markc
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Posts: 447
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Post by markc on Jan 30, 2014 12:27:58 GMT -5
How many times has George referred to his nervous system in song and speech? I can think of 4: once in the Anthology interviews, Pisces Fish, Horse to the Water, and I think in Cockamamie Business. He was certainly psychically scarred by "the mania".
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Post by scousette on Jan 30, 2014 12:38:41 GMT -5
Yeah, he's fond of that phrase. Thanks for doing the count.
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andyb
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Post by andyb on Jan 30, 2014 17:14:07 GMT -5
Aren't their nervous systems on display in a museum anywhere?
George always said they gave them away. Somebody must have got them.
:-)
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Post by vectisfabber on Jan 30, 2014 18:49:26 GMT -5
I've seen the odd synapse pop up on ebay, but it always goes too high for me.
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Post by Joe Karlosi on Jan 31, 2014 5:43:21 GMT -5
Yeah. sure ... The Beatles gave their nervous systems. George should have tried living without millions of dollars and struggling in a drudgery job he despises, just to earn a living.
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markc
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Post by markc on Jan 31, 2014 10:07:14 GMT -5
I think he earned the right to feel that way, especially considering the "bigger than Jesus" backlash, Manila, John's murder and ultimately the attempted murder of George at Friar Park.
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Post by John S. Damm on Jan 31, 2014 11:19:50 GMT -5
Neat observation and tracking, Mark! It is an important observation and to understand what George did after the Beatles and why he did it and in the way he did it all goes back to this damage he perceived as to his nervous system by Beatlemania. George clearly felt emotionally scarred by the Fabs.
I think that is why he was so understated in his solo career and many took that as apathy or lack of drive or even lack of talent.
George has given us an oasis of beautiful solo music but it was deliberately released under everyone's radar, including us fans. But it is there for us to always enjoy and savor.
Good Thread Mark, to understand George's feelings on this is to help unlock a catalog of music that at first blush seems underachieving but has a serenity to it unsurpassed by any other musical artist.
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markc
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Posts: 447
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Post by markc on Jan 31, 2014 11:37:54 GMT -5
Good points John. The tragedy is he was largely successful achieving that balance of privacy and commercial success until that last two years of his life when he was nearly killed by a madman who thought the Beatles were witches, in his beloved refuge Friar Park, and then being hounded by the media and even a fanboy oncologist while seeking treatments to save his life.
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Post by John S. Damm on Jan 31, 2014 11:57:51 GMT -5
Yeah, that attack was once again the Beatles' legacy rearing an ugly side to it in terms of some deranged man who was targeting Beatles in his delusions. I always felt so bad that George lost that sense of sanctity and security he got from Friar Park. I remember there was talk after the attack that George might sell it but I am glad they did not. It should be a forever tribute to George and maybe will be made a State park, preserved for all to see someday.
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markc
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Posts: 447
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Post by markc on Jan 31, 2014 13:36:00 GMT -5
Like the real Downton Abbey! I'm sure he made Olivia promise not to do that.
Despite all George's privacy concerns, he did seem to be the most accommodating to fans that met up with him.
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Post by Panther on Feb 1, 2014 22:46:37 GMT -5
I'm not sure it's accurate to say that George's music flew under people's radars. If you compare George's LP sales from 1970-1981 to, say, John Lennon's in the same period, they're probably about equal (even given John's huge surplus of sales from being murdered). And this after John was a media-hound in the early 70s, while George was very media-shy.
It did seem strange to me that George would be the Beatle 'survivor' to be knifed in his home -- he being the one who was so paranoid and afraid of things like that, even back in the mid-60s.
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Post by John S. Damm on Feb 1, 2014 23:24:26 GMT -5
A couple things I meant by George's music being under the radar is first he did very little promotion for many of his albums and I think in particular of GH, SIE, and Gone Troppo and second George rarely, if ever, catered to the current musical trends, one notable exception being the use of 1980's keyboard synths on "Wake Up My Love." As RS concluded in its review of the album George Harrison: "Though George Harrison has nothing at all to do with the Seventies, its deft combination of the quaint and the slick makes the Sixties seem a trifle less remote." www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/george-harrison-19790419
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