All Things Must Pass

I read the news today. I wake up one gray wintry morning , and as usual, turnon CNN. Some bright-eyed and chirpy newsreader is going on about something thatbarely penetrates the fog in my brain that's as heavy as the one outside thewindow. My wife Vidya reads out the line near the bottom of the screen , knowingfully well that I'm seeing without looking -- George Harrison Dead.

That's when I'm shaken out of sleep. What? What! Paul is on suddenly, holdingback his emotion, making the obligatory statements to the media, ending with aplea to be considerate to George's wife and son. I find myself choking up.

George. The quiet Beatle, reluctant Beatle, baby Beatle. The usual epithetsfor someone who was all of those, yet none of those, who did good despite comingfrom working-class Liverpool, and growing up believing I'm a Loser. Whateverelse he may or may not have been, he was a BEATLE. And I wonder what it has todo with the music any more. A phenomenon, an era, a revolution, and many otherthings, apart from the music that is the sixties, yet timeless, almost alwaysmelodious and memorable. As John said to Paul once, when the latter wasconcerned that they might forget musical ideas if they didn't find a way to putit down on paper, " If we can't remember it, how do you expect others to?"

All Things Must Pass. George, like his other, more talented fellow Beatles,did produce memorable tunes (Check out Guitar George, He Knows all the Chords).A top ten list of favorite Beatles songs will include at least a couple ofGeorge songs, and that's a good enough strike rate for someone who composed arelatively minor part of the Beatles anthology. But everyone knows this. Doesanyone here remember the first time he or she heard the Beatles?

Unlike so manywho seem to remember with precision the day and time they heard the Beatles forthe first time, I can't. Sometime in my teens, they were In My Life, and havebeen there ever since. I do remember the day John died. Time magazine called itThe Day Music Died, from a line in Don McLean's American Pie, which in turnreferred to Buddy Holly's death in a plane crash in'59. I don't know why theydid that, I don't think the music died then, nor today.

Is there Something I want to remember George for? The music, of course, andgiving us the Beatles experience. For sensitively introducing the western worldto the sitar (he informs the Madison Square Garden crowd that Indian music is"more serious than our own" and tells them to listen patiently to RaviShankar performing Bangla Dhun in Concert for Bangladesh). For raising money forBangla Desh and setting a precedent for charity mega-events like Live Aid andBand Aid in the eighties. For a sincere interest in Indian spiritualism(although I wish he'd picked someone other than Mahesh Yogi ) that was to be hisInner Light, about figuring out what's Within You, Without You, in an I ,Me,Mine environment. As a man who lived much of the later part of his life saying,Don't Bother Me.

There's now two Beatles who won't turn sixty-four. This Bird has Flown, he'sgot a Ticket to Ride.