In 1987, one of the most famous musicians on
earth hired a left -handed bass player, zipped
him into a giant Walrus suit, and just initiated
a lie that would fool millions of fans for well
over a decade. Yeah. It really was wild. And
the craziest part is he didn't do it to cover
up some massive scandal. He did it to build a
puzzle. Right. It was this brilliant, highly
calculated piece of public manipulation, really.
We're looking at an artist who totally understood
that sometimes The absolute best way to deal
with the monumental legacy is to, you know, just
turn it into a game. Welcome, everyone. Today
we are taking you on a custom tailored deep dive
into George Harrison's 1988 single When We Was
Fab. Such a great track. It really is. And we're
exploring how he weaponized nostalgia to trick.
delight, and ultimately reclaim his own legendary
past. Exactly. So our mission for this deep dive
is to explore how a massively famous artist successfully
packages their own history into a cohesive piece
of nostalgic art. Yeah, how you take your own
myth and box it up. Right, and to do this we
are relying on a really comprehensive Wikipedia
article. It details the song's production, its
chart history, the incredibly detailed cover
art and of course that legendary music video.
Oh the video is a masterpiece. We're going to
examine how this whole project operates not just
as like standard pop music but as a densely layered
historical scavenger hunt designed specifically
for you the listener to decode. It really is
a master class in self -reflection. I mean it's
George Harrison looking back at the 1960s the
era when the Beatles were first dubbed the Fab
Four right? Right. And figuring out how to articulate
that experience decades later. Yeah. But doing
it without sounding bitter or, you know, stuck
in the past. OK, let's unpack this because we
have to start with the core foundation of this
nostalgia trip, which is the music itself. The
literal sound of it. Right. Before we get to
the video or how the public reacted, we need
to understand the mechanics of how Harrison built
a sonic bridge. back to the 1960s. So it was
released in January 1988 as the second single
from his 1987 album, Cloud Nine. A fantastic
album. It was. And he co -wrote and co -produced
this track with Jeff Lyn. Ah, Jeff Lyn. Yeah.
And I want you, the listener, to think of this
song like a sonic Trojan horse. On the outside,
it's this polished, upbeat 1980s pop music with
Jeff Lyn's characteristically shiny production.
Very shiny. But then once it gets inside your
ears, the trapdoor opens and outpours this army
of 1967 psychedelic ghosts. I kind of view it
like a meticulously curated museum exhibit of
1967, where every instrument is a distinct historical
artifact placed behind glass for us to view.
Oh, that's a great way to put it. What's fascinating
here is the actual mechanics of auditory nostalgia.
Harrison and Lynn synthesize specific sounds
to instantly trigger a reaction in the listener's
brain. They aren't just playing instruments here.
They are turning musical tools into psychological
anchors for the Beatlemania era. Take the sitar,
for instance. Oh, the sitar is iconic. Right.
Harrison famously introduced this complex Indian
stringed instrument to Western pop music back
in the mid -1960s. So when you hear that distinctive
buzzing resonance in When We Was Fab, your brain
doesn't just hear a nice melody. No, you're just
suddenly there. Exactly. It subconsciously transports
you directly back to 1967. And then there are
the backwards relayed tape effects. which I love.
Oh yeah, those are classic. For anyone who hasn't
sat in a vintage analog recording studio, it
is literally what it sounds like. Back during
the Sada Pepper era, the Beatles popularized
this by physically taking the magnetic recording
tape and threading it through the playback machine
in the wrong direction. Which is just so cool
to think about. It creates this completely unnatural
sweeping sound where the fade out of the note
actually happens before the sharp attack of the
instrument. Wow. Yeah, it completely defies the
normal laws of acoustics. By recreating that
specific auditory physics in 1988, Lin and Harrison
are cueing the listener's brain that they've
stepped into a time machine. That makes total
sense. Add in a string quartet and a cello, which
was played here by Bobby Koch, and you have a
complete auditory resurrection of their psychedelic
peak. Wait, wait. So he is essentially quoting
his own musical resume. Basically, yeah. He's
legally plagiarizing his 20 -year -old self.
Our source material actually notes the track
shares direct musical similarities with I Am
the Walrus from 1967 and the continuing story
of Bengalo Bill from 1968. Oh, yeah. Even the
fade out of the song. contains a really distinct
musical nod to the melody of Drive My Car. And
the lyrics amplify that effect entirely. I mean,
they serve as a literal bibliography of the era.
He references the Smokey Robinson track, the
Beatles' famously covered, You Really Gotta Hold
On Me. Oh, right. He name drops his own philosophical
Beatles composition, Within You, Without You.
