Cocaine and Krishna: how George Harrison aligned his religion with a rock and roll lifestyle
George Harrison never claimed to be the most egotistical of The Beatles. While John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the co-captains of the group, Harrison was always the one quietly sitting in the background, bringing the occasional masterpiece to the table and always adding the right guitar part to suit every Beatles song. Those years of being stifled led to his breakout success, All Things Must Pass,a deeply spiritual retaliation to the confines of pop stardom. However, with rock and roll success came hedonistic excess.
Granted, Harrison was never known to be a choirboy behind the scenes. Throughout The Beatles’ career, every group member was known for trying different substances to get a thrill, including Lennon and Harrison being the first to drop acid after their dentist slipped some of the stuff into their tea. When he moved on to his solo career, Harrison abandoned the drug trips and spiritual awakening for cocaine instead.
Despite being a man of God after converting to the Krishna faith, Harrison was always using his body’s spiritual and physical side to the extreme, often partying hard when he wasn’t meditating at different hours of the day. Although he seemed to have it under control, some of his friends saw the cracks beginning to form.
When talking about her marriage to Harrison, Patti Boyd thought that his constant use of cocaine made him emotionally distant, recalling in Wonderful Tonight, “Like everything, done in moderation, it was fine. Done to excess, it was not. George used coke excessively, and I think it changed him. Cocaine was different, and I think it froze George’s emotions and hardened his heart”.
According to Pete Townshend, who was on his own spiritual journey in the ‘70s after hearing the teachings of Meher Baba, Harrison had to constantly explain his balance of narcotics and religion, recounting (via CheatSheet), “I remember having a conversation with George Harrison about how he could reconcile following Krishna with his having to lay out lines of coke in order to talk about Krishna with me. I can’t remember, but I do remember being convinced by his incredibly elegant answer!”.
Although Harrison liked living both sides of his life at extreme measures, some of his friends could tell there was a serious problem there. During those few years, the darkest parts of Harrison would come out, with bassist/friend Klaus Voorman recalling in Living in the Material World, “I would say I was coming over, and I would hear him on the other line going ‘Klaus is coming. Hide the stuff.’ And that made me very sad”.
Harrison’s fondness for cocaine had a breaking point, with albums like Extra Texture marking the moment the operation began to fall apart. After getting clean, though, Harrison never seemed to go through a massive change in lifestyle or anything, just dropping the habit and turning his focus to God instead. While Harrison certainly liked to indulge in some excessive behaviour in his earthly body, he would come to realise that the result of meditation and following the Lord was better than any physical high.
