Marwa Blues | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

…And because I can’t seem to stop creating new Harrisong topics, and you’ve not tired of my very presence yet… here’s another!  

I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I love this song– I’m partial to instrumentals, adore George’s slide guitar, and think Jeff Lynne is cool (so , mmm). It’s a great meditation track: to meditate to, or as a meditation in itself; the so-called Mystic Beatle at his most mystic. And it does conjure up images of a dense cool mist: everything still and hushed, with that slide penetrating the fog. 

After I heard what Jeff had to say about it, I appreciated his and Dhani’s fine work even more– I realised how much his production makes the song. Really, it’s a proper collaboration between George and Jeff (so what if George wasn’t actually there? Minor details). Not just the string parts where the violins are sort of playing off of the guitar melody– like they’re in the same room, jamming, or whatever you call jamming when violins do it– but finding that guitar melody in the first place. (As a side note, I’d really like to hear what it originally sounded like with five different guitar parts all going at the same time.) 

Now that I know, I can hear the differences between the different guitar tracks. The first one that comes in has a certain sound, clear and crisp and full; there’s another one that plays sort of over it that sounds a little less full, somehow, and lower. (Can you tell I’ve listened to this a lot on headphones?) As a result it sounds like there are two Georges playing off each other.    

I remember once, we were driving somewhere and Silly Mum may have been nagging at me or something, or there was some altercation with Little Girl, or one of those silly little things that happens, and I was feeling all rumpled-up and stroppy, and I knew I needed a soothing Harrisong. So I nabbed Silly Mum’s electronic device of a mobile nature and played Marwa Blues very quietly in my ear, and it was wondrous. After the song was over I felt fully centered. It was beautiful. 

Do we…. do we wanna break it to them?

@Sea Belt said

I’m listening to it now and I read your description. Were you saying that Jeff Lynne also plays slide guitar and is adding stuff around George’s “noodling”?  So basically Jeff played along to the recording George had left long ago?  Is there a way to listen to it without Jeff Lynne’s contributions? It would be interesting to hear also.  

You mean upthread? Phew, that was a long time ago haha. Ummm I think I was talking about Jeff Lynne’s scoring for strings and whatnot – all the slide guitar is George’s. And yeah I was wishing there was some way to hear Marwa Blues with just George’s slide guitar tracks and nothing else.

Yes, he had a very clean and soft touch with slide guitar, very pure. It’s what makes his playing unique. And yeah, if you watch the Brainwashed promo thing, Jeff and Dhani talk about how George had five or six tracks of slide guitar all going at once, and it was just kind of a mess, and they sort of did some judicious editing to pull what they took to be the main train of melodic thought out of it.

He did leave some notes and instructions behind, but I suppose you can’t think of/plan for everything. (Unless you’re David Bowie, that is. )