Monday morning, I was in a George Harrison mood.
As anyone who’s known me for at least fifteen minutes knows, I am a Beatles fan. I’ve often said I couldn’t not be a Beatles fan; on the day I was born, George Harrison’s “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth”) was the #1 song on the charts, and the following week was Paul McCartney’s “My Love.”
Officially, I don’t have an official Beatle. I really cannot pick between them. There are Beatles that I listen to more than others. I don’t think that means anything, though; just because I don’t listen to Paul McCartney’s solo work as often as I listen to John Lennon’s solo work doesn’t mean I like Paul less than John.
But if you catch me in the right mood, I’ll admit privately that I get George Harrison more than the other three.
Monday, I went looking for covers of George Harrison songs online. And that brought me here — Yim Yames and his album, Tribute To, a collection of six George Harrison covers that were recorded in November 2001, not long after Harrison’s death from cancer.
(For the record, that was a really rough stretch in my life. My polydactyl cat died in my arms. George Harrison died.)
I’ve been listening to Tribute To — you can stream the tracks off the website — and I think the cover of “The Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)” is one of the most painful songs I’ve heard in a very long time. The echo on the voice, the sound of the guitar and the piano, the pain in the voice… listening to this just hurts in a way that Harrison’s much jauntier version does not.
I can’t stop listening to this, even though it makes me want to sit here and weep.
So I’ll write about Stargate and Farscape instead.