March 18 - All Things Must Pass

How does it feel to be a great guitar player, a great song writer, and a great singer and know that regardless of what you do - and how well you do it - it will always be compared to arguably the greatest songwriter duos of all time because you spent 12 years in a band with them? Of course, the alternative way of looking at it is how incredibly lucky he was to be able to grow up and into music along with the same two men - but regardless of how you view it, Paul McCartney and John Lennon cast mighty big shadows, and it would have been hard for anyone to get out into the sun with those two always looming closely.

The man I am talking about is, of course, George Harrison. The quiet Beatle. The one who lost his first wife to his best friend, Eric Clapton - yet remained friends with him. I'll choose to stop there - knowing there were other sides of him as well. But the George Harrison I choose to remember was quiet, stoic, and an immense talent that always was overshadowed by Lennon/McCartney. He was the youngest Beatle, but he was also the Beatle that led the other three spiritually towards Hinduism - and while it didn't stick with the others, he remained a Hindu for the rest of his life.

When George Harrison died in 2001, I found out at a hotel room in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I was there because of a new job I had started - I was a Student Services Assistant at Montcalm Community College, and their student management system (SMS) was Jenzabar, who had their headquarters in Harrisonburg. I was excited to go on this trip - the first real business trip ever, and I had arranged to stay a little longer than the training - it would keep airfare down, which more than paid for the very modest accommodations I required. I did not have a rental car there, and that was a mistake. While there actually was public transportation that also came very close to my hotel, it did not run often and it had longer distances to walk. But - I still prevailed. Staying the extra two days without money to get a rental for myself became an exercise in futility. I remember stumbling over a movie theater that showed From Hell, the Johnny Depp movie about Jack the Ripper based on Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel, but aside from that, I was cooped up in my hotel room for a couple of damp and rainy days with next to no money (we didn't have much extra at all).

And then, to top it off, the news came that George Harrison had died. I was sitting in my hotel room, thinking about conversations I had overheard at a local Italian restaurant about what a good kid so an so was. Of course, I didn't know the people talking - or who they were talking about - but it gave me a lot of good ideas; ideas that still need to be put into action (read: converted to a book). But I do remember that the news hit me with the proverbial ton of bricks. I don't know what made him my favorite Beatle, but I think it was his very unassuming nature. I greatly appreciate his deep religious devotion - even though I am not religious in the least myself. I respect his desire to share his religion - but I never felt he was pushy about it (not even on My Sweet Lord). He wrote a few of my favorite Beatles songs: While My Guitar Gently Weeps, I Me Mine, and If I Needed Someone are high on my list in addition to the more commonly referred to Taxman, Something, and Here Comes the Sun. I have since come to appreciate a little more of his solo work as well - especially the title track to his first proper solo album (the first one that wasn't all instrumental), All Things Must Pass