"Rock On, George, One Time for Me..."

I’ve been listening to George Harrison a lot these days. At first glance, this is not anything out of the ordinary for me. At the end of May, I finished a dissertation chapter draft dealing with Indian music’s influence in his Beatles songs. I received a beautiful vinyl edition of All Things Must Pass for my birthday. And I do like to listen to the Beatles, as a band, every once in a while and just listen. I enjoy the music without analyzing or scheming what I’m going to say. I find it a good anti-dissertation weariness tactic. Not that I’d get tired of the Beatles, ever - I haven’t for the past thirteen years - but I like to make sure.

But I’ve also found myself listening back to George in particular on my own time. He’s my favorite Beatle, for a lot of reasons. His solo music is the first Beatles/Beatles-adjacent music I can remember, singing along to our Best of Dark Horse CD on long car drives. I learned to play the guitar because I thought it would help me understand why George’s solos moved me so much. Some of the most challenging and rewarding songs I learned to play were his: “Here Comes the Sun,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth),” “My Sweet Lord.” I wanted to learn to play the sitar because of George too, and played for the first time on his birthday (February 25th, 2016).

...and sitar George.

Guitar George (Liverpool 2015)...

I find his music fascinating from a technical perspective too. He often joked about liking to use “naughty chords,” chords that don’t really belong in a song if you follow the rules. I can hear those naughty chords now, and they make me laugh because I can see his game, so to speak. I can follow the melodies and solos he wrote, play them myself, and explain a little better why they move me. I see Indian music’s influence in his songs, far more than just using a sitar here and there. He understood how it works, and chose to use that understanding when many others did not. My respect for him and his music has only grown since I started my degrees in music theory.
But I think the real reason I’ve been going back to George’s music specifically is this: it’s so, so comforting to me. Whenever I felt annoyed or upset about something as a kid/teen, and I needed to calm down, George was always the one I turned to first. I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but something in how he sang and played was enough to make me feel better. It still does. All I need is to hear the guitar introduction to “Blow Away,” or the repeating two chords opening “My Sweet Lord,” and I instantly feel calmed. I don’t think it’s just childhood nostalgia, because now I have the words to say what about his music comforts me. I can describe it as a musician and music theorist. His voice had a warm, thick quality (timbre) that reminds me of being wrapped in a fuzzy blanket. He thought his guitar solos through, deliberately picking notes that sounded good to him, were often variations on the main melody, and eventually led to a musical point. They have an unmistakable logic to them, like sitar improvisations should ideally have. And he developed a slide guitar sound incredibly close to the human voice, or a bowed string instrument. My own ears find these things all together very soothing.
    The topics in his lyrics are very appropriate for our times, too. George was definitely not afraid to tackle some hard stuff in his songs. But most of his songs had comfort in their messages too. “All Things Must Pass,” for example, reminds us that while good things come to an end eventually, so do bad things. “Beware of Darkness” has it right there in the title: even when life is at its darkest, you can still try to find something good, even if it’s small. I think we could all stand to hear such balanced portrayals of life and emotion right now. Things are rough out there, and sad, incredibly sad in lots of ways. But George’s music teaches us that suffering doesn’t last forever, and that we do have the power to make positive change in our own lives.

Hollywood Walk of Fame; the white object is one of my spare sitar picks.

There truly are few areas of my life that George’s music hasn’t touched. That even extends to cooking! In his honor, my mom named this dish “Harrison” pasta. (We used to name dishes after things I was a fan of when I was little.) This may strike some of my readers as a little tangential, and some may ask: Was this post really just an excuse to talk about George’s music for about 800 words? Well, yes, yes it was. But the pasta really is tasty, simple, and another good example of comfort food, so perhaps this isn’t that much of a tangent after all.

“Harrison” (Caprese) Pasta: Serves 6

Ingredients:

4-5 tomatoes, chopped
Olive oil
Minced garlic to taste
Chopped white/yellow onion to taste (my addition)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
16 oz long pasta, any type
½-1 chunk mozzarella cheese, cut or broken into small to medium chunks.
Basil leaves to taste, shredded

Cook the pasta according to package directions, and drain when it’s done. Meanwhile, cook the tomatoes and garlic, seasoned with salt and pepper, in the olive oil over medium heat. If you want the onion cooked, put it in at this stage too. When the tomatoes are cooked to desired tenderness, add the pasta, cheese, and basil to the pan and stir until it’s well mixed. Given that the flavors are pretty much caprese salad, this would probably be good with balsamic vinegar drizzled on top.