"Awaiting on You All" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released on his 1970 triple album, All Things Must Pass. Along with the single "My Sweet Lord", it is among the more overtly religious compositions on All Things Must Pass, and the recording typifies co-producer Phil Spector's influence on the album, due to his liberal use of reverberation and other Wall of Sound production techniques. Harrison recorded the track in London backed by musicians such as Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Klaus Voormann, Jim Gordon and Jim Price – many of whom he had toured with, as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, in December 1969, while still officially a member of the Beatles. Musically, the composition reflects Harrison's embracing of the gospel music genre, following his production of fellow Apple Records artists Billy Preston and Doris Troy.
In his lyrics to "Awaiting on You All", Harrison espouses a direct relationship with God over adherence to the tenets of organised religion. Influenced by both his association with London-based Hare Krishna devotees, known as the Radha Krishna Temple, and the Vedanta-inspired teachings of Swami Vivekananda, Harrison sings of chanting God's name as a means to cleanse and liberate oneself from the impurities of the material world. His lyrics explicitly criticise the Pope and the perceived materialism of the Catholic Church – a verse that EMI and Capitol Records continue to omit from the album's lyrics. He also questions the validity of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1969 campaign for world peace, reflecting a divergence of philosophies between Harrison and his former bandmate after their shared interest in Hindu spirituality in 1967–68.
Several commentators have identified "Awaiting on You All" as one of the highlights of All Things Must Pass; author and critic Richard Williams likens it to the Spector-produced "River Deep – Mountain High", by Ike & Tina Turner. The track is featured in the books 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery and 1001 Songs by Toby Creswell. A similarly well-regarded live version, with backing from a large band including Clapton, Ringo Starr, Preston and Jim Keltner, was released on the 1971 album The Concert for Bangladesh and appeared in the 1972 film of the same name. Harrison's posthumous compilation Early Takes: Volume 1 (2012) includes a demo version of the song, recorded early in the 1970 sessions for All Things Must Pass.
Background In his book While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Simon Leng describes George Harrison's musical projects outside the Beatles during 1969–70 – such as producing American gospel and soul artists Billy Preston and Doris Troy, and touring with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends – as the completion of "a musical-philosophical circle", which resulted in his post-Beatles solo album All Things Must Pass (1970).Leng, pp. 62, 83, 319. Among the songs on that triple album, "My Sweet Lord" and "Awaiting on You All" each reflect Harrison's immersion in Krishna Consciousness,Leng, pp. 71, 83.Allison, pp. 46, 47. via his association with the UK branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known as the Radha Krishna Temple.Clayson, pp. 267–68. An ISKCON devotee since 1970, author Joshua Greene writes of All Things Must Pass providing an "intimately detailed account of a spiritual journey", which had begun with Harrison's embracing of Hinduism while in India in September–October 1966.Greene, pp. 70–72, 181, 190.
Having long disavowed the Catholic faith of his upbringing,Allison, pp. 40, 42–44. from 1966 Harrison was inspired by the teachings of Indian yogi Swami Vivekananda.Greene, pp. 68–69.Olivia Harrison, "A Few Words About George", in The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 10. The latter's contention that "Each soul is potentially divine, the goal is to manifest that divinity" particularly resonated with Harrison in its contrast to the doctrine of the Catholic Church.Tillery, pp. 58, 107. By 1967, Harrison's religious awakening had progressed to include Gaudiya Vaishnava chanting,Greene, pp. 80–81, 145. a form of meditation that he shared with his Beatles bandmate John LennonTillery, pp. 58–59, 69, 109.The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 36. and would go on to espouse in "Awaiting on You All".Allison, pp. 47, 122. Further to Vivekananda's assertion, chanting the Hare Krishna or other Sanskrit-worded mantras has, author Gary Tillery writes, "the ability to send spiritual energy through the body, leading to the enlightenment of the person chanting".Tillery, p. 89.
Whereas Lennon's interest in spiritual matters waned following the Beatles' visit to India in 1968,Tillery, pp. 63, 64–65.Schaffner, pp. 88–89.Greene, p. 97. Harrison's involvement with the Radha Krishna Temple led to him producing two hit singles by the devotees over 1969–70, "Hare Krishna Mantra" and "Govinda".Lavezzoli, p. 195.Clayson, pp. 246, 268–69, 439. While Lennon and his partner, Yoko Ono, undertook a highly publicised campaign for world peace during 1969,Doggett, pp. 89–91.Wiener, pp. xvii, 91–92, 113. Harrison believed that all human suffering could be averted if individuals focused on addressing their own imperfections rather than, as he put it, "trying to fix everybody else up like the Lone Ranger".Greene, p. 156.Clayson, pp. 256, 266–67. This divergence in philosophy also formed part of Harrison's subject matter for "Awaiting on You All", a song that, Greene writes, "projected his message to the world".
