George Harrison Wrote ‘Blow Away’ After Dealing With Some of His Demons
George Harrison wrote his 1979 song, “Blow Away” after not writing a single tune throughout 1977. He had some demons to work out, and thankfully he emerged from it all with a great song.
The former Beatle didn’t write any songs in 1977 and didn’t miss it
During a 1979 interview with Rolling Stone, George revealed that he didn’t pick up his guitar or write a song once throughout 1977. He didn’t miss it, either.
There were a couple of reasons for George’s hiatus. He told Rolling Stone that around that time, he hated that when he was doing other things or going on vacation, he’d have to return to his work just as he was starting to enjoy himself. George had begun to think of music as a job, which he hated.
For most of his life, making music was about having fun and connecting to God. George didn’t consider it work. He never thought of it as a career. So, George stepped back when it got too serious.
George also retreated from music because the record companies had gotten too serious. The oil crisis and resulting recession frightened record executives. They needed hits that would make money, and the music industry started to churn out music that sounded the same to ensure that.
For George, making music wasn’t about making money or hits. He didn’t want to go along with what the record companies wanted. He wanted to make the music he liked, and sometimes that wasn’t commercial enough. Backing away from it all was his only option. George might’ve left music behind altogether if he hadn’t taken his break.
George Harrison had a lot to work out before he wrote ‘Blow Away’
In 1978, George and his girlfriend, Olivia Arias, welcomed their first and only child, Dhani. They married a short time later. George’s life changed. Still, music wasn’t his priority.
However, while doing other things, George started feeling guilty about not making music, which is strange. He was always headstrong, and yet he let himself feel guilty over something he didn’t need to be guilty of.
In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George said he went to Formula One races in 1977. Eventually, people started asking him about his music. He couldn’t tell them anything because he hadn’t made any. It was embarrassing, and George started to get paranoid that he’d dried up.
Only when Niki Lauda said to him, “Nothing nicer than being able to go home, relax and listen to some nice songs and records,” was he compelled to write a song. George wanted to write a tune for his friend and was willing to put aside his recent discomfort with making music for him.
However, he still had to come to terms with all of his demons first. Feeling paranoid about drying up made George doubt himself and overthink things. One rainy day, he went out to a hut in his garden. His home, Friar Park, had leaks, and he wanted to escape it all.
He wrote the problem starts when you “get attached to the problems.” That’s when the mind “gets involved in too much thinking of whether one is supposed to go here, or do this or that; you know–the bulls***.” George was feeling rotten and a bit ratty sitting in the hut.
However, all he had to do to wash it all away was remember that he wasn’t that person. He also remembered what the masters said, “I am basically a potentially divine, wonderful human being.” Feeling ratty was him attaching himself to the mind. “The biggest thing that screws us up in life is the mind, it plays tricks on us and can trip you over,” George said.
“I thought, ‘I don’t have to feel all this! I do love everybody,’ and that is really all you’ve got to do, manifest your love. The only thing we really have to work at in this life is how to manifest love.”
Feeling better, George went inside and wrote “Blow Away.”
George was initially embarrassed by ‘Blow Away’
It seems that the demons George faced before writing “Blow Away” took their time to exit his life. He still felt paranoid. In I Me Mine, he wrote that the tune embarrassed him.
After writing it, George thought the tune was “so obvious somehow, I got a bit embarrassed by it and didn’t want to play it to anybody.”
Thankfully, recording the song made George like it more. Whatever he felt within himself for whatever reason, George realized that making music could still make him feel better. His love for it hadn’t been snuffed out.
