"Behind That Locked Door" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison from his 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass. Harrison wrote the song in August 1969 as a message of encouragement to Bob Dylan, who was making a highly publicised comeback to the concert stage, accompanied by the Band, with a headlining performance at the Isle of Wight Festival. "Behind That Locked Door" is a rare Harrison composition in the country music genre and the second song dealing with the friendship between himself and Dylan, after their 1968 collaboration "I'd Have You Anytime". Its lyrics address Dylan's elusive nature, and reflect the high regard in which Harrison held the American singer's work. The same reluctance on Dylan's part to re-engage with a concert audience led to him retreating again from live performance until August 1971, when he responded to Harrison's request to play at the Concert for Bangladesh.
Harrison recorded "Behind That Locked Door" in London early in the summer of 1970, shortly after taking part in a session for Dylan's New Morning album in New York. Co-produced by Phil Spector, the recording features a prominent contribution from Nashville pedal steel virtuoso Pete Drake, and twin keyboard parts from Gary Wright and Billy Preston in the tradition of the Band, whose sound influenced Harrison's arrangement. With its understated performance, the track is a comparatively rare departure from the big production commonly associated with All Things Must Pass. On release, Alan Smith of the NME described the song as "a tremendous piece of country-meets-Hawaii" and recommended that it be sent to country singer Slim Whitman "without further delay".
An alternate take of "Behind That Locked Door" appears on the 2012 Harrison compilation Early Takes: Volume 1. Olivia Newton-John, Jim James, the Felice Brothers and Norah Jones are among the artists who have covered the song.
Background In mid August 1969, Bob Dylan had confounded the media's expectations by shunning the Woodstock Festival, an event he had helped to inspire.Sounes, pp. 248–51.Heylin, pp. 306–07. Instead, after three years in virtual seclusion with his family, Dylan decided to make his comeback a fortnight after Woodstock, by headlining the Isle of Wight Festival at Wootton, just off the south coast of England.Sounes, pp. 250–51.Clayson, p. 273. Now a popular act in their own right, the Band agreed to back Dylan for the performance,Helm, p. 198. just as they had (as the Hawks) on his controversial 1966 world tour.Tillery, p. 114. In a repeat of his UK concerts from 1966, leading figures in the English music scene began to gather on the island to show their support for Dylan,Wyman, p. 342.Helm, p. 201. the singer widely considered "the minstrel to a generation".Clayson, p. 274.
Alone among the many celebrity guests, George Harrison had spent time with Dylan during his period away from the limelight, in Bearsville, near Woodstock.Clayson, pp. 242−43.Leng, pp. 51–52. In between promoting Radha Krishna Temple (London)'s debut single on Apple Records, his own production of "Hare Krishna Mantra",Miles, p. 351. Harrison and wife Pattie Boyd stayed with Dylan's family at Forelands Farm, near Bembridge, during the week preceding the festival.Harry, p. 162. The two musicians strengthened the bond they had established in upstate New YorkThe Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 179. and were heard performing near-perfect impersonations of the Everly Brothers in the farmhouse.Harris, p. 68.
In addition to a crowd estimated at 200,000,Helm, p. 200. a group of 300 American journalists descended on the Isle of Wight, adding unwelcome pressure on Dylan.Sounes, p. 251. In the days leading up to his performance on Sunday, 31 August, the British press dubbed the event "D Day", in reference to the Allies' invasion of German-occupied France in June 1944;"The Isle of Wight festivals 1968–1970; Bob Dylan 1969", ukrockfestivals.com (retrieved 19 February 2013). in the words of music journalist John Harris, "Dylan's show had by now been inflated into the gig of the decade."Harris, p. 72. As a further impediment to Dylan's planned comeback, audiences in 1969 expected to hear the rock music associated with his and the Hawks' 1965–66 tours,Helm, p. 199. a style that he had abandoned with his recent country album, Nashville Skyline.Heylin, pp. 301–02. This contrast was encouraged by the organisers' promotional campaign for the event,Sounes, pp. 251–52. particularly in the design for the official festival posters.Heylin, p. 307. Referring to Dylan's more conservative 1969 image, author Clinton Heylin writes: "There was little doubt that this was a different Dylan, even if the graphic on the fluttering posters advertising the festival was a stark black-and-white shot of a beshaded Dylan in classic '66 pose." The arrival of Harrison's fellow Beatles John Lennon and Ringo Starr, on Saturday, 30 August, added to the heightened speculation that one or more members of the band might make a guest appearance with Dylan the following evening.Harris, p. 69.Stephen Stafford, "Why the Beatles never played the Isle of Wight", BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight, 15 June 2010 (retrieved 24 May 2013).
Harrison gifted Dylan his vintage Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar before the showOlivia Harrison, pp. 202–03. and was then taken aback that Dylan arranged for "Hare Krishna Mantra" to be played over the PAClayson, pp. 273–74. before he and the Band went on stage.Kahn, p. 297. Mukunda Goswami, one of the six pioneer devotees who founded the Hare Krishna movement's London temple and who played on the recording,Dwyer & Cole, pp. 30–31.Greene, pp. 103, 106, 143–44. has identified this exposure as reflective of how the ancient Maha Mantra "penetrated British society" as a result of the Harrison-produced single.Olivia Harrison, p. 236. Harrison watched Dylan's performance from the VIP enclosure,O'Dell, p. 87. an experience that informed the lyrics to a new composition, "Behind That Locked Door".
