Gone Troppo

‘Gone Troppo’ is the title track of George Harrison’s tenth solo album.

The title is an Australian slang expression describing madness due to tropical heat.

Harrison had fully tired of celebrity life by the 1980s, and his desire for solitude and privacy took on greater urgency after the murder of John Lennon. His boltholes included a clifftop house on a remote 63-acre site in Nāhiku on Maui, Hawaii, and a six-acre tropical sanctuary on Hamilton Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

George was always on a quest to get as far away as he could. We found Hawaii and built a house there. But he wanted to keep going. We went to Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia. I had the feeling that he maxed the planet out, looking for solitude. It was about ‘How far away can I get?’

Harrison had a house and three guest huts built on Hamilton Island, where he wrote the song ‘Gone Troppo’. Its opening lines summed up his contentment in being removed from civilisation.

There he, sitting in the moonlight
Not found, living no city
He smile, mucho in a sunshine
Nightlife, counting de fruit bat