‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’: George Harrison’s favourite driving song
Of all The Beatles’ post-Fab careers, lead guitarist George Harrison arguably led the most interesting and chequered. Paul McCartney saw continued success with Wings, as did solo John Lennon alongside his political rabble-rousing, and Ringo Starr won a few hits alongside his turn to acting in Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels, Harry Nilsson’s horror vehicle Son of Dracula, and in the ‘starring’ (no apologies) role of 1981 stone-age slapstick caper Caveman.
Harrison was a busy man throughout the 1970s. Releasing his triple LP, All Things Must Pass, which still serves as many people’s favourite Beatles solo record, Harrison organised The Concert for Bangladesh fundraising event in response to the country’s liberation war and then established his HandMade Films company, funding UK film classics such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Time Bandits, and Withnail and I.
He was also a massive motorhead. When Harrison wasn’t chasing nirvana via his life-long fascination with Hindu spirituality and meditation, he was a keen Formula One fan. He had been fascinated with motorsports since the 1955 British Grand Prix held near his hometown in Aintree as a boy. Taking a break from music in 1977 and travelling with the Formula One World Championship inspired Harrison to write ‘Faster’, honouring the drivers he hung out with, including Jackie Stewart, Emerson Fittipaldi, and Niki Lauda.
“I know that racing is to a lot of people, dopey, maybe from a spiritual point of view. Motor cars – polluters, killers, maimers, noisemakers. Good racing, though, involves heightened awareness for the competitors,” Harrison stated in his I, Me, Mine memoir. “Those drivers have to be so together in their concentration, and the handful of them who are the best have had some sort of expansion of their consciousness.”
Caught by an eager journalist at the 2000 Montreal Grand Prix, Harrison gave a characteristically wry exchange while courteous and well-mannered throughout. Describing the sport as “a big soap opera” and revealing his only vehicle was his wheelchair, Harrison gave an unusual answer to the question of his favourite driving song.
Without missing a beat, he said: “Hoagy Carmichael, ‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ from 1929.”
Whether tongue-in-cheek or not, his selection reveals the carefree boyish joy Harrison gleaned from his motor hobby. A bawdy American drinking song from the turn of the turn of the century and loosely based on the San Francisco sailor and Gold Rush miner William Bernard, Carmichael cut one of the ditty’s earliest recordings, featuring what many fans consider one of Bix Beiderbecke’s finest cornet solos. Legend has it that in the second chorus, violinist Joe Venuti sings ‘Barnacle Bill the Shithead’ just for a laugh or possibly aimed at the producer of the Tin Pan Alley novelty tune.
‘Barnacle Bill the Sailor’ would prove popular, inspiring numerous Betty Boop and Popeye shorts from the Fleischer animation house, and its rollicking theme was used to accompany the titular sailor’s arch-nemesis Bluto in the early cartoons.
Clearly enjoying himself, when asked what he liked about Quebec’s largest city, Harrison quipped “the croissants” before whisking himself away. The ‘Quiet Beatle’ always armed with a line, it’s a fun moment which shines a light on a little-known part of Harrison’s storied career.
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