Living in the Material World is the fourth studio album by the English musician George Harrison, released in 1973 on Apple Records. As the follow-up to 1970's critically acclaimed All Things Must Pass and his pioneering charity project, the Concert for Bangladesh, it was among the most highly anticipated releases of that year. The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America two days after release, on its way to becoming Harrison's second number 1 album in the United States, and produced the international hit "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)". It also topped albums charts in Canada and Australia, and reached number 2 in Britain.
Living in the Material World is notable for the uncompromising lyrical content of its songs, reflecting Harrison's struggle for spiritual enlightenment against his status as a superstar, as well as for what many commentators consider to be the finest guitar and vocal performances of his career. In contrast with All Things Must Pass, Harrison scaled down the production for Material World, using a core group of musicians comprising Nicky Hopkins, Gary Wright, Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner. Ringo Starr, John Barham and Indian classical musician Zakir Hussain were among the album's other contributors.
Upon release, Rolling Stone described it as a "pop classic", a work that "stands alone as an article of faith, miraculous in its radiance". EMI reissued the album in 2006, in remastered form with bonus tracks, and released a deluxe-edition CD/DVD set that included film clips of four songs. A newly remixed and expanded edition was released in 2024 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
Background
George Harrison's 1971–72 humanitarian aid project for the new nation of Bangladesh had left him an international hero, but also exhausted and frustrated in his efforts to ensure that the money raised would find its way to those in need. Rather than record a follow-up to his acclaimed 1970 triple album, All Things Must Pass, Harrison put his solo career on hold for over a year following the two Concert for Bangladesh shows, held at Madison Square Garden, New York, in August 1971. In an interview with Disc and Music Echo magazine in December that year, pianist Nicky Hopkins spoke of having just attended the New York sessions for John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" single, where Harrison had played them "about two or three hours" worth of new songs, adding: "They were really incredible." Hopkins suggested that work on Harrison's next solo album was to begin in January or February at his new home studio at Friar Park, While he found time during the last few months of 1971 to produce singles for Ringo Starr and Apple Records protégés Lon & Derrek Van Eaton, and to help promote the Ravi Shankar documentary Raga, Harrison's next project in the role of record producer was not until August 1972, when Cilla Black recorded his composition "When Every Song Is Sung".
Throughout this period, Harrison's devotion to Hindu spirituality – particularly to Krishna consciousness via his friendship with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada – reached new heights. As Harrison admitted, his adherence to his spiritual path was not necessarily consistent. His wife, Pattie Boyd, and their friend Chris O'Dell would joke that it was hard to tell whether he was dipping into his ever-present Japa Yoga prayer bag or "the coke bag". This duality has been noted by Harrison biographers Simon Leng and Alan Clayson: on one hand, Harrison earned himself the nickname "His Lectureship" during his prolonged periods of fervid devotion; on the other, he participated in bawdy London sessions for the likes of Bobby Keys' eponymous solo album and what Leng terms Harry Nilsson's "thoroughly nasty" "You're Breakin' My Heart", both recorded in the first half of 1972. Similarly, Harrison's passion for high-performance cars saw him lose his driving licence for the second time in a year after crashing his Mercedes into a roundabout at 90 miles an hour, on 28 February, with Boyd in the passenger seat.
In August 1972, with the Concert for Bangladesh documentary film having finally been released worldwide, Harrison set off alone for a driving holiday in Europe, Religious academic Joshua Greene, a Hare Krishna devotee, has described this trip as Harrison's "preparation" for recording the Living in the Material World album. Harrison purchased Piggott's Manor in Hertfordshire for the growing number of UK-based devotees. Renamed Bhaktivedanta Manor, the property remains ISKCON's main centre for study and worship in Britain.
Songs
Rather than revisit compositions left over from the All Things Must Pass sessions, Harrison's material for Living in the Material World was drawn from the 1971–72 period, with the exception of "Try Some, Buy Some", which he wrote in 1970 and recorded with former Ronette Ronnie Spector in February 1971. The songs reflected his spiritual devotion – in the case of "The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)", "Living in the Material World", "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" and "Try Some, Buy Some" – as well as his feelings before and after the Bangladesh benefit concerts, with "The Day the World Gets 'Round" (and the non-LP single B-side "Miss O'Dell").thumb|left|upright=0.8|The teachings of [[A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada|Swami Prabhupada, founder of the Hare Krishna movement, influenced some of Harrison's songs on the album.]]
