Be Here Now (George Harrison song)

Part of Harrison's inspiration for the song was the popular 1971 book Be Here Now by spiritual teacher Ram Dass – specifically, a story discussing the author's change in identity from a Western academic to following a guru in the Hindu faith.

Contrary to the song's message, its release coincided with heightened speculation regarding a possible Beatles reunion, following Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon recording together in Los Angeles in March 1973.

Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone described the track as a "meltingly lovely meditation-prayer",[1] while author Ian Inglis views it as a moving musical expression of "the spiritual, scientific, and metaphysical implications of time".

[18] As Richard Alpert, Dass had been a Harvard academic and an associate of Timothy Leary during the early 1960s,[19] before embracing Hinduism – like Harrison in 1966, via experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs[20][21] – and changing his name.

[36] Leng writes of Harrison yearning to escape "a Fab Four prehistory that so obsessed the media and his fans", and draws parallels between the former Beatle's predicament and a comedy sketch by Monty Python, featuring the character Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.

[40][nb 1] Harrison returned to the specific theme of "Be Here Now" in later songs such as "Flying Hour"[42] and "Just for Today",[43] the last of which adopts the here-and-now message as an inspirational statement for members of Alcoholics Anonymous.

[48] Bassist Klaus Voormann has stated that Harrison's Friar Park home studio in Oxfordshire was the true location, however,[47][49] a contention supported by Jim Keltner, the drummer at the sessions.

[50] Harrison self-produced Material World and deliberately pared down the sound,[51][52] keen to avoid the big production employed by Phil Spector on All Things Must Pass, his acclaimed 1970 triple album.

[24] Besides Harrison, the musicians on the song were Gary Wright (on organ), Nicky Hopkins (piano) and the rhythm section of Voormann and Keltner – all of whom served as the core band on Material World.

[57] In the search for a good sound, Voormann recorded his part, on standup bass, in one of the bathrooms at Friar Park; he remembers being interrupted during a take by longtime Beatles aide Mal Evans flushing the toilet.

"[86] By contrast, Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone admired Material World as "a pop religious ceremony for all seasons"[87] and described the song as "a meltingly lovely meditation-prayer, the ultimate aural refinement of 'Blue Jay Way'".

[1][nb 5] In his review for Melody Maker, Michael Watts wrote of "Be Here Now"'s middle eight providing a "Confucius-like 'truth'" and commented that reading the album's lyric sheet was "rather like finding yourself at the feet of some Tibetan [lama]".

[106] Less impressed, PopMatters' Zeth Lundy bemoaned the stripped-down sound of Living in the Material World after the "thunderous extravagance" of All Things Must Pass, such that "Be Here Now" was rendered "a little too slow-moving and dramatically anaemic".

[107] Writing for The Huffington Post in 2011, Steve Rabey cited Harrison's drawing of inspiration from Dass's book, as from the Tao Te Ching and Autobiography of a Yogi in other songs, as an example of his standing as both a "cafeteria Hindu" and "perhaps the most explicitly and consistently theological rock star of the last half-century".

[112] In a review for Blogcritics, Chaz Lipp views the production on the album as "meticulous" and superior to All Things Must Pass, such that "[t]he delicate melodies of songs like 'The Day the World Gets 'Round' and 'Be Here Now' are never lost in bombast.

Writer Ian MacDonald suggested that Nick Drake's "River Man" was based on this same Buddhist notion of mindfulness, and there's a similar combination of dreaminess and fierce intensity in this song, which is a masterpiece.

[117] Singer Robyn Hitchcock recorded the track, along with covers of songs by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, David Bowie and others, for a download-only album released in December 2010.

[119] Coinciding with the release of The Apple Years,[120] "Be Here Now" was one of 27 Harrison songs played at George Fest,[121] an all-star concert organised by his son Dhani and held at the Fonda Theatre, Los Angeles, on 28 September 2014.