I Me Mine
"the search for God cannot wait..."
“No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through your life
I me mine”
- George Harrison
In October of 1963 my parents walked me up the portable metal staircase to board a jumbo TWA airplane. Dad had a dream and a few Beatles albums clutched under his arm. We were immigrating to America.
Land of the free.
Land of opportunity.
To this day, I can’t think of anywhere else in the entire world that would have the same outcome of possibilities as we’ve had in America.
Since the days of John F. Kennedy, sadly assassinated just over a month after we arrived, America’s politicians have slowly turned the American public into a mirror of themselves. A huge self-serving whine-fest of arm-chair and Nike-clad street marchers with zero solutions. Mouth pieces void of the individual human story, void of a higher Authority.
American politics. Insane sports fans dressed in their team colors sitting on one side of the arena, ready to beat up anyone dressed in the opposing color.
Then there's the garage band that came and went, time and time again. If you know anything about bands, even the greatest bands of all time end up in an egocentric environment that eventually leaves the least appreciated walking away.
That would be Ringo Starr in August of 1968.
Ringo quit during the White Album sessions when the constant bickering and tension became too much for him. The news of Ringo's departure was kept secret, and he rejoined the sessions on September 3rd. Ringo left thinking the other three were happy and he wasn’t playing that great.
There is a prophetic scene in the 1964 film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” where Ringo has taken refuge in a cafe with a book. He is sitting next to Paul McCartney’s grandfather who convinces Ringo that he is being used and should go out and “live”. Upon taking his advice, Ringo walks out of the scene and explores a strikingly derelict and empty London.
Before he came back to record some of his best music ever, he said “I had definitely left, I couldn't take it any more. There was no magic and the relationships were terrible.”
Five months later, on January 8, 1969, George Harrison debuted the classic “I, Me, Mine” only to be met with more apathetic shrugs. It was here that things became more than tense. John Lennon made a snide comment that pushed Harrison over the edge, and he, in turn, aimed shots at John’s wife, Yoko Ono.
On January 10, 1969, two days later, during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions at Twickenham Film Studios in London, Harrison quit.
Having come to blows with Lennon, he couldn’t take it anymore. Harrison suggested to his bandmates they advertise for his replacement and that he would “see you round the clubs.” Later, in 1987, Harrison admitted: “I just got so fed up with the bad vibes, I didn’t care if it was the Beatles, I was getting out,” he told Musician Magazine.
That’s how I feel about the American political landscape and in a way I’m on a sojourn, like Harrison. It's spiritual. I ask, “Do I belong anywhere concerning politics?”
A deeply affected man, George Harrison practiced Transcendental Meditation and was involved in the Hare Krishna tradition until his death in 2001. As a Christian, I was deeply moved by the last thing he said to his family on his deathbed, "Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait,… and love one another."
His song, “I, Me Mine,” was written out of the frustration he felt in his last year with the band during the recording sessions for Let It Be. It became the last new track recorded before the Beatles official breakup in April 1970. To me it’s a powerful statement about the world in general. For some religious scholars it was a reference on “egoism.” To him, each member had lost their ability to put the band first. They only thought for themselves. The lyrics lament mankind’s proclivity for self-centeredness that led to Harrison temporarily leaving the Beatles.
George Harrison would title his autobiography after the song, “I Me Mine.”
By September of 1969, eight months later, Lennon would follow agreeing not to inform the media he was leaving, while the group renegotiated their recording contract. He was outraged that McCartney publicized his own departure by releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. As Lennon put it, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!"
They all moved on, icons, into successful solo careers, Paul McCartney being the most celebrated. Sadly, we know how John died, at the age of 40, tragically murdered, at the hands of a deranged man. George suffered from lung cancer and would pass young at the age of 58. They remained the most estranged after they left the band. Paul and Ringo would age into their 80’s and remain friends.
One of my favorite Beatles songs of all time is Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” from the 1968 double album, The Beatles, fondly called The White Album.
There is no other song that describes his spiritual soul better. I relate in more ways than I can describe. I’m troubled often by the lack of love and care from those who signed up to serve us politically. It’s not the America my dad dreamed of, but it is still worth dreaming about.
“Inspiration for the song came to him when he was visiting his parents in Warrington, Cheshire, and he began reading the I Ching, or "The Book of Changes". As Harrison put it, "[the book] seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is relative to everything else, as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental." Embracing this idea of relativism, he committed to writing a song based on the first words he saw upon opening the book, which happened to be "gently weeps." < source: Wiki>
While My Guitar Gently Weeps speaks of the world's unrealized potential for universal love, which he refers to in the line "the love there that's sleeping".
“I don't know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you
I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake, we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps”
“As He looked down on the city, He burst into tears.”
Jesus wept.
Oh! And I really love the Beatles art. ✨
So interesting to read, I love your thoughtful take on the lyrics. My parents were Beatles fans, so I grew up listening. I love while my guitar gently weeps. So full of meaning and feeling. I love your reflection on it. Thank you so much.