Swedish Radio (George 1975)

 

Swedish Radio Interview

Early 1975

The Harrison Alliance May/June 1975

Transcribed by Jennie and Pattie

George:  M-A-Y, with a line over the A.  M-A-Y-A -- Maya. When you translate it literally, 'that which is not.' Maya, you know, it's like, I'll just go back. I'll try and do it quickly to go back into the thing of meditation, the thing that I learned.  It's like to say this state of consciousness we're in is only the effect of some very subtle cause. So it's like to say, this is what the Maharishi used to demonstrate. He'd have a flower, and he'd say, 'You see, there's a stem, then the leaves and the petals and all the pieces of the flower. The stem is made of sap. The leaf is made out of sap. The petals are made out of sap. It's all sap. See, the cause is sap, but the effect is petals, leaves, and stems.

     See, so this is very, in some ways. It's quite a deep, sort of philosophical thing. Usually, what I would do is write a song, the melody, and usually get the idea of the words. And even sometimes write them all at the same time. The words I usually have to think more about than the music. And sometimes I can write a whole song musically with, say, one verse and chorus, and then I'll leave it and then come back and finish off the other verses.

 Interviewer: Yeah, I think that your verses are getting more and more complicated. I mean that in a good way.

 George: Yeah.

Interviewer: More and more thought out. You know?

George:  I don't know.

Interviewer: And that's lots of-- they circle around. You know?

George:  I like the things to mean a lot of different things at the same time.

 Interviewer: Yeah, that's what I was trying to say, right? 

George: Yeah, I like that. But....

Interviewer: There's a double meaning.

George: Yeah.

Interviewer: What about "Bye Bye, Love?" What did you do? Why did you do that one?

George: That?  I'll tell you what happened with that. When I was just at home playing the guitar with Tommy Scott. Well, Tommy Scott's a sax player. He was playing the bass, and I was, well, we were just thinking, sitting around the fire playing a song, and we started playing. And like, for some reason, I changed. I just started singing "Bye Bye, Love", but I changed the melody into more of a sort of blues. You know how it goes, (sings) "Bye Bye, love, bye bye, happiness."  I changed it to (sings his version) "Bye Bye, love, bye bye, happiness", it's more like it's making it mine, and it's more sort of a blues thing. And we just played for that, you know, for a while. 

And for some reason, it just stuck in my mind, and I decided that it would be funny to record. As I was recording it, I just did it all on my own, you know, that was great for me. I got a studio, a recording studio in my house, so I didn't have to get engineers or anything. So I just did it like that. I have a rhythm machine to keep the time, and I just played it on the guitar. Then I later added the drums and all, well, you know, the bass, the synthesizer, and all that. So it was a good exercise for me, and recording without any help. So then I got more involved with it. I started writing more words about what was happening with my wife, and that was it. 

Interviewer: Does she mind?

 George:  No, she loved it!  I sent Eric and Patty a copy of it. Yeah. They loved it. 

Interviewer: Yeah? Because the papers, you know, they all tried to make a big deal out of it. 

George: Well, you know ....

Interviewer: You know, a revenge thing. 

George: No, well, because look, if you have -- if you're split up with your wife, they automatically want you to hate each other so that they can write about it.

Interviewer: ...to make it a better story. 

George: So that song spoils it for them, because they're always trying to catch you doing something. So I learned from the past that if you have something to hide, I would make everything so that there's nothing to hide anymore. You know, I've never had a private life for 10 years. So, I mean, I just get used to it. So the thing that the press doesn't understand, that they can't understand, is that I could be happy that she's with Eric. 

 Interview: No...

 George: He is one of my best friends. Well, why not? That's fantastic. I mean, I was just with her yesterday or  the day before. You know, we're great friends. I love Eric. You know?

The  last time I was in Sweden was with Delaney and Bonnie.

 Interviewer:  I saw that concert. 

George:  Yeah? with Eric ...

 Interviewer: They were in Stockholm in concert. 

George: Yeah, we played Stockholm and Gothenburg.

Interviewer: It was great!

George: Yeah, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed being in a band. The only problem for me is, if I'm the leader of the band, you know, it's hard because there's so much pressure to put on if you're at the front.

 Interviewer: Yeah, do you ever miss the old times of being in a band, of being with the Beatles?

 George: Well, I don't know. I miss ---  I think all the Beatles miss playing in a band, but not necessarily playing in the Beatles, because that was, well, that was a long time ago. Now the times have really changed. You know, four people in a band, it was really hard. We'd be playing concerts to 20 people up to 70 you know, we had 20,000 to 70,000 people in those days. They didn't know how to mic everything.

 Now you can play with little amplifiers and put it through the sound system and get good sound. But in those days, we just had little amplifiers. And, you know, there were 20,000 people shouting at us. You couldn't hear a thing, and it was frustrating. Now, the audiences are better. They listen more. But the Beatles, it was very limited, because, I mean, our music -- even the last Beatles tour, it was a bit difficult trying to play things. 

I remember trying to do things like" Paperback Writer", which we got into eight track recording. And, you know, it was hard to play with four -- just two guitars, a bass, and drums. To play things like "A Day in the Life" or you know --  "Strawberry Fields Forever." We couldn't do that because it was a studio recording. So you get a better chance of doing it if you have a few more people in the band.

 So that's why I just love this band I was with. It was fantastic. You know, there were horn players, and it's nice to feel a good band behind you. 

Interviewer: What sort of music do you listen to yourself, if you have time?

 George: Well, I'll tell you, I like the Indian classical music. That's my main thing. But then I like after that --I like some blue singers, well, I prefer the old blues, you know, from around the 1930s. And out of the popular, you know, out of the modern, all today's people,  I just love Smokey Robinson, you know? Smokey Robinson -- there's a lot of stuff like that. You know, there's a lot of Tamla and Motown, and I like Bob Dylan and the Band. There's all kinds. There's so much really, but I think I prefer Smokey Robinson, Bob Dylan, and Indian classical music.