brainwashed

Brainwashed is the new (posthumous) album from George Harrison, due out 19 November in the United States and 18 November in the UK.

It includes 11 new songs and one cover, "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea."

Although not released yet, and impossible to pirate, I've heard the sound clips, and two of the originals-"Stuck Inside A Cloud" (the first single) and "Any Road" (released on AOL listening last night), and it sounds extraordinary.

It is not just great musicianship, which has always been prevalent in any of Harrison's work- he was one of the greatest guitarists of our time, it is the most lyrically poignant work, I think anyway, since 1973's Living in the Material World. Harrison was nearing his death (he knew it well) and reflecting on his life, and the lyrics all show it. There can be no question about the depth of Harrison's spiritual convictions, and Brainwashed makes that clear yet again.

Most of the songs were left unfinished of course, and George sort of intended it to be that way. Jeff Lynne, a fellow member of The Traveling Wilbury's and George's son, Dhani, oversaw the project and plotted the directions in which the songs would take.

Lynne says:
"I'd been talking to George for the past couple or three years about finishing these songs," Lynne says. "He said, 'I'd like you to finish them for me.' We talked about it, and he said that he didn't want the album to be posh. What he wanted, really, was kind of like demos."

The turned out a litter more "posh", because Lynne felt he needed to "do them justice." But the majesty of a Harrison song is that it doesn't need to be prettied up. It's fine as a simple ballad. Just listen to the demo of 1970's "All Things Must Pass" (avaliable on the Beatles Anthology). It's enough.

Brainwashed was completed over a six-month period at the studio in Lynne's California home. It would be fair to say that George haunted the sessions, initially as an absence. "I remember coming in from England and recording guitars with Jeff the first night," Dhani recalls. "It was the most surreal thing ever. I kept turning around, looking for my dad - 'Er, is that all right?' And there's no one there to tell you."

This album is the sort of celebration that us George fans need and deserve - and that he would have wanted us to have.

Track Listing:

1. Any Road
2. P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)
3. Pices Fish
4. Looking for My Life
5. Rising Sun
6. Marwa Blues
7. Stuck Inside a Cloud
8. Run So Far
9. Never Get Over You
10. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
11. Rocking Chair in Hawaii
12. Brainwashed

"Brainwashed" is the final track of the posthumously released George Harrison album, bearing the same name. It should be noted that, throughout his years, Harrison was a spiritual person, and a self-admitted creature of probable religious contradictions, due a keen interest in both Christianity and Hinduism. Nonetheless, he stayed true to his convictions through to his last breath, and this song is just one indication of that. "Brainwashed", whose lyrics at first appear seemingly mundane, takes on a readily-apparent transformation into something of a prayer.

The song (and thus album) ends with a bhajan chanted together by George and Dhani Harrison; I've read that, translated, it reads something like the following:

Sing the name of the Goddess Parvati, who removes afflictions.
Sing praises to the Divine.
Praise, Praise be to Shiva the Great God.

...although I've also heard that, based on pronunciations ("hara" versus "hare"), it could be a prayer outright to Shiva, husband of Parvati.