies.

The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014 – a just recognition for a wonderful record. It reflects George’s many friendships with other musicians, which had grown over the years since he met Bob Dylan and The Band at Woodstock, and played with others as part of Delaney And Bonnie And Friends whilst still in the Beatles. It was produced initially by Phil Spector, until his unreliability took too much of a hold and George took on the task himself: he once said that Spector needed eighteen cherry brandies before he could function, so the writing was definitely on the wall for that partnership!

In total there are eighteen tracks across the first two discs, and I’m playing you a selection of eight of my favourites today. All bar one were written by George, though he had a little help from the aforesaid Mr Zimmerman on the opening track:

A great many albums start by blasting you into awareness that they are playing. George chose to start with the delicate nature of I’d Have You Any Time, and it has always struck me as a lovely, gentle way to lead you into the album. His songwriting with Bob Dylan was the result that friendship that  began at Woodstock and came to full fruition in the Traveling Wilburys a good few years later.

In the UK, only one of the album’s tracks was released as a single, though the rest of the world got a second. This was the one we and everyone else got, Side One Track Two:

Many of the songs on the album were a reflection of George’s spiritual nature, and friendship was another recurrent theme – both subjects featured often throughout his solo career. My Sweet Lord is the embodiment of that spirituality, and I’d be surprised if anyone reading this didn’t know the song before. The single was released in November 1970 in the US, a week ahead of the album, but we in the UK had to wait until January 1971 for it. That didn’t seem to make any difference, as it went to #1 in both countries and in many others too.

There are two versions of this next song on the album. I’m playing the shorter one, which was the B-side to My Sweet Lord everywhere except here:

Isn’t It A Pity is a beautiful song about the breaking up of friendships – when you consider that it, and most of the songs on the album, were written around the time that The Beatles were imploding you can appreciate how heartfelt is its plea.

The UK B-side to My Sweet Lord is up next. I gave a link to this video in last weekend’s SLS post, but here it is in all its glory. The story behind it is that, to go with the release of the Apple Years 1968–75 box set of George’s music in September 2014, his widow and son Olivia and Dhani held an online competition in which filmmakers were invited to create a video clip for What Is Life. The winner would receive a $5000 cash prize and have their entry become the official video for the track. In November, Olivia and Dhani selected Brandon Moore as the winner: his video comprises dance interpretations by Emma Rubinowitz and Esteban Hernandez of the San Francisco Ballet, filmed in the streets and woods of the San Francisco Presidio, and it is utterly joyous:

I love that video and it seems that I’m not alone in that: more than 33m YouTube views don’t lie! What Is Life was released as a single everywhere except the UK, and it peaked at #10 in the US and #1 in Australia, and made the Top Ten in many other countries. Here in the UK we had to make do with an inferior cover by Olivia Newton-John, which got to #16. Sometimes I despair!

For the UK, the B-side to My Sweet Lord was another of my favourites from the album:

George wrote Apple Scruffs as a tribute and a ‘thank you’ to the fans who camped outside the studio while the recording was taking place, hoping to get a glimpse of their hero. It’s a happy little tune, and I think he did them proud with it.

I mentioned earlier that George wrote all of the songs on the album, apart from one. This is it, another by Bob Dylan:

If Not For You was originally a track on Dylan’s New Morning album, which was released in October 1970 and made #7 in the US, though it got to #1 here in the UK. Recording for that and George’s album coincided, and it seems that George heard the song when he visited New York while Bob was in the studio. Both versions are nice – it is a beautiful love song, after all – but on balance I have always preferred George’s take. This was another that was covered by Olivia Newton-John, a UK #7 single for her – hers sounds like a total copy of George’s!

There are so many great tracks on this album that I’m having difficulty keeping this down to a reasonable number. I couldn’t leave this next one out, though, as it is very much a sign of Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound approach while he was involved in producing the record:

Awaiting On You All is one of George’s most spiritual songs: the lyrics tell us to look inside ourselves and not to go with organised religion, which was his break from his Catholic upbringing. I’m not spiritual, in any way, but I have always felt that this was an important song. The fact that it is great musically is a bonus!

I’m closing today with the album’s title track:

All Things Must Pass was written while George was still a Beatles member, and was offered to the band – but rejected. It is a philosophical song, reflecting on the meaning of life and its transience, and was interpreted by many at the time as a comment on the band’s break up. That may not have been conscious on George’s part, but it has always seemed to me that this was a meaning behind the song.

I’ve often said that music can bring back memories for us, as we associate songs with a particular time in our lives. This is one like that for me: in the summer of 1972 my holiday job, in between leaving school and going to uni, was in a small amusement arcade. It was a lot of fun – and they even paid me! It was a family business, run by a husband and wife who were great employers, and to add to the ambience they had a music system. John used to set up several albums on the multi-changer, and swap them over when he dropped in from their flat upstairs to check that all was ok. He knew that I liked this and played it a lot, but due to the vagaries of that set up I used to hear it in the order of Side 1, then 3, followed by 2 and 4. It sounded great in whatever order, and still does to this day. As Classic Albums go, this one is right up at the top for me.