George Harrison – Art Of Dying

I’ve been listening to All Things Must Pass recently and the songs are really consistent on that album.

Harrison wrote these lyrics while he was still a Beatle. He found it hard to get many of them on Beatles albums because there was only so much room. The good side is when The Beatles broke up, he had a backlog full of songs.

Phil Collins was brought in to play the congos on this song. He played for 90 minutes and got blisters on his fingers from playing them for so long. Unfortunately for Collins…his version didn’t make the cut. George Harrison had a great sense of humor and pranked Collins in later years.

Collins met Harrison several more times over the years, and the pair became friendly… friendly enough for Harrison to prank Collins. In 2001, shortly before Harrison’s death, he put out a remastered version of All Things Must Pass and around the same time sent Collins what he claimed was a version of the track on which he had played featuring the drummer’s missing Congas handiwork.

George had the percussionist Ray Cooper play out of time on the tape and that is what he sent to Collins. Phil later said: “I got a tape from George of the song that I played with the congas quite loud, I thought, Oh my god, this sounds terrible. In fact, it was a Harrison joke. He’d recorded [percussionist] Ray Cooper. [He said] said, ‘Play bad, I’m going to record it and send it to Phil.’ I couldn’t believe that a Beatle had actually spent that much time on a practical joke for me.” He did have a connection to the Beatles… As a kid, he was an extra in the Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night but was edited out. Harrison did credit Collins on the 2001 remastered version of All Things Must Pass.

All the members of Derek and the Dominos played on this track and it was produced by Phil Spector.

George Harrison credits his first experience with LSD as being the doorway to his spiritual awakening and introduction to Hinduism. Harrison said that during the LSD trip, he thought of Yogis of the Himalayas running through his mind. He began to think about death and that is how this song came about.

George Harrison passed away on November 29, 2001 after a long battle with cancer. He was not afraid of death, as he believed it would take him to a better place. Before he passed, Paul and Ringo visited him and spent the day telling jokes and talking about times in Liverpool. He did tell Paul McCartney one to stop fighting with Yoko…that life was too short. Paul honored that wish and started to communicate with Yoko.

George Harrison: In the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita it says there’s never a time when you didn’t exist and will never be a time you cease to exist. The only thing that changes is our bodily conditioned soul comes in the body and we go from birth to death and it’s death how I look at it. It is like taking your suit off, you know the soul is in these three bodies and one body falls off.

Acoustic Demo

Art Of Dying

There’ll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you
As nothing in this life that I’ve been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?

There’ll come a time when all your hopes are fading
When things that seemed so very plain
Become an awful pain
Searching for the truth among the lying
And answered when you’ve learned the art of dying

But you’re still with me
But if you want it
Then you must find it
But when you have it
There’ll be no need for it

There’ll come a time when most of us return here
Brought back by our desire to be
A perfect entity
Living through a million years of crying
Until you’ve realized the Art of Dying
Do you believe me?

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

31 thoughts on “George Harrison – Art Of Dying”

  1. What a great album, and great attitude to have on life & death I guess. Paul & John must’ve been pretty amazed when they heard it, given how many songs of quality were on it. And what a great sense of humor too, love that Collins prank!
    Probably running a little late at my end today.

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    1. It was a great prank on Collins. Yea that is a great attitude to have and from what I’ve read…he peacefully went.
      He did have a stockpile of songs…he didn’t use all of them either…one song left over came out in 78….a song called Not Guilty

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      1. I think I’ve heard that one, probably only once or twice, but didn’t know it was an outtake of this. By the way, did you notice today’s the 53rd anniversary of ATMP release? Was going to write about it today but I didn’t have time to come up with anything new on it and I had posted about it a couple of times in the past so I skipped it.

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      2. No I didn’t know that…I need to pay more attention to anniversaries… I hardly ever know. Well I guess I released this on a good day!

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      3. I had totally forgotten that Scorcese also directed, “Living in the Material World” in 2011. Have only had the courage to watch it once. Olivia also confirms that he left in a very good way. Highly recommended movie for any fan who hasn’t seen it yet.

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  2. There is a reason that Aldous Huxley titled his book “The Doors of Perception”. Psychedelic drugs open those doors for many. Harrison recognized that it is one thing to open those doors and another to go through them; and still another to stay there. Psychedelic drugs are not enough for that. (I think I preferred the demo, even when he messed up the lyrics.)

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  4. I just love these George posts Max. As it would have been something to have seen Paul and John’s faces when George was going to be ok as a solo artist. lol
    Paul probably barfed back in 87 when George dropped Cloud Nine and it sold a ton!

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    1. LOL… I just read a book that said after this album came out…John and Paul were talking about how great the response was but…John said…well now the problem is….he has to follow it up!

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  6. I’ve heard that story before with the Phil prank it is awesome. I do love this song and the album. Never listened to it until I did a post where everyone picked which album for me to review and this one won. I loved it so much, I found a pristine version of the original and I truly thing this might the best Beatle solo album (at least for me anyway).

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  7. That was one of the rare good things about his being constrained by the Beatles- he could come up with a heap of ‘Somethings.’ Few -well, none- were as good as putting out classic songs by the albums full as Paul and John.

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  8. That prank sounds like something Geo would do. Of course I had to go to the source and see what Geo said in, “I Me Mine.” I won’t share what he said, but where many/most of the songs may get a sentence or two of thoughts, this one gets two full pages. Happy to learn more about the man and mystic (and prankster) that he was.

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