What are you running from?

When I consider just what it is that separates all the greats from the also-rans, I hope to look past the notion that luck is the major contributor. We make our own circumstances just as those situations we put ourselves define how we shall act.

Let's talk about Wonderwall Music, considered by many to be the first "Solo" Beatles album.

George Harrison was asked to score the soundtrack for a film that centers around a man's fixation with a couple who live in the flat next door that he can view through a hole in the wall.

The result is a sort of zygote of what would come to fruition on his future contributions to both The Beatles and in his impressive solo career. You can sense that Harrison lacked a proper outlet for his ideas, being that the Lennon-McCartney hegemony relegated him to outsider status when it came to what actually got released as Beatles tracks. Harrison has always been tabbed as a series of contradictions; the most spiritual, but (I'm not quite sure how one might go about measuring the egos of the biggest names in Pop music history, but I'll just say it for the sake of sounding academic) the most egotistical, and perhaps material member of the group.

I mentioned in my last post that this album dropped in 1968, a great year to go unheard with the abundance of great releases. This album is particularly obscure in the sense that Harrison does not actually play on a single track, rather, a mixed bag of Indian and British session musicians play his arrangements.

There are some very interesting tracks that manage to successfully blend the two unique sounds, but in comparison with tracks like "Within You Without You" and "Love You Too", there is nothing particularly groundbreaking going on here. That said, the musicianship is absolutely splendid.

You can find a high quality copy here.

Love you all.