The Day the World Gets 'Round

Adding to Harrison's frustration while writing the song, the aid project became embroiled in financial problems, as commercial concerns delayed the release of the Concert for Bangladesh album, and government tax departments failed to embrace the goodwill inherent in the venture.

[8][9] Chief among these was the Beatles' US distributor, Capitol Records, who delayed issuing the album[10] in the hope of negotiating a royalty rate to cover what they perceived as high distribution costs for the boxed three-record set.

[20][21] As a result, the American and British tax departments were demanding a share of the proceeds from the live album and Saul Swimmer's concert film,[8][20] ignoring Harrison's appeals that an exception be made in the case of this humanitarian disaster.

[4][14][22] Until India's defeat of Pakistan on 16 December, America continued to supply arms and financial aid to the Pakistani army, led by General Yahya Khan,[23] despite reports of genocide being committed against the Bangladeshis.

"[25][nb 1] Although Rolling Stone and other countercultural publications lauded the Bangladesh concerts as proof that "the Utopian spirit of the Sixties was still flickering", in the words of author Nicholas Schaffner,[26] Harrison addressed, in "The Day the World Gets 'Round", the corporate greed and governmental apathy he had encountered.

[27][28] While staging the concerts Harrison had made a point of distancing himself from the politics behind the war in what was formerly known as East Pakistan,[29] and he similarly advocated peace activist Swami Vishnudevananda's proposal for Planet Earth passports – whereby "[one truth] underlies all nations, all cultures, all colours, all races, all religions".

It seems to me to be a poor state of affairs when "pop stars" are required to set an example ...[1] Author Robert Rodriguez describes "The Day the World Gets 'Round" as both "an expression of gratitude to all the good hearts that had contributed to the success [of the Bangladesh benefits]", and a "stinging indictment" of governments who had the power to help but instead "turned their backs when it suited their ends to do so".

Ian Inglis writes of "an increasingly familiar elitism in his apparent perception of himself", adding: "When [Harrison] sings of 'the pure of heart' and tells the Lord that 'there are just a few who bow before you,' the implied conclusion is that he counts himself among their number.

[45] Allison contrasts the song with "Slow Train Coming", a lyrically uncompromising Dylan composition reflecting the American singer's late-1970s conversion to born-again Christianity, and cites "The Day the World Gets 'Round" as an example of how Harrison's worldview instead "entails a happy ending".

[22] Doggett describes 1972 as a year of "recuperation and retreat" for the ex-Beatle, interspersed with meetings "to determine which department of which government was now stalling the funds so desperately needed in the newly independent nation".

[48] Harrison received UNICEF's "Child Is the Father of Man" award in New York on 5 June 1972 and then oversaw the delayed British release of the Concert for Bangladesh film on 27 July,[49] after which he was able to dedicate himself to working on the long-awaited follow-up to his 1970 triple album, All Things Must Pass.

[53] While Harrison succeeded in paring down the album's production after the Wall of Sound excesses of All Things Must Pass,[55] commentators note that he incorporated aspects of Spector's signature style on this and other songs on Material World, through the use of orchestral strings and brass, a choir and multiple drummers.

[56][57] On the basic track for "The Day the World Gets 'Round", Harrison used the same rhythm section that had supported him at the Concert for Bangladesh – bassist Klaus Voormann and drummers Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner[58] – along with keyboard players Nicky Hopkins and Gary Wright.

[59] The latter's contribution, on harmonium, is prominent on the take available unofficially on Living in the Alternate World, a bootleg compilation containing pre-overdubbed versions of the officially released songs, but was subsequently superseded by John Barham's orchestral arrangements.

[61] Inglis describes Barham's string arrangement on the recording as "almost identical" to that on John Lennon's Beatles composition "Across the Universe",[63] and other reviewers have similarly likened "The Day the World Gets 'Round" to that song, and to the All Things Must Pass tracks "Isn't It a Pity"[64] and "Beware of Darkness".

[69][70][nb 3] Part of the foundation's mission was to "encourage the exploration of alternative life views and philosophies" and "[support] established charitable organizations with consideration to those with special needs"[75] – so allowing Harrison to donate money without encountering the problems that had hampered the Bangladesh aid project.

[89] Reflecting the album content,[90][91] Tom Wilkes's design for the LP's face labels contrasted a devout spiritual existence with life in the material world, by featuring a painting of the Hindu god Krishna and his warrior prince Arjuna on side one, and a picture of a Mercedes stretch limousine on the reverse.

[100] Author and former Mojo editor Mat Snow writes of the timing of the album's US release: "he caught a public mood that craved an echo of 1960s idealism as America was gripped by the cynicism revealed in the Watergate hearings.

[104] To Greg Kot, writing in Rolling Stone's posthumous tribute to Harrison, "The Day the World Gets 'Round" and the ballad "Who Can See It" "aspire to a hymnlike calm but never rise to the transcendent heights of [All Things Must Pass]".

[108] More recently, Snow has praised the song for its "deep and delicious emotion" and comments that through the idealism Harrison expressed on Living in the Material World, he was "without qualification, perhaps more loved and respected as a human being".

I hope this song will help remind people of the immense legacy of love, peace and happiness we can share when we get round to looking at mankind's futile wars and prejudices, and start to change our foolish ways.