This Is Love (George Harrison song)

"This Is Love"

UK picture sleeve
Single by George Harrison
from the album Cloud Nine
B-side "Breath Away from Heaven"
Released 13 June 1988
Format 7", 12", CD
Recorded Friar Park, 1987
Genre Rock
Length 3:49
Label Dark Horse Records
Writer(s) George Harrison, Jeff Lynne
Producer(s) Jeff Lynne, George Harrison
George Harrison singles chronology
"When We Was Fab"
(1988)
"This Is Love"
(1988)
"Cheer Down"
(1989)
Cloud Nine track listing
"Just for Today"
(4)
"This Is Love"
(5)
"When We Was Fab"
(6)

"This Is Love" is a song by George Harrison, the former lead guitarist for the Beatles. Harrison co-wrote the song with Jeff Lynne. It is the fifth track on Harrison's eleventh studio solo album, Cloud Nine, which was released in 1987. In June 1988, the song was also released as the third single from that album, peaking at number 55 on the UK Singles Chart.

The original B-side for this single was going to be "Handle with Care", a collaboration between Harrison, Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty recorded at Bob Dylan's studio in Santa Monica, California. When executives at Harrison's distributor Warner Bros. Records heard the track, they decided it was too good to be released as single "filler", a decision that resulted in the formation of the Traveling Wilburys, and the album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, with "Handle with Care" as the lead track and single.

Steve Wood and Daniel May composed music to the 1998 documentary film Everest, incorporating melodies from some of Harrison's songs, one of which was "This Is Love".[1]

Promotional video

The music video begins with various shots of a tropical beach. It then cuts to Harrison playing his guitar and singing the song while standing on a rocky shore surrounded by breaking waves. The camera moves in for a close up of Harrison's face as he sings and a shot of the guitar strings. The scene behind him changes back and forth from tropical vegetation to the rocky shore as he continues to sing and play. He throws up the guitar and catches it. The scene changes to a family picnic where Harrison is welcomed while the song continues to play. Among other people, the picnic sequence shows Harrison's wife, Olivia Harrison and a person looking like Tom Selleck. One of the men at the picnic plays a violin, who is George's Father in Law. The scenes shift again, and finally Harrison picks up his guitar and walks away. The video ends with a shot of him and the guitar against a tropical landscape.

Compilation appearance

Besides the song's single release, "This Is Love" was included on Harrison's 2009 career-spanning compilation album Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison.

Track listings

  1. "This Is Love"
  2. "Breath Away from Heaven"
  3. "All Those Years Ago" (12" and CD only)
  4. "Hong Kong Blues" (CD only)

References

  1. Keith Badman, The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up 1970−2001, Omnibus Press (London, 2001), pp. 588–89.

External links