{"id":2161191,"date":"2024-01-28T05:14:01","date_gmt":"2024-01-28T10:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/where-the-rubber-soul-meets-the-road\/"},"modified":"2024-01-28T05:24:35","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T10:24:35","slug":"where-the-rubber-soul-meets-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/where-the-rubber-soul-meets-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"When Soul Meets Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhere-the-rubber-soul-meets-the-road%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2161191&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Hey you!\u2062 Beatles\u200c fans!<\/h2>\n<p>I want a show of hands. How many of you believe that the following story\u2014it comes from\u2064 Philip Norman&#8217;s new biography, <i>George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle<\/i>\u2014has the faintest \u2064scintilla of a possibility of\u200d being somewhere close to a simulacrum of a story that might, conceivably, be within a hundred bazillion miles of an event \u200bthat actually happened?<\/p>\n<p>The year is 1971 or &#8217;72, it\u2019s not quite clear. The Beatles \u200dhave well and\u2063 truly broken up. \u2062George Harrison&#8217;s marriage to his first\u200d wife Pattie is dying from indifference, and Eric Clapton, perhaps Harrison&#8217;s \u2063closest friend, has loudly declared his undying love for her.<\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s what Harrison does, goes the\u2062 story: He sets out two guitars and\u2064 amplifiers\u2064 in the cavernous foyer of his Gothic \u200cmansion outside London and invites Clapton to visit, ostensibly for a gentlemanly chin wag. Instead, the unsuspecting suitor is challenged to a duel by the\u2063 cuckolded Beatle\u2014a &#8220;rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll version of the &#8216;pistols\u2062 at dawn&#8217; a wronged Victorian husband would have demanded\u2014in this\u2063 case, guitars after dusk.&#8221; According to Norman.<\/p>\n<p>On through the night the two guitar gods raged! &#8220;Clearly \u2062a duel for Pattie,&#8221; Norman calls it. Fiery licks \u200brent the midnight air! Harrison,\u2062 knowing\u2062 Clapton&#8217;s superior skill, plied his rival with brandy and kept himself to only tea, or \u2064so \u200cthe\u2062 story goes. At \u2062last, the night far spent, the two men laid down\u2064 arms, exhausted. And yet, Norman goes on, &#8220;no winner was declared and George never mentioned the episode afterward.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, I don&#8217;t believe it either.<\/p>\n<p>I bet that even Norman suspects the reason George (and Clapton) \u200bnever mentioned the \u2063episode: <i>It didn&#8217;t happen<\/i>. It&#8217;s much too melodramatic, reeks too much of after-the-fact wish fulfillment, carries the air of an imagination malformed by 1940s and &#8217;50s moviegoing\u2014as\u200b indeed it probably was. The genealogy\u2062 of the story, which Norman \u200cdoesn&#8217;t bother to trace for his readers, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/michael-phelps-weighs-in-on-collegiate-transgender-swimmer-needs-to-be-an-even-playing-field\/\" title=\"Michael Phelps Weighs In On Collegiate Transgender Swimmer: Needs To Be \u2018An Even Playing Field\u2019\">leads back<\/a> to the great and\u200d greatly \u200cbibulous actor \u200dJohn Hurt, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/drinking-water-can-help-you-live-longer\/\" title=\"Drinking Water Can Help You Live Longer\">drinking buddy<\/a> of Harrison&#8217;s \u2063who described the duel to Pattie Harrison but insisted he was the only witness.<\/p>\n<p>No reason\u2062 to \u2064beat up on Philip Norman. Some rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll fans will buy anything. Cynical journalists\u200b sometimes wryly describe a juicy story as \u2063&#8221;too good to check,&#8221; and\u200b while it&#8217;s unsurprising to see this practice showing up in so slipshod a genre as the rock star \u2064biography, Norman is nevertheless able to include lots of jaw-droppers\u2062 that \u200cdo indeed check out. Most of \u2064them have to do with Harrison&#8217;s goatishness, staggering in its range and exhibitionism. It encircled friends of his wife and\u2062 the wives of his friends. Also his wife&#8217;s sisters.