George Harrison’s ‘Any Road’ Is Based on an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Quote
TL;DR:
- George Harrison’s “Any Road” draws from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
- Jefferson Airplane did the same for “White Rabbit.”
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers did the same for “Don’t Come Around Here No More.”
George Harrison‘s “Any Road” is based on a paraphrase of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Specifically, the song was inspired by a conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat. Subsequently, the tune became a hit in the United Kingdom but not the United States.
George Harrison took inspiration from a witty part of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’
According to the 2021 book War Time: Temporality and the Decline of Western Military Power, the line “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there” from “Any Road” is a paraphrase of Carroll. The line appears to be based on a passage from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, more commonly known as Alice in Wonderland. The passage begins with Alice encountering the Cheshire Cat.
“She was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off,” Carroll wrote. “The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.”
George Harrison’s ‘Any Road’ paraphrased a line from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ about direction
The conversation turns to direction. “‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider,” the story continues. “‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
“‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat,” the book continues. “‘I don’t much care where — ‘ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.’ — so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation. ‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.'”
How ‘Any Road’ performed on the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
“Any Road” did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune appeared on the posthumous album Brainwashed, which peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for nine weeks.
The Official Charts Company reports “Any Road” became a minor hit in George’s native United Kingdom There, it reached No. 37 and stayed on the chart for two weeks. Brainwashed was more popular. It hit No. 29 in the U.K. and remained on the chart for nine weeks.
“Any Road” is far from the only classic rock tune to take inspiration from Alice in Wonderland. Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” draws from the book while the music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More” features Petty as the Mad Hatter.
“Any Road” is a memorable tune and it wouldn’t exist without Carroll’s wit.
