Run Of The Mill

George Harrison: Living in the Material World is the title of Martin Scorsese's epic documentary about the life, music and beliefs of the Beatle who was my original favourite of the group (at the age of six, for no rational reason I can recall). When I became seriously interested in pop, it was October 1970, and the British pop weeklies were full of chatter about George's forthcoming album, All Things Must Pass.

For reasons that I've explained elsewhere on this blog, I had accidentally become infatuated (for life) with the Beatles a few weeks earlier. With the zeal of the fresh convert, I was eagerly awaiting new music from any (or preferably all) of the Fab Four. One afternoon, I came home from school to listen to Radio 1, the BBC's three-year-old pop channel, and was granted a sneak preview of George's work. As soon as his name was announced, I pushed the 'record' button on my father's ancient reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was connected up to our equally ancient radiogram. So I had plenty of time over the next few months to replay and appreciate the magic of what I heard: 'Run Of The Mill'.

It was the guitars that pulled me in: that gorgeous, tumbling motif that bookended the song - which was, as I would soon discover when I tried to reproduce it myself, very deceptively simple. Then the voice: somewhere on the emotional spectrum between 'beautifully pained' and 'poignantly sympathetic', not the carefree joi de vivre that Paul McCartney would try to maintain, or the naked savagery of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band roar. And the melody, with that subtle elegance and beauty that would become the hallmark of George's best solo work.

What didn't really touch me for years, though, were the words. That was partly because it wasn't that easy to make them out beneath George's double-tracked Scouse slur, and partly because the tune was so pretty that I didn't bother to listen. It must have been twenty years or so later that I heard the song one day and suddenly clicked: "He's writing about the Beatles!"

At which point the whole thing made sense. In 'Run Of The Mill', George wasn't writing about the Beatles as an institution, but about his relationship with one particular Beatle (or maybe two of them, swapping the role of target in every other line). This wasn't the open sadness of Ringo's 'Early 1970', or the sly sniping of Paul's 'Too Many People', or the outright viciousness of John's 'How Do You Sleep'. Nor was it the shocking dismissal of Lennon's own verdict in late 1970: "I don't believe in Beatles". No, this was one human being very openly confronting the decline in his relationship with another human being who was still very dear to him, but who he feared was destined to slip out of his life altogether.

The most poignant lines in the song are these: "As the days stand up on end, you've got me wondering how I lost your friendship, but I see it in your eyes". What's gone wrong between these two men? The clue is in the early part of the same verse, where George says that tomorrow will bring "another day for you to realise me" (in other words, to realise exactly who I am) "or send me down again" (by ignoring me). Which takes us back to January 1969, when George unveiled a series of new songs for John and Paul, and they did their best to ignore them.

So which of these two old friends was the target of 'Run Of The Mill'. Ultimately, as George sings, "it's you who decides": both Lennon and McCartney had undervalued and squashed Harrison as a creative force in the final years of the Beatles. But my guess is that it's Paul who George had in mind - simply because George put so much faith in the reality of his relationship with John (as his comments in the Beatles' Anthology book proved) that he couldn't bear, at least in 1970, to consider for a second that he might have lost Lennon's friendship. He found it easier, in emotional terms, to blame Paul - the boy who'd been a year older than him at school, who had suggested he should audition for the Beatles, and who had chosen to lecture him about his guitar-playing in front of a camera crew during those January 1969 sessions.

And the title? It was only when I was writing You Never Give Me Your Money that it struck me where it had come from. There is nothing in the song about anything being "run of the mill". But my guess is that one of the other Beatles, at some stage in the 60s, slagged off a new Harrison song by telling him that it wasn't good enough to record, it was only run of the mill. It's the kind of comment that trips out of people's mouths in a second, and which they never consider the consequences of; and which the recipient remembers for the rest of their lives.

In this instance it sparked a remarkable song. Here is a work-in-progress, guide-vocal mix from the All Things Must Pass sessions: not as perfect as the finished record, but still an unpolished gem.

Paul is dead, and I am the walrus

Yesterday was publication day for the US edition of You Never Give Me Your Money, and I spent my afternoon on a 'radio tour' - 17 radio interviews with American stations in just over three hours, with scarcely a pause for breath between each one.

There were lots of questions about who really broke up the Beatles, and where the money went, and whether John and Paul really loved each other, and all the stuff you'd expect. But several DJs also asked me about a new movie, which supposedly proves, once and for all, that Paul McCartney died in 1966, and was replaced by an imposter.

The 'movie' turns out to be a DVD entitled Paul McCartney Really Is Dead (snappy title, huh?). It's based around two tapes, supposedly made by George Harrison, supposedly on the day he was nearly murdered in 1999, in which he supposedly (you get the picture) reveals that he and the other Beatles (not Paul, obviously, cos he was dead) had been involved in a spectacular cover-up of McCartney's death in a car crash.

It's hardly a new idea, this. The 'Paul is dead' saga began in 1969, and I really can't face going through all the 'clues' again right now. If you have a spare day on your hands, you can find all sorts of conspiracy-theory clips on Youtube that 'prove' the case once and for all. But this DVD is, supposedly, different - and it rests on the authenticity or otherwise of these famous tapes.

Well, I've watched the trailer for the DVD, strictly in the cause of research, and it's not even funny enough to count as a joke. I mean, if you're going to pretend that you have tapes of George speaking, then your first step is to find someone who sounds like him - at least a little, right? But this guy - well, the closest he's ever been to Liverpool was watching A Hard Day's Night. I can do a better Harrison impression than this guy, believe me. (So you know where to come next time, boys.)

Paul isn't dead, George didn't leave a 'last testament' exposing the truth, and the DVD is a waste of everyone's time. What intrigued me, though, was the timing. Here we are, 40 or 41 (depending where you start counting) years after the Beatles broke up, nearly nine after George Harrison's death, and you can still get in the papers by making up a story about the group. And you can still get on the radio by writing a book about them, thank goodness. All of which illustrates one of the themes of You Never Give Me Your Money: we (the Beatle-obsessed world) still cling to the Beatles like children do to their favourite toys. We want more, more, more, and if we have to make up new stories because the old ones are no longer exciting enough, then we'll do it.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of equally bizarre claims for you to consider. Which (fairly) famous drummer claimed that it was he, and not Ringo, who played on most of the Beatles' records? And which (very) famous record producer claimed that it was he, and not George Martin, who produced most of the Beatles' records? One clue: it wasn't Paul McCartney. (He died in 1966, remember?) Answers soon . . .