<\/p>\n<p>No one was\u2062 safe. When Ronnie Wood, soon to become a Rolling Stone, asked Harrison&#8217;s\u2062 help in writing a song, \u200bthe Reluctant Beatle\u200c showed no reluctance in taking Ronnie&#8217;s wife on\u2064 holiday to Spain. Later, when the \u200dWoods came to visit,\u200d the two husbands agreed to sleep \u2064with \u2062their wives\u2014each other&#8217;s\u2062 wives, I mean. Wood cheerfully relates the story in his own autobiography, \u200band Norman repeats it here. Neither writer bothers to register \u200dthe reaction of the wives.<\/p>\n<p>And by now many Beatles fans will have \u200cthe heard the\u200d story of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/newsoms-hail-mary-dems-get-religion-on-signature-verification\/\" title=\"Newsom\u2019s Hail Mary: Dems Get Religion on Signature Verification\">dinner party<\/a> with Ringo Starr and his \u2064wife Maureen, from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/activism-for-dummies\/\" title=\"Activism for Dummies\">early &#8217;70s<\/a>,\u2064 when \u200cGeorge announced\u2062 to Ringo, another of his closest friends, &#8220;I&#8217;m in love with \u200byour wife,&#8221; adding that he&#8217;d been sleeping \u200dwith\u200d her for some time. After a stunned\u200b silence, Ringo said, &#8220;Better you than someone we don&#8217;t know.&#8221; The Unflappable Beatle! Even John Lennon was shocked. &#8220;Virtual incest,&#8221; he said when he heard of the affair.\u200d In \u200clater\u200d years, George (chagrined, maybe?) used \u200dthe same\u200d word, without the qualifying &#8220;virtual.&#8221; The affair \u200dlasted another month or\u200b two and the Starrs were divorced within a year.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a contrast, to\u200c put it\u200b mildly, \u200dbetween George \u2062Harrison&#8217;s knavishness, \u200bby now well-documented, and his undoubted \u2064talent \u2062and eagerness to\u200d do good\u2064 in the world, which included \u2063countless kindnesses, financial and otherwise, to strangers and \u200cfriends, a heroic work ethic,\u2064 and charitable giving that\u2062 at a\u2062 very low estimate amounted to $45 million. The contrast should have given this biography more of a literary spark and narrative drive than it has. It&#8217;s an oddly listless and incurious book. The best the \u200bbiographer can do \u200bis to quote\u200b (several times) Starr&#8217;s description of his friend&#8217;s &#8220;two personalities,&#8221; with a &#8220;bag of\u200c [prayer] beads&#8221; in one\u2064 hand and a &#8220;big\u200c bag of anger&#8221; in the other.<\/p>\n<p>George Harrison&#8217;s longing \u200bfor some kind of sanctity\u2014as expressed in &#8220;My Sweet Lord,&#8221; &#8220;Give Me Love,&#8221; &#8220;Deep Blue,&#8221; \u2062and \u200da \u200bdozen other pop hymns\u2014was genuine, \u200beven baked in. His mother was a pious\u200d Catholic and she raised \u200dhim to be an altar boy, \u200bbut it didn&#8217;t take. &#8220;It felt so alien to me,&#8221; he said of the pre-Vatican II Catholicism of heavily\u2062 Catholic Liverpool. &#8220;Not the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/want-to-know-what-critical-race-theory-is-watch-the-matrix-scholar-explains\/\" title=\"Want To Know What Critical Race Theory Is? Watch \u2018The Matrix,\u2019 Scholar Explains\">stained glass windows<\/a> or\u2062 the pictures of Christ; I liked that a lot, and the smell of incense and the candles. I just didn&#8217;t like the bullshit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Somehow he discovered less bullshit, though\u2064 just as much incense, in Hinduism. With his \u2062fellow Beatles he went to India to study under Maharishi\u2063 Mahesh Yogi, a high-caste entrepreneur who had the genius to trademark\u2063 the phrase &#8220;Transcendental Meditation&#8221; just as the Western counterculture adopted Eastern pantheism as its house religion. Harrison cared enough about his residual \u2063Catholicism to explain his new interest in terms comforting to a working-class, right-kneeling housewife from Liverpool. &#8220;Don&#8217;t think this lessens my devotion to the Sacred Heart,&#8221; he wrote his mother. &#8220;If anything, it strengthens it!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For his personal devotion he settled conveniently on the god Krishna, a cheerful lad with royal blue\u200b skin and Beatle-like\u2063 access to a well-populated\u2062 harem of milkmaids. In sexual matters\u2063 Krishna cuts his devotees a lot more slack than \u2063Jesus ever does. Still, a Catholic-like\u200c aspiration remained in him\u2014call\u2064 it \u200dguilt if you wish. In a remarkable find, Norman\u200b reprints part of a taped private consultation Harrison had with yet another \u2064guru.