The Zimmermann Note

The continuing adventures of “Eric’s Trip Around the Sun”. One final trip with the iPod.

My wife and I have been proactive about giving our son completely biased music history lessons completely off the cuff. Over time this has been trying to draw him to both of our own preferences because of course we are both greedy about it all.

More recently, my wife, after finding a photo of the Beatles online had asked Dylan which of the Beatles was his favorite. After having time to scan over the photograph he turned and pointed to the quiet one, George Harrison.

George Harrison has always been my favorite Beatle as well so this, of course, did not break my heart. Beyond the music, it was always the way that he held himself.

However, it is the music, especially in the 2nd half of the Beatles career that we begin to see that the band was made up of 3 stellar songwriters. The setup prevented many of Harrison’s tracks from ending up on Beatles albums.

However, by the time that the Beatles have broken up and George Harrison is readying to come out with an album, there is such a backlog of material that remain on the shelf while with the Beatles. ‘All Things Must Pass’, the triple LP release went and took these hits off the shelves. The album is stacked with classics such as ‘What is Life’, ‘My Sweet Lord’, ‘Wah-Wah’ and ‘Beware of Darkness’ and ‘Awaiting You All’. The songs are given a fascinating amount of production via the help of Phil Spector so we should not be expecting 3 albums worth of sitar music hitting our eardrums. I would argue that out of any of the post-Beatles works that ‘All Things Must Pass’, is the absolute first album that any Beatles fan should purchase, before anything of Lennon’s or McCartney’s. My only regret was that I waited so late in life in acquiring it.

The ‘Art of Dying’ is the song that started this entire conversation. It’s feel is more disco than you might be expecting out of a song about reincarnation. It’s buried as the second song on the second side of the second LP. It’s not the song that many might remember from this piece of work but it’s the one that reminds me the most of the way that he lived his life.

So it seemed fitting on this Sunday to play his music before Dylan’s bedtime. No, we did not get through all the songs but there was still excitement in Dylan’s eyes when he heard that he was listening to George Harrison.

• George Harrison – The Art of Dying
• Wilco – Ashes of American Flags
• David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes
• Yo La Tengo – The Asparagus Song