Both "The Lord Loves the One" and the album's title track were directly inspired by Prabhupada's teachings. Greene writes of Harrison adapting a passage from the Bhagavad Gita into his lyrics for "Living in the Material World" and adds: "Some of the songs distilled spiritual concepts into phrases so elegant they resembled Vedic sutras: short codes that contain volumes of meaning." On "Give Me Love", Harrison blended the Hindu bhajan style (or devotional song) with Western gospel music, repeating the formula of his 1970–71 international hit "My Sweet Lord". In his 1980 autobiography, I Me Mine, he describes the song as "a prayer and personal statement between me, the Lord, and whoever likes it".
Whereas Harrison's Krishna devotionals on All Things Must Pass had been uplifting celebrations of faith, his latest compositions betrayed a more austere quality, partly as a result of the Bangladesh experience. His musical arranger, John Barham, would later suggest that a spiritual "crisis" might have been the cause; Leng writes of his frame of mind at this time: "while George Harrison was bursting with musical confidence, Living in the Material World found him in roughly the same place that John Lennon was when he wrote 'Help!' – shocked by the rush of overwhelming success and desperately wondering where it left him." either in direct references to the band's history – in the case of "Living in the Material World" and "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" – or in Harrison's stated desire to live in the present, free of his former identity, in the case of "The Light That Has Lighted the World", "Who Can See It" and "Be Here Now". The lyrics to "Who Can See It" reflect Harrison's disenchantment with his previous, junior status to former bandmates Lennon and Paul McCartney, while "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" was his comment on McCartney's 1971 High Court action to dissolve the band as a business entity. In line with Prabhupada's teachings, all such pursuits of fame, wealth or position meant nothing in Harrison's 1972 world-view. Author Gary Tillery writes of Material Worlds lyrical content: "The album expresses his impressions of the mundane and the spiritual worlds and the importance of ignoring the lures of the everyday world and remaining focused on the eternal verities." Even in seemingly conventional love songs such as "That Is All" and "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long", Harrison appeared to be addressing his deity as much as any human partner. Musically, the latter composition reflects the influence of Brill Building songwriters of the early 1960s, while Harrison sings of a love delivered "like it came from above". to his Material World Charitable Foundation. The latter initiative was set up in reaction to the tax issues that had hindered his relief effort for the Bangladeshi refugees, and ensured a perpetual stream of income, through ongoing publishing royalties, for dispersal to the charities of his choice.
Production
After the grand, Wall of Sound production of All Things Must Pass, Harrison wanted a more understated sound this time around, to "liberate" the songs, as he later put it. He had intended to co-produce with Phil Spector as before, although the latter's erratic behaviour and alcohol consumption ensured that, once sessions were under way in October 1972, Harrison was the project's sole producer. Spector received a credit for "Try Some, Buy Some", however, since Harrison used the same 1971 recording, featuring musicians such as Leon Russell, Jim Gordon, Pete Ham and Barham, that they had made for Ronnie Spector's abandoned solo album.
A release date was planned for January or February 1973, with the album title rumoured to be The Light That Has Lighted the World. with an erroneous report in Rolling Stone magazine claiming that Eric Clapton was co-producing and that the album was set for release on 20 December 1972. Gary Wright, who shared Harrison's spiritual preoccupations, and Nicky Hopkins, and Jim Horn, another musician from the Concert for Bangladesh band, supplied horns and flutes.
thumb|left|Apple Studios, where Harrison recorded part of Living in the Material World
All the rhythm and lead guitar parts were performed by Harrison alone Ham and his Badfinger bandmate Tom Evans augmented the line-up on 4 and 11 October,
The sessions took place partly at Apple Studios in London, but mostly at Harrison's home studio, FPSHOT, according to Voormann. Apple Studios, together with its Savile Row, London W1 address, received a prominent credit on the Living in the Material World record sleeve, as a further sign of Harrison's championing of the Beatles-owned recording facility. At the weekends during these autumn months, Hopkins recorded his own solo album, The Tin Man Was a Dreamer (1973), at Apple, Voormann has described the mood at the Friar Park sessions as "intimate, quiet, friendly" and in stark contrast to the sessions he, Harrison and Hopkins had attended at Lennon's home in 1971, for the Imagine album.
The sessions continued until the end of November, During this period, Harrison co-produced a new live album for Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan for a January release on Apple Records, the highly regarded In Concert 1972.
Overdubbing and mixing
After hosting a visit by Bob Dylan and his wife Sara at Friar Park, Harrison resumed work on the album in January 1973, at Apple. "Sue Me, Sue You Blues", which he had originally given to Jesse Ed Davis to record in 1971, The lyrics' courtroom theme had a new relevance in early 1973, as he, Lennon and Starr looked to sever all legal ties with manager Allen Klein, who had been the prime cause for McCartney's earlier litigation.