Composition
In an October 1974 radio interview with Alan Freeman,Madinger & Easter, p. 445. Harrison recalled writing "Awaiting on You All" while preparing to go to bed, and mentioned it as a composition that had come easily to him.George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Disc 2; event occurs between 25:23 and 25:40. In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison states that his inspiration for the song was "Japa Yoga meditation",Harrison, p. 200. whereby mantras are sung and counted out on prayer beads.Allison, pp. 58, 136. Musically, the composition has elements of gospel and rock music; Leng describes it as "gospel-drenched" and cites Harrison's production of "Sing One for the Lord", which Preston recorded with the Edwin Hawkins Singers in early 1970, as a "catalyst" for the new composition.Leng, p. 71. The song opens with a descending guitar riff,Huntley, p. 59. later repeated after each chorus, which ends on the melody's root chord of B major.Harrison, front endpapers.
In his lyrics to "Awaiting on You All", Harrison conveys the importance of experiencing spirituality directly, while rejecting organised religion as well as political and intellectual substitutes.Leng, p. 95. Author Ian Inglis writes that the lyrics recognise the merit in all faiths, as Harrison sings that the key to any religion is to "open up your heart".Inglis, p. 30. The choruses proclaim that individual freedom from the physical or material world can be attained through "chanting the names of the Lord",Allison, pp. 47, 122, 124. implying that there is a single deity who happens to be called by different names depending on the faith.Stowe, p. 53.
The song's three versesHarrison, pp. 203–04. provide a list of items or concepts that are unnecessary to this realisation. The opening lines – "You don't need no love-in / You don't need no bed pan" – serve as a criticism of Lennon and Ono's bed-ins and other forms of peace activism during 1969. While Inglis views these words as indicative of a possible rift in Harrison's relationship with Lennon, Leng identifies the "tongue-lashing for John and Yoko" as the singer dismissing "all political-cum-intellectual musings". Harrison then uses what New Testament scholar Dale Allison terms "the language of pollution" to describe the problems afflicting the world,Allison, p. 32. and offers a method by which to cleanse oneself spiritually.
In verse two,Harrison, p. 203. Harrison sings of the futility of passports and travel for those searching to "see Jesus", since an open heart will reveal that Christ is "right there".Allison, p. 55. Allison remarks on the song expressing Harrison's "syncretistic view of Jesus", a view he shared with Lennon, and cites comments that Harrison later made to Radha Krishna Temple co-founderMuster, p. 26. Mukunda Goswami, that Christ was "an absolute yogi" yet modern-day Christian teachers misrepresent him and "[let] him down very badly".Allison, pp. 54–56, 59, 136.
In the song's final verse,Harrison, p. 204. Harrison states that churches, temples, religious texts and the rosary beads associated with Catholic worship are no substitute for a direct relationship with God. These symbols of organised religion "meant searching in the wrong places", Tillery writes, when in keeping with Vivekananda's philosophy, "the spark of the divine is within us all. Every person is therefore the child of God ..."Tillery, pp. 58, 89. AllMusic critic Lindsay Planer comments on Harrison's "observation of [religious] repression" in the lines "We've been kept down so long / Someone's thinking that we're all green."
Harrison's most scathing criticism is directed at the Pope, in the lines: "While the Pope owns 51% of General Motors / And the stock exchange is the only thing he's qualified to quote us." Contrasting this statement with Harrison's song-wide message that God "waits on us to wake up and open our hearts", Allison concludes: "whereas the Lord is about the business of helping human beings to wake up, the Pope is about the business of business."Allison, pp. 42, 129.
In his book No Sympathy for the Devil, Dave Ware Stowe writes of the effect of "Awaiting on You All" on Evangelical Christian sensibilities: "this was dangerous stuff. Harrison's lyrics exemplified what many in the Jesus Movement considered a lure and snare of the devil. No doubt the song was spiritually resonant, even reverent, but it leaves the all-important object of veneration vague."Stowe, pp. 53–54.
While identifying a similar ISKCON-inspired theme in Harrison's 1973 song "The Lord Loves the One (That Loves the Lord)", Allison discusses "Awaiting on You All" as a precedent for further statements by Harrison against organised religion, particularly Catholicism. Among these, Harrison parodied the Last Supper in his inner-gatefold artwork for Living in the Material World (1973),Spizer, p. 256. dressed as a Catholic priest and again mocking the "perceived materialism and violence of the Roman church", according to Allison.Allison, p. 42. In addition, in his role as film producer, Harrison supported Monty Python's controversial parodying of the biblical story of Christ in Life of Brian (1979),Rodriguez, pp. 114–15. about which he said: "Actually, [the film] was upholding Him and knocking all the idiotic stuff that goes on around religion."Clayson, pp. 370–71.
Production
Phil Spector's involvement Harrison and American producer Phil Spector began discussing the possibility of Harrison recording a solo album of songs in early 1970,Doggett, p. 115. after they had worked together on Lennon's Plastic Ono Band single "Instant Karma!"Spizer, p. 28. Before then, to show his support for Spector's comeback from self-imposed retirement, Harrison had supplied a written endorsement of the producer's work on the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High, when A&M Records issued the three-year-old recordings in 1969.Williams, pp. 137–38.Ribowsky, p. 250. Long a fan of Spector's sound,Woffinden, p. 31. Harrison praised River Deep – Mountain High with the words: "a perfect record from start to finish. You couldn't improve on it."Williams, pp. 137–38, 153.