George Harrison
What Is Life

THE REVIEW

Harrison was good, he was the one who stood out in the Beatles.

It can be really difficult to stand out in a group so full of personality, especially if the ones leading the band are two guys named Lennon and McCartney. But Harrison was really good, an artist who slowly took the position he deserved in the Liverpool quartet, so much so as to become the "underrated."

This interpretation is an injustice, and the song "What is Life" from 1971 (the second single from the album "All Things Must Pass") represents Harrison's musical will.

Listening to the single (and much of the most successful unpublished work from his solo career), one notices, in my opinion, the most astonishing thing of all: these songs were not performable by the Beatles. The Beatles had no limits to their imagination, but from a technical standpoint, a song like "What is Life" was an impossible mission.

Harrison is a guitarist, a true guitarist (you don't necessarily have to be Hendrix, you know). He never imposed himself as a leading author, he was an excellent composer who proposed a few songs (coincidentally all great) and, as a good musician, he was in charge of the sonic background of the Beatles, which is often completely anachronistic (the heaviness of some guitars was out of the '60s).

This song I want to talk about is a clear message from this Musician. As a good, rich, and famous Guitarist, he surrounds himself with equally rich and famous friends (Clapton), many session musicians (five guitars, brass, choirs, piano, percussion, and violins), and what do they do all together? Simple, what drives anyone to play sincerely: HAVE FUN. "What is Life" is pure fun, class, technique, and competence. The chorus is sunny, made to move, sing and smile. Harrison doesn't wallow in self-pity like the other Beatles; he shows what he had kept hidden due to the obvious limitations of his old band and releases a beautiful triple album "All Things Must Pass," which confirms itself as the best work of a solo Beatle.

Harrison writes with a head fully in the seventies, plays, has fun, and shows off a bit, and where he can't reach with the guitar (which obviously has several limitations like his other friends from Liverpool), he lets Eric Clapton play... HUMILITY FOR THE SAKE OF NOT DOING ANYTHING TRIVIAL.

The structure of the song is simple, the music becomes full right from the start, and the dynamic remains high throughout the piece with an increasingly explosive ending.

Sometimes, listening to these pieces, I am at a loss for words. Behind these notes, there is truly a special way of living music. It's not trivial, it's not silly sentimentalism ("I have music in my heart," "music is my life"). These artists lived music as both a work AND a passion. Two different things they knew when to let take over, the right balance that ensured an entire generation of musicians their immortality.

This song isn't "Imagine," but why is there a need for comparisons? None, all we have left is to listen to it and wonder how it was possible that CHANCE brought together three souls of this kind.

Rip Harrison.