For the rest of January and through February, extensive overdubs were carried out on the album's basic tracks The resulting contrast between the main, Western rock portion and the Indian-style middle eights emphasised Harrison's struggle between physical-world temptations and his spiritual goals. The Indian instrumentation overdubbed on this track and "Be Here Now" also marked a rare return to the genre for Harrison, recalling his work with the Beatles over 1966–68 and his first solo album, Wonderwall Music (1968).
Barham's orchestra and choir were the final items to be recorded, on "The Day the World Gets 'Round", "Who Can See It" and "That Is All", in early March. and to begin work on Shankar and Starr's respective albums, Shankar Family & Friends (1974) and Ringo (1973).
Album artwork
thumb|upright=0.85|right|Lyric insert artwork for the album, taken from [[Bhagavad Gita As It Is]]
As he had done with All Things Must Pass and The Concert for Bangladesh, Harrison entrusted the album's art design to Tom Wilkes, and the latter's new business partner, Craig Baun. The gatefold and lyric insert sleeves for Living in the Material World were much commented-on at the time of release, Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone describing the record as "beautifully-packaged with symbolic hand-print covers and the dedication, 'All Glories to Sri Krsna'", Reproduced on the lyric insert sheet (on the back of which was a red Om symbol with yellow surround), this painting features Krishna with Arjuna, the legendary archer and warrior, in a chariot, being pulled by the enchanted seven-headed horse Uchchaihshravas. Clayson writes of this image: "a British teenager might have still dug the gear worn by Krishna in his chariot … Androgynous in beaded kaftan, jewelled fez and peacock feather, and strikingly pretty, the Supreme Personality of Godhead was not unlike some of the new breed of theatrical British chartbusters."
For the album's striking front-cover image, Wilkes used a Kirlian photograph of Harrison's hand holding a Hindu medallion. The photo was taken at UCLA's parapsychology department, as was the shot used on the back cover, where Harrison instead holds three US coins: a couple of quarters and a silver dollar. the picture was taken in California at the mock-Tudor home of entertainment lawyer Abe Somer, by Hollywood glamour photographer Ken Marcus. of life in the material world. Schaffner recorded in his book The Beatles Forever: "For a while there ... album charts were reminiscent of the golden age of Beatlemania." Preceding Harrison's long-awaited release was the acoustic single "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)", which became his second number 1 hit in the United States. This was accompanied by a billboard and print advertising campaign, including a three-panel poster combining the album's front and back covers, and an Apple publicity photo showing Harrison, now free of the heavy beard familiar from the All Things Must Pass–Concert for Bangladesh era, with his hand outstretched, mirroring Wilkes' album cover image.
Living in the Material World was issued on 30 May 1973 in America (with Apple catalogue number SMAS 3410) and on 22 June in Britain (as Apple PAS 10006). It enjoyed immediate commercial success, entering the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart at number 11 and hitting number 1 in its second week, on 23 June, demoting Wings' album in the process. Material World spent five weeks atop the US charts, having been awarded a gold disc by the RIAA selling more than 500,000 copies within two days of release based on advance orders. Global US sales of the album stand at almost 1 million copies. Nonetheless, despite such high initial sales, the record's follow-on success was limited by what Leng terms the "anomalous" decision to cancel the release of a second US single, "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long".
In the UK, the album peaked at number 2, held from the top position by the soundtrack to Starr's film That'll Be the Day. Material World also topped albums charts in Australia
With Living in the Material World, Harrison achieved the Billboard double for a second time when "Give Me Love" hit the top position during the album's stay at number 1 Harrison carried out no supporting promotion for Material World; "pre-recorded tapes" were issued to BBC Radio 1 and played repeatedly on the show Radio One Club, but his only public appearance in Britain was to accompany Prabhupada on a religious procession through central London, on 8 July. According to author Bill Harry, the album sold over 3 million copies worldwide.
Critical reception
Contemporary reviews
Leng describes Living in the Material World as "one of the most keenly anticipated discs of the decade" and its unveiling "a major event". Among expectant music critics, Stephen Holden began his highly favourable review in Rolling Stone with the words "At last it's here", before hailing the new Harrison album as a "pop classic" and a "profoundly seductive record". "Happily, the album is not just a commercial event," he wrote, "it is the most concise, universally conceived work by a former Beatle since John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band."