Feeling My Age

Living In The Material World – Martin Scorsese‘s epic two part documentary on George Harrison – might have been overlong but was still fascinating for those of us who grew up with The Beatles.

For me George’s most interesting music came in the late 80s when Jeff Lynne from ELO produced his platinum-selling album Cloud Nine. Equally good was their collaboration on the first Travelling Wilburys album with Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and the late Roy Orbison – a fine swansong for the Big O and still a landmark record.

Watching Scorsese’s film, Harrison was obviously a complex and private man. A huge charitable donor who loathed paying taxes, a peace-loving mystic who wasn’t above punching police and reporters.

If I Needed Someone and My Sweet Lord are all very well, but this is the song that still does it for me every time: the Quiet Beatle still at the height of his powers looking back to a “long time ago when we was fab”.  It’s deft, funny, yearning and elegaic – with a lightness of touch that never takes itself too seriously.

That’s echoed by the Godley & Creme music video (below). It features Ringo Starr with cameos by Gary Wright, Elton John, Paul Simon, Derek Taylor, Jeff Lynne, Ray Cooper and Neil Aspinall – what a shame there isn’t a better quality version on YouTube.

If you had to pick just one song to remember George Harrison by,  you could do a lot worse than When We Was Fab.

 

In 1964 at age 43 Mum developed a sudden inexplicable taste for pop music and bought “It’s Over” by Roy Orbison. This was odd because she’d never shown the slightest interest in anything else we’d seen on Top Of The Pops, yet she played it constantly on the family gramaphone. “A lot of young people do sometimes feel like that” was all she would say. After lunch every day she would retire to her bedroom for an afternoon nap and lock the door. “Mummy’s crying in there” my eight year old sister said one day with wide eyed wonder. We shook our heads together in sorrowful incomprehension. Orbison’s next hit was the considerably raunchier “Oh Pretty Woman” which I bought, imagining that Mum - as a newly converted fan of the Big O - would be pleased. But after the first few lines she refused to listen to another word, for some reason or other. Women, eh ?