Composition
Harris describes "Behind That Locked Door" as a "sweet acknowledgement of Dylan's shyness".Harris, p. 72. According to Harrison's recollection in a December 2000 interview for Billboard magazine, he began writing the song the night before Dylan played.Timothy White, "George Harrison: 'All Things' In Good Time", Billboard, 8 January 2001 (retrieved 3 June 2014). Further to the statement of friendship in their 1968 collaboration "I'd Have You Anytime"Huntley, pp. 53, 56. – which Harrison began as a way of getting Dylan to let down his guard and "Let me in here"Timothy White, "George Harrison – Reconsidered", Musician, November 1987, pp. 62, 65. – in "Behind That Locked Door", he urges Dylan to confide in a friend and "let out your heart".Leng, pp. 89, 284.
Author Ian Inglis notes the Isle of Wight performance as having been a "hugely important and anxious occasion" for Dylan and views Harrison's opening verse as a "personal plea" for him to "pull out of his depression, to face the world again, and to look to the future". After asking "Why are you still crying?", Harrison assures Dylan that "The love you are blessed with / This world's waiting for …"Inglis, pp. 26–27.
In the second verse, Harrison sings of how he values Dylan's friendship, together with "the tales you have told me / From the things that you saw". For much of his career, Harrison repeatedly identified Dylan as one of his biggest musical influences, along with Ravi Shankar.Olivia Harrison, p. 202. To Inglis, these verse-two lines reflect the level of Harrison's respect for his work, since "while millions of others may look to the Beatles for guidance, he looks to Dylan".Inglis, p. 27.
Harrison musical biographer Simon Leng observes that, in the "counseling" Harrison gives Dylan in "Behind That Locked Door", he anticipates his own "slough of despond" during 1973–75. This self-styled "naughty period" of Harrison's coincided with the failure of his marriage to Boyd and a fall from grace with music critics following his 1974 "Dark Horse Tour"Tillery, p. 116. – a tour on which, similar to Dylan in 1969, Harrison defied public expectation and attempted to break from his Beatle past.The Editors of Rolling Stone, pp. 128–29. In the final verse to "Behind That Locked Door",George Harrison, p. 205. he asks for Dylan's support in such a scenario:
Musically, the song is set in a slow, country-waltz time signatureClayson, pp. 296–97. with, as Leng observes, melody and lyrics working "in tandem".Leng, p. 89. Within each couplet, a rising musical figure presents the "problem" ("Why are you still crying?"), while the second line consists of a "falling melodic consolation" ("Your pain is now through"). In his 1980 autobiography, Harrison offers little comment about "Behind That Locked Door", aside from identifying the inspiration behind the song and admitting: "It was a good excuse to do a country tune with pedal steel guitar."George Harrison, p. 206.
Aftermath to the Isle of Wight Festival Dylan's set at the festival was roundly viewed as anticlimactic,Sounes, pp. 252–53.Heylin, pp. 308, 310. if not a "Midnight Flop!", in the opinion of one British tabloid.Clayson, p. 309. Having recently told Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner that he would return to touring that autumn, Dylan abandoned the idea and also cancelled the proposed live album from his Isle of Wight performance.Heylin, pp. 302, 309. Showing support for Dylan in the fallout from his comeback, in a late 1969 interview, Harrison included the American singer in his personal list of essential contemporary rock artists, saying: "The Beatles, [the] Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Delaney & Bonnie, and that's it. Who needs anything else?"Clayson, p. 277.
Inglis highlights "Behind That Locked Door" as an example of how Harrison's songwriting reflects his "fondness" for family and close friends.Inglis, p. 141. Dylan's reluctance to perform live again was only broken by his friendship with Harrison,Leng, p. 120.O'Dell, p. 199. when the latter persuaded him to play at the Concert for Bangladesh shows in New York in August 1971.Lavezzoli, pp. 189, 192–93. Although Dylan had been noncommittal about playing at that event until the last minute,Heylin, p. 329.Greene, pp. 191–92. a mutual friend of his and Harrison's, journalist Al Aronowitz, had assured Boyd, "Bob wouldn't let George down";O'Dell, pp. 198–99. another performer at the shows, drummer Jim Keltner, has said that Dylan felt a special closeness towards Harrison as a result of the Concert for Bangladesh.Lavezzoli, pp. 192, 203. Four years later, while Harrison was dejected following what author Elliot Huntley terms the "tsunami of bile that the Dark Horse album had unleashed",Huntley, p. 114. he spent considerable time with Dylan in Los Angeles.Badman, p. 164.Ray Coleman, "Dark Horse", Melody Maker, 6 September 1975, p. 28. According to Mukunda Goswami, speaking in a 1982 interview with Harrison, Dylan became a regular visitor to the Los Angeles Radha Krishna temple and embraced the practice of chanting.Chant and Be Happy, p. 35.
Recording Following the Beatles' break-up in April 1970, and shortly before beginning work on All Things Must Pass, Harrison participated in a recording session in New York for Dylan's New Morning album.Badman, p. 7. Among the many tracks they played were "Working on the Guru",Heylin, p. 318. Dylan's "gentle prod" at Harrison's association with the Hare Krishna movement, Harris writes, and "If Not for You", a new Dylan song that Harrison decided to cover on his own album.Madinger & Easter, pp. 424–25. Dylan also supplied him with a phone number for Pete Drake,Schaffner, p. 140. the Nashville-based pedal-steel guitarist and record producer whose work had graced "Lay Lady Lay" and other songs on Nashville Skyline.Clayson, p. 297. Harrison later praised Drake's pedal steel playing as "the bagpipes of country & western music".