GEORGE HARRISON

The Art of Dying

By Steve Ludwig

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here

Then nothing Sister Mary can do

Will keep me here with you

As nothing in this life that I've been trying

Can equal or surpass the art of dying

                                           --George Harrison, 1970

In the Sixties, it was rare to watch a Beatles press conference or interview without seeing at least one of the Fab Four smoking a cigarette. It was usually John or Paul or Ringo on different occasions, but it always seemed to be George as the one Beatle with a constant ciggie in his hand.

In July 1997, George noticed a lump on the side of his neck. It was removed, and it proved to be malignant. George blamed it on all of his tobacco intake over the years.

In June 1998, he told his fans, "I'm not going to die on you folks yet. I'm not a lump person."

In the next two-and-a-half years, George seemed to be prophetic. His cancer was in remission, and from all indications, he had beaten it.

On December 23, 1999, a young woman broke into George's home in Maui. The Harrisons, George and his wife Olivia, weren't home. It came out during the trial that the woman had been stalking George for years.

They weren't in Maui because they were at George's other residence in England, in his mansion at Friar Park.

A week after the young woman's break-in at Maui, at 3:30 in the morning, George was awoken at Friar Park by the sound of breaking glass. He went downstairs to investigate, wearing only his pajama bottoms. There he was confronted by a mentally disturbed man, who proceeded to stab him in the chest forty times. 
As George described the gruesome confrontation, "I thought I was dying. I vividly remember a deliberate thrust of a knife and I could feel the blood entering my mouth and hear my breath exhaling from the wound."
He was saved only because Olivia used a heavy lamp on the assailant's head, knocking him unconscious.
It was later determined that had George been lying in bed when he was attacked, he certainly wouldn't have survived as he wouldn't have been able to fight back.

Surgeons were forced to remove part of George's lung. 

The two break-ins were unrelated; the scary side of fame.
After John Lennon's shocking assassination on Dec. 8, 1980, the three remaining members of the most popular band in music history took extra precautions for their safety. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Paul McCartney, to this day, needs bomb-sniffing dogs to inspect his dressing room before each concert.
And in spite of the extraordinary security on all of the properties owned by George (certainly the most private of the Beatles), somehow it still wasn't enough.
Yet through it all, George never lost his famous, dry sense of humor. When asked by reporters if he knew anything about the man who almost stabbed him to death, George replied, "Well, I know he wasn't trying out for the Traveling Wilburys."

But close friends said the psychological scars left by the incident were deeper in George than the physical ones.

However, physically he was not in much better shape. He was understandably weakened by the attack. He would tire out quickly, and, at times, had trouble drawing a full breath.
The ever-humble George apologized to his fans for any concern they may have felt for him.

Then in March 2001, a malignant tumor was removed from one of George's already fragile lungs.

One of George's closest aides was sure the attack in 1999 was why the cancer returned.
"After the attack, he didn't have the strength left to fight."

Ringo recalled visiting George on one occasion while George was receiving his chemo treatment. Ringo told George that he had to leave him and go to Boston, because Ringo's own daughter, Lee, was receiving treatment for a brain tumor (she since recovered). Lying on his back, unable to move, George asked Ringo, "Do you want me to go with you?"

A month later, George was receiving treatment at the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland. In between treatments, he resided at a home by a lake at the Italian border. 
Paul met him in Milan to spend some of the quickly lessening time with the friend he had known since high school.

George had never been afraid of dying; in fact, he said, he had prepared his entire adult life for his inevitable demise. 
With this second cancerous tumor, George knew time was of the essence. He needed to finish working on songs that would eventually wind up being his final album (titled Brainwashed).
Never one to shy away from sharing his inner thoughts, George, now knowing he was going to die soon, composed a song about it:

Never been so crazy

But I've never felt so sure

I wish I had the answer to give

Don't even have the cure

Talking to myself

Crying out loud

Only I can hear me

I'm stuck inside a cloud

I made some exhibition

I lost my will to eat

The only thing that matters to me

Is to touch your lotus feet

                                                          --"Stuck Inside A Cloud"

Looking to get his affairs in order, George needed to tie up some loose ends. 

In early October, less than two months before he died, George kept a promise he had made to fellow musician Jools Holland (formerly of Squeeze). 

George gathered all his strength and entered a recording studio to record a song he had written for Jools's upcoming album. It was called "Horse To the Water," and it was the last song George ever recorded. 

Its lyrics referred to three old friends. One verse alluded to "...a friend of mine in so much misery." Paul had recently lost his wife, Linda, to cancer, and he was still grieving. Another spoke of an alcoholic (Ringo is a recovering alcoholic); yet another verse referred to a preacher (John was known for his many anthemic songs). 

Overall, "Horse To the Water''s theme is one of heroes not being able to find peace.

Once again, displaying his dark wit, George copyrighted the song to a new publishing company of his own creation, "RIP Ltd. 2001."

Within a few short weeks, his cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain.

Skeletal and hallucinating from an enormous ingestion of painkillers, George decided to receive experimental treatment at Staten Island University Hospital.

It was there he was visited for the last time by Paul. They spent their final hours together holding hands, laughing, and joking as if nothing were wrong.

George wanted to spend his final days in his beloved home in Hawaii.

While flying across the United States, George became too weak, and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles.

For privacy, the Harrison family purposely "leaked" a phony address to the press about where George was brought.

He, was, in fact, actually brought to a secret residence owned by Paul.

It was here, at 1:30 PM on November 29, 2001, surrounded by family members and a few friends, George lost his long fight with cancer.

He was cremated at the same place Cass Elliot had been cremated many years earlier.
Olivia and son, Dhani announced that George's ashes were to be scattered in the Ganges River in India. However, this may have very well been George's final joke. It is believed that he asked his family to say that in order to shield them from the paparrazzi and gawkers. Apparentally, his ashes were actually scattered on the grounds of the beautiful home he'd bought in Switzerland, near to where he had received radiotherapy. 

 Dhani summed up the last few years of his dad's life:

 "He never sat and felt sorry for himself. He had no fears or worries left when he died..."

In my next blog, I write about the many things that were said by so many people after George's death; Ringo writes a song about his fallen friend; and Paul immortalizes George in concert.


Perhaps you'd enjoy listening to my radio show, STEVE LUDWIG'S CLASSIC POP CULTURE. It's at www.PlanetLudwig.com. Thanks!

Follow me on Twitter:   www.Twitter.com/LudGuy

If you liked my blog, you may also like my first book. It's called SEE YOU IN CCU: A LIGHTHEARTED TALE OF MY OPEN-HEART SURGERY.

It's available for half-price at my website:  CCUBOOK.COM.

My brother Tom's latest blog is also up. You'll find it at SecondGradeMinds.wordpress.com.

AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY BLOGS.~ Steve