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I keep going round in circles,&#8221; he confessed (the word seems appropriate). &#8220;There are\u200c periods where \u200bI can&#8217;t stop chanting \u200cand there are other periods when, you\u2062 know, I turn into a \u2064demon again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So the Reluctant Beatle was\u2062 locked in a \u2062duel after all,\u200d different from the one\u200d with Clapton\u2014deeper \u200band more moving, with the added virtue of\u200d being\u2064 true.<\/p>\n<p><i>George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle<\/i><br \/>  by Philip Norman<br \/> Scribner, 512 pp., $35<\/p>\n<p><i>Andrew Ferguson is a contributing writer at the <\/i>Atlantic<i> and nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.<\/i><\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<h2> How\u2063 does Harrison&#8217;s infidelity contradict his reputation as the &#8220;quiet Beatle&#8221;?<\/h2>\n<p><span>  E a spiritual seeker. But\u200d George was also\u200d\u2062 a flawed human being, prone to temptation, selfishness, and betrayal. This duality \u200dis \u2063what\u200b made \u2062him an\u200c interesting and complex figure in the world of \u200crock and roll.<\/p>\n<p>The story of \u2062the\u2063 supposed guitar duel between Harrison \u200cand Clapton is just one example of the\u200c countless rumors and myths\u2064 that have surrounded the Beatles and their individual\u2062 members. It is a tantalizing tale, full\u200b of \u2063intrigue and drama, but ultimately lacking \u200din verifiable evidence. And it is not surprising that even \u200dthe author \u200bof the biography,\u2062 Philip Norman, casts doubt on its authenticity.<\/p>\n<p>But while the \u200cstory may be a fabrication, there\u2062 are other aspects of Harrison&#8217;s personal life that have been well-documented and are difficult\u2064 to ignore. His infidelity, for instance, is a recurring theme throughout the book. From his affair with Ronnie Wood&#8217;s wife \u2062to his admission of sleeping with \u200cRingo&#8217;s wife, Harrison&#8217;s behavior, at times, borders\u2063 on the scandalous. It is a side of him that\u2062 is \u200bhard to \u2062reconcile with his image as the &#8220;quiet Beatle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet, in\u200b spite of\u2062 his \u2063moral\u2064 failings, Harrison was also a man of immense generosity and\u2064 philanthropy.\u2062 He was \u2063known\u200c for his charitable contributions and his willingness to help those in need. From organizing benefit \u200cconcerts to donating millions of dollars, Harrison used his\u2062 fame and fortune to make a difference in the \u200cworld. It is\u200d this juxtaposition between his personal flaws and his acts of kindness\u200d that adds complexity to his character.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Norman&#8217;s \u2064biography fails to fully explore this \u2062complexity. The book feels detached and lacks the narrative drive that would have made Harrison&#8217;s story truly compelling. It\u2063 is \u2062filled with\u2062 anecdotes and facts but\u200d fails to provide\u200c a deeper\u200b understanding of the\u2062 man behind the music. In \u200bmany \u200dways, it is a\u200d missed opportunity to shed light on the contradictions and contradictions in Harrison&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, George Harrison remains\u2064 a fascinating and enigmatic figure \u2063in rock music\u200b history. He \u200cwas a talented musician, a spiritual seeker, and a\u200d flawed\u2062 individual. His story is one of triumphs and failures, of\u200d highs and lows, and it is a story that\u2063 deserves to be explored \u2062with more depth and nuance. While Philip Norman&#8217;s biography offers some insights into Harrison&#8217;s life, it falls short in \u2062capturing his complexity. Fans of\u200b the Beatles \u200bmay find \u200cit interesting,\u2064 but they might also be\u200d left craving for a \u2064more comprehensive and insightful\u2064 portrait of one of the greatest musicians of all time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Attention Beatles fans! Quick poll: Do any of you think there&#8217;s even a remote chance that the story from Philip Norman&#8217;s biography, &#8220;George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle,&#8221; could be somewhat true? Let&#8217;s see a show of hands!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":2161192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2161191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2161192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}