"Grey Cloudy Lies" is a song by English rock musician George Harrison from his 1975 album Extra Texture (Read All About It). Harrison wrote it in 1973 during a period that he characterised as his "naughty" years, coinciding with the failure of his marriage to Pattie Boyd and his divergence from the ascetic path of his Hindu-aligned faith. He returned to the song two years later when filled with despondency and self-doubt in response to the scathing reviews that his 1974 North American tour with Ravi Shankar and Dark Horse album had received from several music critics.
Harrison recorded "Grey Cloudy Lies" in Los Angeles at a time when his disenchantment was increased through excessive use of cocaine. The track typifies the sombre, keyboard-oriented sound of Extra Texture, in comparison with the multitracked guitars typical of Harrison's previous work as a solo artist. Aside from musical contributions by David Foster, Jesse Ed Davis and Jim Keltner, the recording features Harrison playing various parts on ARP and Moog synthesizers. The song has received unfavourable comments from several reviewers, and particularly from some of Harrison's spiritual biographers. One of these, Dale Allison, describes the track as a "relentlessly despondent offering", while author Ian Inglis views it as a song of "great charm, energy, and beauty".Inglis, p. 141.
Background
George Harrison said he wrote "Grey Cloudy Lies" in 1973 on an upright piano in the hall of his Oxfordshire home, Friar Park,Harrison, p. 274. about eighteen months before its release in September 1975. In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, he attributes the song to his "naughty" period of 1973–74, when he indulged in rock star-type excess in response to the failure of his marriage to Pattie Boyd.Leng, p. 159.Carol Clerk, "George Harrison 1943–2001", Uncut, January 2002, p. 55; available at Rock's Backpages (subscription required). This behaviour marked a deviation from the spiritual path he had espoused on his 1973 album Living in the Material World. Having recently purchased Bhaktivedanta Manor in Hertfordshire for the Hare Krishna movement,Tillery, pp. 111, 162.Kahn, p. 175. Harrison visited their leader, Swami Prabhupada, at the property in August 1973 and shared his doubts.Greene, pp. 198–200. Harrison told Prabhupada that he feared alienating his loved ones through his commitment, and that he alternated between long periods of devotion to Krishna and others when he "turn[ed] into a demon again".Greene, pp. 200–01, 202.
Harrison reaffirmed his commitment while visiting India in early 1974,Allison, p. 147. when he also planned a joint concert tour with Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar for later that year.Leng, pp. 148, 157. The tour was the first in North America by a member of the Beatles since the band's visit in August 1966,Spizer, p. 259. and the only major tour Harrison would undertake as a solo artist.Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ 2.0, p. 199.Inglis, pp. 49, 107. Harrison had been keen to present rock audiences with a new concert experienceClayson, p. 339.Rodriguez, Solo in the 70s, p. i. – one that blended Shankar's Music Festival from India orchestra with his own, jazz-funk inspired musical direction,Lavezzoli, p. 196. while also promoting a Krishna-conscious message.Tillery, pp. 113–14. Instead, the tour frustrated music critics and fans who were nostalgic for the Beatles,Leng, p. 166. and many reviewers were scathing in their assessment of the concerts.Schaffner, p. 178.Greene, pp. 214–15. Chief among these detractors was Rolling Stone magazine,The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 44.David Cavanagh, "George Harrison: The Dark Horse", Uncut, August 2008, pp. 43–44. which, amid what author Elliot Huntley terms the "tsunami of bile" unleashed on Harrison following the tour,Huntley, p. 114. used its review of his delayed Dark Horse album to attack him personally and as an artist.Leng, pp. 174–75. Writing in the 2002 Rolling Stone Press tribute book Harrison, Mikal Gilmore said that Harrison felt "battered" as a result of this critical mauling, which, combined with the failure of his marriage in 1974, led to a period of depression.The Editors of Rolling Stone, p. 46.
Harrison returned to the United States in February 1975Badman, p. 151. to oversee projects by artists signed to his Dark Horse record label in Los Angeles, and in order to spend time with his new girlfriend, Olivia Arias, in her hometown.Inglis, p. 50.Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ 2.0, p. 247. Having not written any songs since the previous October, he revisited "Grey Cloudy Lies", together with some other old or unfinished compositions, for inclusion on a new album, titled Extra Texture (Read All About It).Madinger & Easter, p. 451. With regard to "Grey Cloudy Lies" and the similarly downbeatAllison, pp. 7–8, 159.Tillery, pp. 116–17. "World of Stone", Arias recalls that Harrison "was being very hard on himself at that time".Kevin Howlett's liner notes, Extra Texture (Read All About It) CD booklet (Apple Records, 2014; produced by George Harrison), p. 6.
