Because he left us way too soon, and because he didn’t record all that much in the last few decades of his life, the George Harrison solo catalog isn’t all that extensive. He still left behind a wealth of great music, including some excellent album-closers.
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One note: For this list, we considered all three LPs included in All Things Must Pass as individual albums. Here are five outstanding final songs that left George Harrison fans wanting more.
5. “I Got My Mind Set on You” from Cloud Nine (1987)
Weird Al Yankovic wasn’t all that far off when he parodied this track as “(This Song’s Just) Six Words Long.” Harrison first heard it, as recorded by James Ray, when he was visiting the United States in 1963, before The Beatles had broken big in America. One day during the sessions for Cloud Nine, keyboardist Gary Wright (of “Dream Weaver” fame) started playing the chords of “I Got My Mind Set on You,” and Harrison immediately chimed in with the lyrics. The fun he’s having singing translates to the listener, as the song sparked his comeback by becoming a surprise No. 1 hit.
4. “Hear Me Lord” from All Things Must Pass (1970)
The final LP of All Things Must Pass consists of a series of jam sessions, and likely gets skipped over by a lot of people who’d prefer to concentrate on Harrison’s songcraft. If you’re one of those folks, “Hear Me Lord” essentially acts as the overall closing song. And in this capacity, it works exceedingly well. Harrison spent so much time on the album discussing ways to get closer to a higher power it’s striking to listen to “Hear Me Lord” and hear him singing with such vulnerability. For a guy who seemed so sure about his spiritual inclinations, it sounded like he was acknowledging even he struggled with keeping the faith now and then.
3. “That Is All” from Living in the Material World (1973)
People sleep on Living in the Material World way too much. Granted, it’s not as sprawling as All Things Must Pass, and it might lack the obvious hit singles of its predecessor. But there isn’t much chaff to be found in this set, and there’s something moving in the way the production mostly stays out of the way so Harrison can communicate his concerns directly. “That Is All” is a somewhat simple song in terms of its lyrics. That just adds to its potency, especially with such a lovely vocal from Harrison to help it out.
2. “Run of the Mill” from All Things Must Pass (1970)
Harrison was overflowing with material once The Beatles broke up, in part because the other members of the group didn’t show much enthusiasm for songs George had written. “Run of the Mill” was one song he wrote while they were technically still together, although he never presented it to them. Held back for the final song on the first LP of All Things Must Pass, “Run of the Mill” finds Harrison assessing the band’s dissolution with a cool head, but not without sadness at how it reached the point that even their friendships were fracturing.
1. “Brainwashed” by George Harrison from Brainwashed (2002)
The worry prior to the 2002 release of the posthumous Harrison album Brainwashed was it might come out sounding half finished. Thankfully, the audible evidence proved enough work had clearly been done prior to Harrison’s death, and/or the stewardship of his son Dhani and Jeff Lynne was solid enough to make it sound as such. The title track closes out the album and sums up everything that made Harrison so special, with its cynicism for the institutions governing our world and its longing for the world beyond that.
Photo by Lester Cohen/Getty Images
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