Every one of The Beatles was bound to have something to say after their breakup. None of them were willing to stop making music once they fell out, and despite the contractual disputes they would have, they all still had a knack for making incredible music even on their own. But for all of the anticipation that was riding on John Lennon and Paul McCartney, George Harrison gave us all what we didn’t know we needed when he rolled out his triple album All Things Must Pass.
‘The Quiet Beatle’ had already been making songs for ages that were never given the light of day, so this massive collection was the perfect way to introduce him to the world all over again. ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ were proof that he could write on the same level as his bandmates, but when listening to the album from back to front, it’s astonishing how songs like ‘All Things Must Pass’, ‘Beware of Darkness’ or ‘Run of the Mill’ somehow got left on the cutting room floor by the rest of his mates.
But when looking at the album, was it a case of too much too soon? Well, at the very least, you can see why Harrison wanted to make it like this. He had been a songwriter for years, and while the rest of his mates only had a few months go by before they were making their debuts, All Things Must Pass blows Plastic Ono Band and McCartney out of the water by a mile.
Everything on this record is a part of why Harrison is regarded as one of the greats. He was capable of writing rockers like ‘Let It Down’ and ‘Wah-Wah’, he had mastered the art of writing a good country song on ‘Behind That Locked Door’, and even if he had a habit of using strange chords in his tunes, ‘Awaiting On You All’ was the best example of him writing a silly pop song. If someone releases that much at once, though, there were bound to be people who were displeased with the follow-up.
Then again, most of Harrison’s subsequent albums weren’t bad by any stretch. Living in the Material World is the perfect spiritual companion to his landmark debut, and even if albums like Dark Horse didn’t hit the mark like they should have, the late 1970s were still full of surprises on albums like George Harrison or 33 and ⅓. They’re all fantastic records, but if everyone was comparing them to his debut, he was always going to be considered a one-album wonder by casual fans.
So would the album have benefited from being trimmed down? In some cases, yes. First off, the album could have done away with the jam side. It’s fun, but it doesn’t really get as much replay value as the classics, especially with songs that were clearly meant as jokes like ‘It’s Johnny’s Birthday’. In fact, since most of Derek and the Dominos played at various points on the album, it’s easy to see it as a test-run for Eric Clapton’s supergroup half the time.
The rest of the album is where it gets complicated. As much as some songs like ‘I Dig Love’ or ‘Apple Scruffs’ don’t sit well with a handful of fans, there’s still a charm to them that would have made them impossible to remove. Even if it was kept as a double album, Harrison was still practising self-restraint, since later songs like ‘Woman Don’t You Cry For Me’ and ‘Rocking Chair in Hawaii’ were demoed at this stage but never properly finished.
It may have seemed a little bit petty for Harrison to come out with this massive collection to one-up some of his bandmates, but in terms of its place in history, All Things Must Pass is simply too perfect to handpick any songs to remove. This was ‘The Quiet Beatle’ stepping out of the shadows and proving his worth as a songwriter, and even as the years go by, it’s hard to listen to any song off this record and think that it isn’t one of the greatest sonic adventures any ex-Beatle ever made.
