After the Beatles Split, George Harrison Thought the Group’s Spirit ‘Drifted Across’ to Monty Python
After The Beatles split, George Harrison thought the group’s spirit “drifted across” to Monty Python. George loved the comedy troupe from the moment it began and became an integral part of it later.
George Harrison was ‘thrilled’ the first time he watched Monty Python
The spiritual Beatle loved many things, including music, rock ‘n’ roll, fast cars, and gardening. However, most of those interests were an “expression of his yearning for the transcendent,” Martin Scorsese told the Wall Street Journal. All of George’s interests stemmed from his love of God, even if he didn’t initially know it.
For instance, George loved gardening because every grain of sand, particle of dirt, leaf, rock, and flower was part of God’s “Universal Form.” Every note he played, no matter the genre, brought him closer to God too. One of the first things his musical guru, Ravi Shankar, taught him was that God is sound. Even racing and watching fast cars gave him a heightened experience akin to the feeling he got from meditating and chanting.
And when things got too deep, George always remembered never to take himself seriously. Religion was OK, but one always had to see the humor in the situation. That’s why he loved Monty Python.
“I remember watching the very first Monty Python show that ever came on, on BBC 2,” George told Melody Maker (per Joshua M. Greene’s Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison).
“Derek Taylor and I were so thrilled by seeing this wacky show that we sent them a telegram saying ‘Love the show, keep doing it.’ . . . I couldn’t understand how normal television could continue after that.”
George thought the spirit of The Beatles transferred to Monty Python once the band broke up
Eventually, George made friends with the guys in Monty Python, especially Michael Palin and Eric Idle. They were just as much his heroes as he was theirs.
In 1979, George told Rolling Stone that once he met the members of the comedy troupe, it felt like he’d known them forever because he’d watched them so much.
“I think after the Beatles, Monty Python was my favorite thing,” George said. “It bridged the years when there was nothing really doing, and they were the only ones who could see that everything was a big joke.”
George had a theory about why the comedy troupe was so good. Monty Python started the year The Beatles broke up. Maybe the band’s essence transferred to Monty Python.
“He was a huge Python fan,” said founding member Terry Gilliam. “We started the year the Beatles quit. He was absolutely convinced whatever that spirit was that animated the Beatles just drifted across to Python.”
Greene wrote, “George relished the Python group’s scathing send-ups of Britain’s upper class and their ribald slashes at people who took themselves too seriously, especially religious types.”
By the late 1970s, George’s involvement with Monty Python escalated.
George funded ‘Life of Brian’
In the late 1970s, Idle told George that EMI had dropped out of producing Monty Python’s latest film, Life of Brian, because they thought it was blasphemous. George loved the idea of the film. It was the epitome of what he liked about Monty Python. Everyone, especially religious types, shouldn’t take everything seriously. So, he considered funding the film.
“I asked Denis O’Brien, who had been my business manager since the end of ’73,” George told Film Comment. “After thinking about it for a week, he came back and suggested that we produce it. I let out a laugh because one of my favorite films is ‘The Producers,’ and here we were about to become Bialystock and Bloom.
“Neither of us had any previous thought of going into the movie business, though Denis had a taste of it managing Peter Sellers and negotiating some of the later Pink Panther films. It was a bit risky, I guess, totally stepping out of line for me, but, as a big fan of Monty Python, my main motive was to see the film get made.”
George mortgaged Friar Park to help fund Life of Brian. In Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Idle joked that it was the most money anyone had paid to see a film. However, as the executive producer, George received the brunt of the criticism.
In 1987, George told Timothy White at Musician Magazine, “When we took on ‘Life of Brian,’ I was so into Monty Python that I didn’t care what anybody thought…” However, could the man who sang “My Sweet Lord” produce a “supposedly sacrilegious biblical farce.”
George replied, “Ah-hah! Actually all it made fun of was the people’s stupidity in the story. Christ came out of it looking good! Myself and all of Monty Python have great respect for Christ. It’s only the ignorant people–who didn’t care to check it out–who thought that it was knocking Christ.”
Maybe Monty Python had some of the essences of The Beatles because George himself got involved.
