‘Here Comes The Moon’: The George Harrison song he attributed to magic mushrooms
The 1960s is often regarded as a revolutionary time for music, and a large part of this reputation comes from the influence of drugs. Music and drugs were inseparable during that era, and this newfound influence of mind-altering chemicals allowed artists and musicians to think about the construction and impact of their work in a completely new and different way. The Beatles were certainly no different, with their discovery of LSD completely altering the direction of their sound. For George Harrison, the artistic potential of acid did not end with the break-up of the Fab Four.
“The Beatles were so high they let Ringo sing a couple of tunes,” or so the famous Bill Hicks joke goes. There is certainly a lot of truth in that joke; the Liverpool band took an unavoidable level of inspiration from drugs and psychedelics. From Rubber Soul onwards, the group began to explore the widest ranges of their inner subconscious. Inevitably, that influence carried itself over into the respective solo careers of the band, particularly the solo work of George Harrison.
Arguably more so than the rest of the band, Harrison dove headfirst into the realm of spirituality and looking inside oneself. This spiritual life went hand-in-hand with the psychedelic world, which allowed Harrison to explore his innermost thoughts and feelings easily. Some of his greatest work was inspired by his experiences using mind-altering drugs, ranging from LSD-spiked tea to a gentle mushroom trip in the picturesque surroundings of places like Maui.
During the latter part of the 1970s, after a somewhat tumultuous songwriting period for the former Beatle, Harrison decided to temporarily exile himself to the sun-soaked shores of Hawaii. During this time, Harrison chose to revisit his psychedelic influences, and as a result, the trip provided him with one of his most prolific songwriting periods in the entirety of his solo career.
“I hadn’t had any psychedelic drugs for almost ten years,” Harrison later recalled, “So I thought maybe I should have it to just see if it reminds me of anything. You have to be careful with mushrooms because they’re so good. […] I nearly did myself in; I had too many. I fell over and left my body, hit my head on a piece of concrete – but they were great.”
While under the influence of these particularly pungent mushrooms, Harrison penned a wide variety of songs, most notably ‘Here Comes The Moon.’ Harrison reportedly wrote the song while watching the sunset in Maui, as the moon suddenly appeared in the sky, stuck inside the drugged-up mind of the songwriter. As the title of the song implies, Harrison penned the song as something of a sequel to The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes The Sun.’
Given the fact that the song is, in essence, a sequel, it is easy to assume that Harrison was drawing upon the influence of his former band on ‘Here Comes the Moon.’ In contrast to the Abbey Road track, however, ‘Here Comes the Moon’ focuses more on the physical presence of the moon in the sky, as opposed to the symbolism of the sun that The Beatles were singing about a decade prior.
Upon its release on Harrisons’ eponymous 1979 album, ‘Here Comes the Moon’ it quickly became one of the songwriter’s defining moments. Although his solo career rarely matched the intense success of his former band, mushroom-influenced tracks like ‘Here Comes the Moon’ emphasised the clear songwriting prowess of ex-Beatle, as well as the fact that his appetite for musical innovation never waned.
