Extra Texture (Read All About It) - Background

Background

In February 1975, Rolling Stone magazine had labelled Harrison's tour with Ravi Shankar and the accompanying Dark Horse album "disastrous". Previously viewed as "the surprise winner of the ex-Beatle sweepstakes" − the dark horse − Harrison had thus suffered the ignominy of receiving perhaps the worst reviews of any of the solo Beatles' careers as well as having an album fail to chart at all in the UK. Despite his face-saving claims throughout the tour that such negative press "only makes me stronger", the criticism hit him hard personally. As Mikal Gilmore acknowledged almost thirty years later, "the crises he faced in the mid-1970s changed him", and depression was a key factor.

During conversations with Derek Taylor in 1978–79 for his autobiography, Harrison would describe his mindset upon arriving back at Friar Park in January '75: "When I got off the plane and back home, I went into the garden and I was so relieved. That was the nearest I got to a nervous breakdown. I couldn't even go into the house." The same despair was evident in the lyrics to "Grey Cloudy Lies", a track that Harrison would describe to Paul Gambaccini that September as "one of those depressing, 4 o'clock in the morning sort of songs":

Now I only want to be
With no pistol at my brain
But at times it gets so lonely
Could go insane
Could lose my aim
...
No clear blue skies
Grey cloudy lies.

Depression permeated many of the songs that Harrison was writing during this period, an issue that was not helped by his continued heavy drinking and cocaine use, nor the bad publicity attending the ongoing "My Sweet Lord" plagiarism suit. The lyrics for "The Answer's at the End", "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)", "World of Stone" and "Grey Cloudy Lies" would all steer clear of his usual subject matter − Hindu spirituality − and instead appear to beg the listener for compassion. Harrison's wavering from his Krishna-conscious path was most evident In "World of Stone", writes author Gary Tillery: "'Such a long way from home,' he says, but in his autobiography he renders it, 'Such a long way from OM' − confessing inner turmoil at having strayed from his faith." "Tired of Midnight Blue" was written in Los Angeles, where he had decamped to in the early spring on Dark Horse Records-related business. The lyrics focused on his "depressed" state following a night in an LA club with "a lot of grey-haired naughty people", he would later say; to Tillery, with its chorus line "Made me chill right to the bone", "Tired of Midnight Blue" was Harrison reaching "rock bottom".

Other social outings in Los Angeles included Wings' party on the Queen Mary ocean liner, at Long Beach, where a "drawn"-looking Harrison was seen socialising with Paul McCartney for the first time since The Beatles' break-up. With new love Olivia Arias often in tow, he also made a point of catching a few gigs by Bob Marley & The Wailers, as well as meeting up with old pals Billy Preston and Ronnie Wood backstage after one of the Rolling Stones' Forum shows, in Los Angeles. New friends such as Eric Idle entered the scene that summer, although the Python's influence would only extend to Extra Texture's quirky artwork and packaging rather than its musical content.