The song George Harrison almost deleted from history
The art of unearthing lost Beatles songs tends to feel like the holy grail for any classic rock fan. Even decades after their breakup, the idea of the remaining Fab Four restoring the tracks for ‘Now and Then’ was enough to send shockwaves through the fanbase and reduce the average music fan to a blubbering mess hearing history’s favourite band again. Although George Harrison had time to say his final piece on his swan song Brainwashed, the passage of time helped one of his gems be pulled out from the vaults.
Then again, it’s a hard call trying to find out what songs any artist would have wanted out in the world. As much as posthumous albums might be a great way to remember the greatest artists of every generation, there’s a fine line between it being a tribute and being a manipulative way to make money off some brokenhearted fans.
And it’s not like Harrison was in love with the idea of being a solo artist towards the end of his career, either. Aside from working with the Traveling Wilburys, Cloud Nine felt like the last time he was fully satisfied being a solo artist, which may have been helped by the fact that he had Jeff Lynne to bounce off of. Because looking at Somewhere in England, ‘The Quiet Beatle’ had suddenly started making music out of necessity rather than pleasure.
Despite having a spiritually inclined album ready to go, the label rejected much of it, thinking Harrison wasn’t in tune with what the kids were listening to. Although sending him back to the drawing board did lead to some unintentionally hilarious moments, like the song ‘Teardrops’, the fact that Harrison was forced to discard ‘Flying Hour’ was one of the few musical crimes of his later career.
Looking through the album that was initially released, there are far too many tunes that seem like they are being made to fill a quota, but listening to this song in the context of the record, Harrison was still as engaging as ever. The preaching may have been a bit much on albums like Extra Texture, but this is the perfect balance of what Harrison was great at: telling everyone to live in the moment until they find their moment to spread their wings.
In fact, the song actually would have fit much better on the album in the 1980s, given what Harrison had gone through. Since he had ‘All Those Years Ago’ written in tribute to John Lennon, this could have been his way of building on that theme since he’s practically talking about angel wings right as one of his best mates reached the other side of reality.
Would it have been enough to save the album? Not really. There are still some pieces that don’t really work, and outside of the mandated songs like ‘Unconsciousness Rules’, his message songs like ‘Save The World’ don’t hit the mark like they should, especially with the Monty Python-style sound effects added in for good measure.
However, if Harrison had stuck to his guns, Somewhere in England would have had a far more distinctive identity with ‘Flying Hour’ added back in. It may have been lost to time for too long, but now that it’s included on the bonus tracks of subsequent versions, fans will get to listen to the scraps of what Harrison intended his 1980s period to sound like.
