"Grey Cloudy Lies" | ||||
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Song by George Harrison from the album Extra Texture (Read All About It) | ||||
Published | Oops/Ganga | |||
Released | 22 September 1975 | |||
Genre | Rock, soul | |||
Length | 3:41 | |||
Label | Apple | |||
Writer(s) | George Harrison | |||
Producer(s) | George Harrison | |||
Extra Texture (Read All About It) track listing | ||||
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10 tracks |
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"Grey Cloudy Lies" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released on his 1975 album Extra Texture (Read All About It). The track has been likened to the dark, introspective work of songwriters such as Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt. Harrison wrote the lyrics during a prolonged period of depression, in reaction to scathing reviews of his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar, and to personal attacks from some music critics regarding his concurrent album, Dark Horse. Adding to the song's sombre mood, Harrison recorded "Grey Cloudy Lies" in Los Angeles at a time when his disenchantment was increased through his excessive use of cocaine. Some authors interpret the lyrics as a sign of Harrison's allegedly suicidal state of mind in 1975, resulting from an apparent crisis of faith that followed his often ill-received spiritual message during the tour.
The recording typifies the keyboard-oriented sound on Extra Texture, in comparison with the multitracked guitars typical of his earlier solo work. Aside from musical contributions by David Foster, Jesse Ed Davis and Jim Keltner, it features Harrison playing various parts on ARP and Moog synthesizers. "Grey Cloudy Lies" has received unfavourable comments from several reviewers, and particularly from some of Harrison's spiritual biographers. One of these, Dale Allison describes the track as a "relentlessly despondent offering", while author Ian Inglis views it as a song of "great charm, energy, and beauty".
It really is a test. I either finish the tour ecstatically happy or I'll end up going back into my cave for another five years.
In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, George Harrison admits to having been "shell-shocked" towards the end of his 1974 North American tour, the first tour there by a member of the Beatles since the band's visit in August 1966, and his only major tour as a solo artist. Harrison had been keen to present audiences with a new concert experience – one that blended Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India orchestra with his own, jazz-funk inspired musical direction, while also promoting a Krishna-conscious spiritual message. Instead, the tour was a "whirlwind of pent-up Beatlemania", Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, has written, referring to the nostalgia-driven expectations surrounding the venture, and a number of reviewers were scathing in their assessment of the concerts. Chief among these detractors was Rolling Stone magazine, which, amid what author Elliot Huntley terms the "tsunami of bile" unleashed on Harrison following the tour, used its review of his delayed Dark Horse album to attack him personally and as an artist. Writing in the 2002 Rolling Stone Press book Harrison, published two months after the ex-Beatle's death, Mikal Gilmore observed that Harrison felt "battered" as a result of this critical mauling, which, combined with the failure of his first marriage, led to a sustained period of depression.