| Somewhere in England | ||||
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| Studio album by George Harrison | ||||
| Released | 5 June 1981 | |||
| Recorded | Sporadically between 30 October 1979 - 23 September 1980, and November 1980 - February 1981 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 39:43 | |||
| Label | Dark Horse/Warner Bros. Records | |||
| Producer | George Harrison, Ray Cooper | |||
| George Harrison chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Somewhere in England | ||||
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Somewhere in England is an album by George Harrison, released in 1981. Recorded as Harrison was becoming increasingly frustrated with the music industry, the album's making was a long one, and witnessed a tragic event in his life.
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Content to move at his own speed, Harrison began recording Somewhere in England in the autumn of 1979 and continued sporadically, finally delivering the album to Warner Bros. Records in September 1980. However, the executives at Warner Bros. rejected it, ordering Harrison to drop four of its songs ("Tears of the World", "Sat Singing", "Lay His Head", and "Flying Hour"), finding them too downbeat. Harrison's original cover art, featuring his profile against a map of Great Britain was also vetoed by Warner Bros. With Harrison already feeling unable to relate to the current post-punk and new wave musical climate, he acceded to their requests, but knew that when his recording contract came up for renewal after his next album, he wouldn't bother re-signing.
Interestingly, a survey conducted in 2006 of the top 50 most popular 'Harrisongs' on the official George Harrison.com message boards included only one song from the album ("Life Itself", #29), yet included three of the four rejected songs ("Flying Hour" at #14, "Lay His Head" at #27 and "Sat Singing" at #41).
Picking up the project again in November, Harrison was joined in his home studio at Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames by Ringo Starr, who arrived specifically to have Harrison produce some songs for him. They recorded two Harrison originals "Wrack My Brain" and "All Those Years Ago" plus a cover of "You Belong to Me" for Starr's impending album Can't Fight Lightning which was later released as Stop and Smell the Roses. Two songs were finished but "All Those Years Ago" went unadorned. Starr later admitted that the key was too high for him to sing. During this period, Harrison had received word that John Lennon was slightly hurt over his biography I Me Mine, which, in Lennon's estimation, praised every musician Harrison had worked with except him. Unfortunately, Harrison was never able to make amends with Lennon; on 8 December 1980, Lennon was gunned down outside the The Dakota apartment building.
After the shock and devastation of Lennon's murder, Harrison decided to utilise the unfinished recording of "All Those Years Ago". He changed the lyrics of the song to reflect the Lennon tragedy. With Starr's pre-recorded drum track in place, Harrison invited Paul and Linda McCartney, and their fellow Wings band-mate Denny Laine, to record backing vocals in early 1981. Aside "All Those Years Ago", "Blood from a Clone" (a searing indictment of the current music scene), "Teardrops" and "That Which I Have Lost" were added to replace the four discarded songs, and after a new cover was shot in the Tate Gallery in London, Somewhere in England was resubmitted and accepted.
"All Those Years Ago" was released as the lead-off single that May to, hardly surprisingly, a very strong response. Reaching #13 in the United Kingdom and #2 in the United States, it was Harrison's biggest hit since "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" in 1973, and Somewhere in England benefited from its placement on the album. Peaking at #13 in the UK and #11 in the US, these chart positions were, superficially, Harrison's best transatlantic album peaks in some time, yet Somewhere in England actually sold less than it would appear, since its chart life – in both countries – was brief, and it became Harrison's first proper studio album to fail to reach gold status in the US. It was generally overlooked by the public, with follow-up single "Teardrops" reaching only #102 in the US.
Two of the songs from Somewhere in England were included on Harrison's Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989 compilation: "All Those Years Ago" and "Life Itself."
In 2004, Somewhere in England was remastered and reissued, both separately and as part of the deluxe box set The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992, on Dark Horse Records with new distribution by EMI, adding the bonus track demo version of "Save the World", recorded in 1980. Specially for this reissue, Harrison's originally rejected artwork was now reinstated.
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | link |
| Rolling Stone | link |
All songs by George Harrison, except where noted.
Somewhere in England was remastered and reissued in 2004 with the original mix of "Unconsciousness Rules" and the bonus track:
The iTunes Music Store offers one of the lost tracks:
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