Composition Although in his autobiography he makes light of the song's significance,Allison, p. 22. during a 1987 interview with Musician magazine,Clayson, pp. 348, 474. Harrison said he was "in a real down place" when making Extra Texture.Huntley, p. 128. In September 1975, during his track-by-track discussion of the album with BBC Radio 1's Paul Gambaccini,Badman, pp. 164, 165. he described "Grey Cloudy Lies" as "one of those depressing, 4 o'clock in the morning sort of songs".George Harrison interview, Rockweek, (retrieved 4 October 2017). Harrison biographers Simon Leng, Dale Allison and Gary Tillery each view the composition as alarmingly direct in its depiction of the singer's despair.Allison, p. 7.Tillery, p. 116.Leng, pp. 185, 186, 228.
Leng identifies a similarity between the song's opening sequence of chords and those in Billy Preston's 1969 single "That's the Way God Planned It", which Harrison produced for the Beatles' Apple record label, yet "Grey Cloudy Lies" is "emotionally a million miles away from that stirring gospel mood".Leng, pp. 59–61, 185. The first verse sets the tone for what Leng describes as "an uncomfortable few minutes":Leng, p. 185.
Harrison quoted these words in his interview with Gambaccini, to illustrate the point that "after talking for a lot, you know, sometimes it's nice to be quiet". The depiction of human life as a battlefield is an allegory commonly associated with the ancient Hindu text Bhagavad Gita, in which the warrior-prince Arjuna is counselled by Krishna in the form of a charioteer.Tillery, p. 78. The same theme appears in Harrison's songs from the early 1970s, beginning with "Let It Down".Leng, pp. 90, 130, 185.
Author Ian Inglis says that the song's slowly descending melody "parallels [Harrison's] personal descent into an aimless and isolated existence".Inglis, p. 53. Common to Harrison compositions such as "Who Can See It" and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong",Leng, pp. 129, 154. its time signature shifts during the verses, implying missed beats within a bar. Harrison told Gambaccini that this rhythmic effect particularly interested him about "Grey Cloudy Lies".
Inglis comments on Harrison's use of words such as "padlock" and "fight" to "immediately conjure images of imprisonment that convey the repressive nature of his life".Inglis, pp. 53–54. Another example is the word "pistol", in verse two:Inglis, p. 54.
Interpretation of the "pistol at my brain" lyric varies among Harrison's biographers. While Leng and Inglis observe that the singer appears to have courted death and even contemplated suicide, Allison, a Christian theologian, attaches significant importance to the line, on an album that he identifies as "the anomaly" in Harrison's solo work, due to the absence of "positive theological statements" in any of the songs.Allison, pp. 7, 8. According to Allison: "['Grey Cloudy Lies'] documents the dreadful temptation to commit suicide ... It is natural to guess that the absence of God from the lyrics of Extra Texture mirrors a perceived absence of God in George's personal life; and the emptiness was so intensely troubling that it fostered, at least momentarily, thoughts of taking his own life."Allison, p. 7. Joshua Greene, another religious academic and an ISKCON devotee, instead interprets the song as part of its parent album's "modest appeal for tolerance". "No longer an Arjuna", Greene writes of Harrison's deliberate "religious restraint" on Extra Texture, "all George wanted now was to leave the battlefield behind and simply live 'with no pistol at my brain'."Greene, p. 221.
Tillery cites the same line as an example of "Grey Cloudy Lies"' place as the "darkest" of the "downbeat tracks" found on most of the album. Tillery also highlights the hopelessness implicit in the song's final verse, where Harrison states he only wants to live "with no teardrops in my eyes", yet "at times there seems like no chance". The song title appears only at the end of this third verse, within the couplet "No clear blue skies / Grey cloudy lies".
Among other Harrison songs of the 1970s, Leng sees thematic parallels between this composition and two Dark Horse tracks that deal with the end of Harrison's marriage to Boyd: "So Sad" and "Bye Bye, Love".Leng, pp. 152, 156, 207. These three songs, Leng continues, constitute a cycle of "sheer unhappiness" in the singer's life that was only alleviated by the positive presence of Arias,Leng, p. 207. who, following their marriage in 1978, remained Harrison's life partner until his death in November 2001.Tillery, pp. 115, 120.Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ 2.0, pp. 424–45. Leng also compares "Grey Cloudy Lies" to the posthumously released "Stuck Inside a Cloud", which he terms the lyrical "blood brother" to this 1975 song, due to its "harrowing" description of the cancer that would claim Harrison's life.Leng, pp. 300–01.
Recording Harrison recorded "Grey Cloudy Lies" in Los Angeles, while immersed in the city's music-business scene – and with it, author Robert Rodriguez notes, "LA's 1970s drug culture"Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ 2.0, p. 85. – during the spring and summer of 1975.Leng, p. 179. Harrison's role as owner of A&M-distributed Dark Horse Records saw him overseeing projects there by new signings Attitudes, Stairsteps and Henry McCullough,Clayson, pp. 347–48. as well as socialising in circles that he admitted to finding depressing.Huntley, p. 126. Harrison's friend since the Beatles' Hamburg years, German bassist Klaus Voormann, has spoken of the abundance of drugs at the sessions, particularly cocaine.Sounes, p. 320.Leng, pp. 56, 179. He said of Harrison: "I didn't like his frame of mind when he was doing this album – I don't play on it too much."