Cover artwork
The art direction and sleeve design for Gone Troppo was credited to ‘Legs’ Larry Smith, the former drummer of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and the subject of George Harrison’s 1975 song ‘His Name Is Legs (Ladies And Gentlemen)’.The cover photograph of Harrison was taken by Terry O’Neill.
One side of the inner sleeve was given over to the lyrics for the songs. The liner notes on the other side are the most bizarre of any Harrison album, containing repeated instructions for mixing cement:
On a nice sunny day, start the cement mixer. One bucket of water, three shovels of sand to one shovelful of cement (more water if sand is very dry). This is the average mix, and quite normal. If stronger mix is required then increase cement (two shovels sand to one cement). After use of mixer, it’s important to clean the drum before remnants of mixture become solid. Clean the cement mixer with water (preferably tropical), and a shovelful of pebbles and allow the drum to turn for five minutes before emptying. If more cement is required, repeat the process on a nice sunny day, start the cement mixer…One bucket of water, three shovels of sand to one shovelful of cement (more water if sand is very dry). This is the average mix, and quite normal. If stronger mix is required, repeat the process on a nice sunny day. Special Thanks Department: Olivia Trinidad Arias, Rachel Wickens, Cherry Cowell, Denis O’Brien, Robbie, Julia and Laura, Sandra McDonald, Eddie Veale, Derek Taylor, Leg Larry ‘Smith’, Ricky, Penelope and Paloma, Jonathan Clyde, Duncan Urquhart, Alec Smith, Howard Brain, Steve Schink, Lou, Zeke and Gil, Zion and Anita Yu, Stan Dolding, Beth Chatto, Keith Williams, Herbie and Gordon, Old Uncle Tom Roylance and all. Acknowledgements to Barnstoneworth United for lyrical inspiration on ‘Dream Away’.
This album has been a cement mix.
The release
Gone Troppo was released without fanfare on 5 November 1982 in the United Kingdom, and three days later in the US.
With the album, Harrison fulfilled his contractual obligations to Warner Bros, the distributors of his Dark Horse releases. Relations with Warners had soured after they rejected the initial running order for Somewhere In England, necessitating the recording of four additional tracks.
Harrison refused to promote Gone Troppo, grant interviews, or make videos for its two singles. Warners were similarly unwilling to get behind the release, placing no press advertisements to inform record buyers about the album.
As such, it was scarcely surprising that it failed to trouble the charts. It did peak at number 31 in Norway, but in the UK it failed to chart at all. In Canada it reached number 98, and on the US Billboard 200 it went no higher than 108.
When I did my last album, Gone Troppo, at that period I felt that I had done so many things in the past, and I didn’t feel, you know, I never really spent time promoting that record, and I didn’t really give the record company much help, put it that way. But at the same time, the record business was going, it seemed – from the way I could see it – to be going through all these strange things that had happened since…George Harrison
Rolling Stone, August 1987‘Wake Up My Love’ was issued as a single on 8 November 1982, with ‘Greece’ on the b-side. It peaked at number 53 in the US but did not chart in Britain. Harrison evidently thought highly enough of the song, however, to include it on his 1989 compilation Best of Dark Horse.
‘I Really Love You’ was the album’s second single, issued in the US and Netherlands on 9 February 1983, but did not chart. A promotional single had mono and stereo mixes, the last Harrison release to do so.
The third and final single from Gone Troppo was ‘Dream Away’, released in Japan only in February 1983. The song’s popularity there was due to its inclusion in the film Time Bandits, for which it was written.
Films were the main focus of Harrison’s attention for the next few years. His company HandMade Films was going from strength to strength, and Harrison was executive producer of 23 films including Mona Lisa, Withnail and I, and Shanghai Surprise – for which he contributed five new songs. He also recorded a Bob Dylan song, ‘I Don’t Want To Do It’, for the Porky’s Revenge soundtrack in 1985.
He continued to write and record, and often jammed with musicians local to his Henley-on-Thames home. He contributed to Derek Taylor’s 1984 memoir Fifty Years Adrift, and in October 1985 he took part in Blue Suede Shoes, a TV special starring his musical hero Carl Perkins. But, finally free of record company expectations, new recordings were a rarity between 1982 and his 1987 comeback with Cloud Nine.
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