George Harrison once told people he retired to get them to stop bothering him. He didn’t like people asking what he was up to or if he was making new music. He experienced it in the late-1970s and mid-1980s.
George Harrison almost retired in 1977
The former Beatle never pursued a solo career. He only released All Things Must Pass as a reaction to leaving The Beatles. He had to release his stockpile of songs to move forward. When the triple album did well, George continued releasing music.
However, in the late 1970s, George realized the record companies wanted more from him. It made George lose his love of making and releasing music. All he wanted was to leisurely release tunes, but the record companies wanted hits churned out on a conveyor belt.
In 1979, George told Rolling Stone that he didn’t write a single song for all of 1977, and he didn’t miss it. George almost retired completely.
“Well, all of 1977 I didn’t write a song, George said. “I didn’t do anything; I was not working at all really, so I decided I’d better start doing something. I’d just turned off from the music business altogether… Everybody else doesn’t notice, because if your past records still get played on the radio, people don’t notice that you’re not really there. But I just got sick of all that . . .
“Really, it comes down to ego. You have to have a big ego in order to keep plodding on being in the public eye… But most of my ego desires as far as being famous and successful were fulfilled a long time ago.
“I still enjoy writing a tune and enjoy in a way making a record. But I hate that whole thing of when you put it out, you become a part of the overall framework of the business. And I was a bit bored with that. If I write a tune and people think it’s nice then that’s fine by me; but I hate having to compete and promote the thing.
“I really don’t like promotion… What you find is that you have a hit and suddenly everybody’s knocking on your door and bugging you again. I enjoy being low profile and having a peaceful sort of life.”
However, everyone kept asking him what he was up to. Eventually, all the questioning made him feel almost embarrassed about his hiatus.
“I was getting embarrassed because I was going to all these motor races, and everybody was talking to me like George, the ex-Beatle, the musician, asking me if I was making a record and whether I was going to write some songs about racing, and yet musical thoughts were just a million miles away from my mind,” George said.
George once told people he retired to get them to stop bothering him
The “Something” singer also told Guitar Player that all the promotion in the record business was why he stopped releasing music between 1982’s Gone Troppo and 1987’s Cloud Nine.
“Just all this marketing thing-how everything has to be a certain way, otherwise you don’t have a chance of getting it on the radio,” he said. “I got tired of writing songs and making records and then finding out that nobody ever got to hear it-unless I wanted to go and do me video and all that. At that point I just got tired of it-after 20-odd years of doing it.”
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That didn’t mean George stopped making new music between Gone Troppo and Cloud Nine.
“I tend to just use the guitar to write tunes on,” he said. “And then–because I’ve got a studio in my house–to make demos. Like through those five years I never really stopped writing.”
Guitar Player asked George if he considered himself retired from music during his hiatus. George admitted he’d started telling people he retired just to get them to stop asking him if he was working on new music.
“Not really, but I’d tell that to people–so they wouldn’t bother me [laughs],” George said. “I mean, I’ve got a film company, as well, so we’ve been making some movies. And as I say, I’ve never really stopped writing tunes and putting demos down.”
By 1986, George’s views of the record business mellowed. He would agree to music videos and press tours, but he wanted to make the album he wanted, Cloud Nine. George got a co-producer who understood him as an artist, Jeff Lynne, and they recorded good old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll using real instruments and very few machines.
During a 1987 interview, The Journal pointed out that Cloud Nine wasn’t a “second coming.” George found the “fuss” over his “so-called return somewhat embarrassing.”
‘Cloud Nine’ wasn’t a comeback
George didn’t think he was important enough to get a comeback. Only big-name artists got comebacks.
“It’s a bit of a joke, the idea of a comeback, you know,” George said. “Especially to me. I don’t know, because I don’t really see myself as a fully-fledged showbiz star anyway like that. That side of it’s always been a bit of a joke to me.”
His status as a flully-fledged rock star aside, George didn’t view Cloud Nine as a comeback because he never truly left the music business.
During a 1987 interview with Warner Bros., George said, “You see, I know people think in terms of, ‘He’s making a comeback.’ You know, but I’m not making a comeback. I’ve always been around like you say, doing this, doing that, making movies, on different shows, TV shows,” George said.
“So I don’t feel like I’m making a comeback. I’m making a comeback into the eye of the public maybe by doing these videos or interviews specifically this time for the album, but I’ve never been anywhere and I’m not going anywhere. Just been here all the time.”
George never took his career seriously. Others in the music business and fans liked to categorize his career and give it labels. However, he didn’t think in the same terms. George didn’t even think he had a career exactly. George just wanted to write and record music for his own benefit and jam with his friends until dawn. If he decided to release an album, it was up to him.
