page_title: All Things Must Pass (song)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: All Things Must Pass (song) / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Trade ad for The Band's single "Time To Kill" / "The Shape I'm In".To better adapt it to his respective Wikipedia article, the ad was cropped and cleaned in a graphics editing program. The original can be viewed at the source below.
context_page_description: "All Things Must Pass" is a song by English musician George Harrison, issued in November 1970 as the title track to his triple album of the same name. Billy Preston released the song originally – as "All Things Pass" – on his Apple Records album Encouraging Words, after the Beatles had rejected it for inclusion on their Let It Be album in January 1969. The composition reflects the influence of the Band's sound and communal music-making on Harrison, after he had spent time with the group in Woodstock, New York, in late 1968, while Timothy Leary's poem "All Things Pass", a psychedelic adaptation of the Tao Te Ching, provided inspiration for his song lyrics.
  The subject matter deals with the transient nature of human existence, and in Harrison's All Things Must Pass reading, words and music combine to reflect impressions of optimism against fatalism. On release, together with Barry Feinstein's album cover image, commentators viewed the song as a statement on the Beatles' break-up. Widely regarded as one of Harrison's finest compositions, its rejection by his former band has provoked comment from biographers and reviewers.
context_section_description: Like his friend Eric Clapton, George Harrison was inspired by Music from Big Pink, the seminal debut album from the Band, the former backing group for Bob Dylan. Released in July 1968, Music from Big Pink was partly responsible for Harrison's return to the guitar, his first instrument, after he had spent two years attempting to master the more complex Indian sitar. Harrison duly shared his enthusiasm with the British music press, declaring Big Pink "the new sound to come from America", drummer Levon Helm later recalled, thus helping to establish the Band internationally. In appreciation, Robbie Robertson, the Band's guitarist, extended an invitation to Harrison to stop by in Woodstock, New York, when the opportunity arose.
  Late in 1968, after producing sessions in Los Angeles for a solo album by Apple Records signing Jackie Lomax, Harrison spent Thanksgiving and much of December in upstate New York, where he renewed his friendship with a now semi-retired Dylan and took part in informal jam sessions with the Band. According to Helm, they discussed making a possible "fireside jam" album with Clapton and an Apple Films "rock western" called Zachariah, but neither project progressed beyond the planning stage. The bucolic surroundings proved fruitful for Harrison as a songwriter, producing his first collaboration with Dylan, "I'd Have You Anytime", and leading him to write "All Things Must Pass". He later described the latter song as a "Robbie Robertson–Band type of tune", and said that he always imagined it being sung by Helm.
caption: The Band in Woodstock in 1969, with Levon Helm (centre) and Robbie Robertson (second from right)
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