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Read the original blog post4.07pm
31 March 2008
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Written by: Harrison
Recorded: 24 May – 13 September 1976
Producers: George Harrison, Tom Scott
Released: 19 November 1976 (UK), 24 November 1976 (US)
Available on:
Thirty Three & ⅓
Personnel
George Harrison: vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizer, handclaps
Tom Scott: saxophone, Lyricon
Richard Tee: electric piano
Emil Richards: marimba
Willie Weeks: bass guitar
Alvin Taylor: drums
‘Crackerbox Palace’ is the ninth song on George Harrison’s seventh solo album Thirty Three & ⅓.
The song was inspired by the Los Angeles home of the late comedian Lord (Richard) Buckley, whom Harrison had admired for several years. See more…
I was in Cannes for the Midem Music Festival in 1975 and I met a man and talked to him and said ‘I don’t know if this is an insult or a compliment, but you remind me of Lord Buckley’. He said ‘I managed him for eighteen years’, which was an incredible coincidence.
Lord Buckley was a hip comedian. He was very ‘up’ all the time and he was very important to me during the sixties.
So I was talking with this guy, George Greif, in France, about Lord Buckley, and he said Buckley lived in an old beaten-up house in Los Angeles which he called ‘Crackerbox Palace’. I thought ‘Ah, that sounds like a song’ and wrote it down on a cigarette pack. I came home and wrote the song.
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5.45pm
18 April 2013
Offline Nice article on Crackerbox Palace.
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11.11am
1 January 2017
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Saw the video to this one yesterday. Very Python-esque, especially if you have Eric Idle and Neil Innes involved.
“It’s twue, it’s twue!”
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4.50pm
12 November 2015
Offline SgtPeppersBulldog said
Saw the video to this one yesterday. Very Python-esque, especially if you have Eric Idle and Neil Innes involved.“It’s twue, it’s twue!”
There’s a good video for This Song as well with the same people. There’s actually quite a lot of George videos out there if you dig around a little.
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8.30pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
Offline Love this song, it’s very cheery and evocative at the same time, and for once the overabundant synths are actually a good thing. Perhaps it’s the video influencing my perception, but I could swear it sounds as though he sings it with a smirk. Definitely a highlight of 33 & 1/3.
The video is brilliantly daft; I love to scar people’s minds with it. They never hear the song the same way again! 
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10.44pm
14 June 2016
Offline This was my favorite 33 and 1/3 songs after my initial listen to the album.
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1.22pm
2 November 2016
Offline I actually watched the video for this song for the first time yesterday. A somehow fitting end for a 6+ hour Harrison binge.
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SgtPeppersBulldog, William Shears Campbell, Beatlebug6.55pm
28 March 2014
Offline Wow, haven’t seen that video in decades…. Man does he ever look like Dani there! 
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10.13pm
11 April 2016
Offline I’ve been pondering about this for a while now and thought someone might be able to help me on this:
What is that cutout-looking thing on the window in the background? 
I always thought it kind of looked like Batman.
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2.07am
14 June 2016
Offline @WeepingAtlasCedars said
I’ve been pondering about this for a while now and thought someone might be able to help me on this:What is that cutout-looking thing on the window in the background?
I always thought it kind of looked like Batman.
I think it might be batman
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"Sometimes I wish I was just George Harrison" - John Lennon
6.32am
Moderators
15 February 2015
Offline I actually never noticed that, I was too distracted by the other goings-on.
Concerning the actual SONG, I have always wondered what it’s really about. I know he wrote it after seeing Lord Buckley’s house (Crackrbox Palace), but that doesn’t help me much with decoding the verses.
A YouTube comment I once saw offered the interpretation that it was about growing up in the Catholic church. I think that’s a very interesting take, but somehow I can’t quite picture George writing that obscurely on the subject. I always sort of figured it was about childhood, society, and life in general… it’s very vague.
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4.00pm
13 November 2016
Offline Just found out a little tidbit about the music video for this song. Olivia Harrison is actually in it in a rather um…. risqué cameo.
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8 January 2015
Offline Crackerbox Palace for me is about the world and George’s relationship with it. All the temptations are there, all the things that pull him this way and that, all the maya he’s lumbered with, from himself and what other people put on him. Also his home and him, its a bunch of symbolism mashed together. The video is obviously Pythonic, from pepperpots, to church police (Neil Innes), and the Major and of course directed by Eric Idle (who gives himself a cameo too). There’s supposed to be a lot of the Rutland Television people in it. I’m doubtful of the John Cleese appearance, he’s supposed to be Princess Margaret waving but it could be anyone.
Of course it has to be a crackerbox because biscuits! 
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