Living In The Material World
	Produced by George Harrison (track 9 by George Harrison and Phil Spector)
	Released on May 30, 1973
	US CHART POSITION #1 . . . GOLD RECORD . . . UK CHART POSITION #2
	Find it at GEMM
SMAS-3410 cover [high resolution scan]

I remember that the B side for “My Sweet Lord,” “Isn’t It A Pity,” scared me off from buying All Things Must Pass for years. What if the rest of the songs all sound like that?, I wondered, doing the multiplication in my head with trepidation. Two years later, the sunny single for Harrison’s modest Material World arrived and I wondered: What if the rest of the album sounds like “Give Me Peace” and “Miss O’Dell?” This was an album I had to own! Only, in retrospect, it turned out to be more pity-full than George’s earlier Pass. Living In The Material World is wonderfully packaged and expertly produced (I think) by George, but gone is the joy of tracks like “What Is Life,” “Wah-Wah,” “Awaiting On You All,” “I Dig Love,” etc. In essence, George the lighthearted Beatle had been replaced by George the enlightened Beatle, who turned out to be something of a killjoy. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” is at least a match for “My Sweet Lord,” the title track is neat as is George’s version of “Try Some Buy Some,” but the rest of the record is minor-key music minus the memorable melodies of his earlier, grander opus. You get the sense that George could write these songs any time, and in fact he revisited some of them on subsequent records like 33 & 1/3 (e.g., “The Light That Has Lighted The World” sounds a lot like “Learning How To Love You,” la la la). From a production standpoint the Material World is more complex than I first imagined; I’m suspending final judgment until I hear this on a digital remaster. But I don’t suspect that any digital remaster will reveal melodies that were never there to begin with. Living In The Material World set the stage for a solo career that offered a respite from John and Paul rather than an alternative. All Things Must Pass, it turned out, was a fantasy world pieced together from bits of broken Beatles. Here was the real world, and the material was frankly a little dull in comparison.

SMAS-3410 inner gatefold	SMAS-3410 back cover

TRACK LISTING

1. GIVE ME LOVE-(GIVE ME PEACE ON EARTH)    3:32
2. SUE ME, SUE YOU BLUES    4:43
3. THE LIGHT THAT HAS LIGHTED THE WORLD    3:28
4. DON'T LET ME WAIT TOO LONG    2:54
5. WHO CAN SEE IT    3:49
6. LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD    5:27
7. THE LORD LOVES THE ONE (THAT LOVES THE LORD)    4:32
8. BE HERE NOW    4:07
9. TRY SOME BUY SOME    4:06
10. THE DAY THE WORLD GETS 'ROUND    2:50
11. THAT IS ALL    3:40
    
    LP/CD reissue bonus tracks
    
12. DEEP BLUE
13. MISS O'DELL
    
    All songs written by George Harrison

CREDITS

GEORGE HARRISON -- vocals, guitar
NICKY HOPKINS -- keyboards
JIM HORN -- sax & flutes
ZAKIR HUSSEIN -- tabla
JIM KELTNER -- drums
RINGO STARR -- drums
KLAUS VOORMANN -- bass
GARY WRIGHT -- keyboards
John Barham -- strings
Jim Gordon -- drums (9)
Phillip McDonald -- recording and remix engineer
Wilkes & Braun, Inc. -- design
Kendall L. Johnson -- cover photograph
Ken Marcus -- inside photograph

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