George Harrison’s Son, Dhani, Said a ‘Brainwashed’ Track ‘Reeked’ of His Father

George Harrison‘s son, Dhani, said a Brainwashed track “reeked” of his father more than any other. Dhani began working on the album with his father and finished it shortly after the former Beatle died in 2001.

George Harrison’s son, Dhani, helped him work on his most personal album, ‘Brainwashed’

The former Beatle’s friend and co-producer, Jeff Lynne, said he and George started work on the album in 1999. However, George wrote most of the songs years earlier.

“George would come round my house and he’d always have a new song with him,” Lynne said (per Beatles Bible). “He would strum them on a guitar or ukulele. The songs just knocked me out. George talked about how he wanted the album to sound.”

George also asked his son to help him with the album. “He told Dhani a lot of things he would like to have done to the songs and left us little clues,” Lynne added. “There was always that spiritual energy that went into the lyrics as well as the music.”

According to Dhani, Brainwashed is a very personal record. In a video for the making of Brainwashed, Dhani said, “The reason this turned out to be so good, in terms of the way that the songs are really true to him is that he wrote these songs just primarily for himself and what he wanted to hear and he had a song in his head he’d write it down.”

Lynne added (per Beatles Bible), “His life was in those final songs, the things he got up to each day, like riding down the River Thames. Lots of very personal stuff.”

George died in 2001 without having finished the album. However, it was in safe hands.

George’s son, Dhani, finished ‘Brainwashed’

After George died, Dhani and Lynne finished Brainwashed, although it was a daunting task at first.

“To make an album, to make all those songs finished and mixed, it started out really daunting because I was so used to working with George so closely until I realized that Dhani was going to be there all the time,” Lynne said.

For the album’s 20th anniversary, Dhani wrote on his Instagram that finishing Brainwashed was the most challenging project he’s ever worked on, throwing him into “the deep end.” If he’d waited, it would’ve been difficult to complete.

Thankfully, George made a “blueprint” for his son and co-producer. Dhani said he left tons of notepads full of notes “in his language. Thankfully, Lynne knew how to speak George. Everything was there; it was just a matter of understanding what George was saying in his notes and figuring out what he would’ve wanted.

“It was almost as if my dad had the whole thing mapped out, and we were just these lab rats trying to find out way through the maze that hadn’t quite been finished yet,” Dhani said. “Trying not to leave any footprints of us or any trace of Jeff or me. That was the most conscious thing that we did was to try and not impose on the album in any way and make a kind of, as Jeff calls it, a cradle for the voice and the guitar.”

The producer said George wanted the songs to sound like demos. However, he thought they deserved more and made them “posher.”

“You just had to go with your gut feeling,” Lynne continued. “I felt so bad for Dhani having to do that, after his dad had just passed on, but he really wanted to do it. He’s a good lad, Dhani. It was joyful when it sounded great – ‘Well done, George, nice one!’ – but such a shame he wasn’t there to hear it with us.”

Dhani said a ‘Brainwashed’ track ‘reeks’ of his father

George’s son says there’s one track on Brainwashed that “reeks” of his father. It’s not even a song he wrote: Cab Calloway’s “Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.”

“That’s really what he was like around the house all day, just playing ukulele and smiling,” Dhani said. “We heard every Hoagy Carmichael song, from “Barnacle Bill The Sailor” to-he’d sing everything on the uke. He’d sing anything and everything.

“So, that was really-we had to get that in there to have because there’s uke on a lot of the other tracks as well but that was the one that really just reeked of my dad.”

Meanwhile, George’s son paid homage to his father’s favorite number by making “Stuck Inside A Cloud” the seventh track. So, Brainwashed carries George’s essence. It’s about George and George alone. In his final album, he made songs for himself and sang about the things he wanted.