Which is a great song. Incredible song. And he
throws in a nod to Bob Dylan with the line, It's
all over now, baby blue. Harrison and Lynn were
deliberately using George Martin's signature
production techniques as a color palette. And
just for context, George Martin was the Beatles'
legendary producer. The fifth Beatle, some say.
Exactly. Long before digital software existed...
Martin would physically cut the magnetic recording
tape with a razor blade and splice it back together
to create these sudden surreal shifts in the
music. Which took forever to do. I can't even
imagine. And the music press at the time completely
understood the assignment. Cashbox magazine actually
reviewed the single when it came out and called
it a historical recreation, complete with cellos,
George Martin -like edits, sitars, and time machine.
They totally got it. They even brought in Ringo
Starr to play drums and provide backing vocals
on the track. No way. Yeah. So you literally
have half of the actual Beatles physically present
in the studio recreating the sound of their own
youth. OK. So what does this all mean? Because
I have to push back a little here. There is a
massive inherent artistic risk. in doing this.
How so? Well, is there a danger in a musician
relying so heavily on their past legacy? Like,
does it risk coming off as a desperate cash grab
or just showing that they're completely out of
fresh ideas? That's a fair point. But if we connect
this to the bigger picture, the 1988 public reaction
completely validates the approach. OK, let's
look at the numbers. Let's look at the chart
performance. The song kicked at number 25 on
the UK singles chart. In the U .S., it reached
number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, and it went
all the way to number two on the U .S. mainstream
rock chart. Number two. Wow. Yeah. Furthermore,
it became Harrison's last Top 40 hit in the U
.S. But, I mean, does the Top 25 hit actually
prove it was a generous gift to the culture?
Or does it just prove that the Beatles brand
was so bulletproof in the 80s that you could
put a sitar on literally anything and guarantee
radio play? Well. Because to put that number
23 peak into perspective, Harrison was a 45 -year
-old man competing on the pop charts in 1988
against Michael Jackson's bad, Whitney Houston
and Def Leppard. That is a tough crowd. The pop
landscape was totally dominated by drum machines
and heavy synthesizers. The fact that a psychedelic
throwback track survived in that specific environment
is staggering. But its survival in that synth
-heavy 1980s pop landscape is exactly the point.
By the late 1980s, the bitter dust of the Beatles
breakup had long settled. That's true. So when
this incredibly organic nostalgic track hit the
radio, it wasn't perceived as a lack of ideas.
It succeeded as a very catchy modern pop song,
modern for 1988 anyway. Right, right. But its
deeper value lay in how it allowed fans to safely
process their shared cultural memory of the Fab
Four. Our sources actually point out this was
his second major hit explicitly reflecting on
his years as a Beatle. The first one was... all
those years ago, released in 1981. Oh, right.
Which was largely a tribute to John Lennon shortly
after his assassination. And that is a crucial
distinction. The 1981 track was born of tragedy
and mourning. Yeah, it was very heavy. Exactly.
But by 1988, Harrison was acknowledging the era
with real affection and musical accuracy, giving
the audience permission to revel in the nostalgia
of the 1960s without it feeling somber. The Beatles
were a phenomenon that belonged to the world,
and Harrison was essentially acting as a generous
custodian of that. And it has genuine enduring
popularity. In 2010, AOL radio listeners actually
voted When We Was Fab as number nine on their
list of the ten best George Harrison songs. Number
nine. That's impressive. It wasn't just a flash
-in -the -pan novelty hit. But to make this nostalgia
trip truly effective, the audio was only half
the battle. So the audio was a massive success,
but a sonic time machine only goes so far. To
fully resurrect the Beatles mythology for an
MTV generation, Harrison had to translate those
auditory ghosts into f - physical visual proof.
Transitioning the nostalgia from the ears to
the eyes. And they started that process before
you even pulled the vinyl record out of the sleeve.
Oh, with the cover art. Exactly. The single cover
is brilliant. It was created by Klaus Vormann.
And for those who don't know, Vormann is a legendary
figure in Beatles history himself. Very much
so. He created the iconic 1966 black and white
line drawing cover for the Revolver album. Right.
And for When We Was Fab, Vorman incorporates
his original 1966 drawing of Harrison. You can
literally see the letters ER from the word revolver
in the image. I love that detail. It's so good.
He puts that alongside a brand new updated drawing
of Harrison from 22 years later. We actually
have a revealing quote from Klaus Vorman from
a May 2020 issue of Uncut magazine. What did
he say? He said, George said, I have a song.
It's reminiscing about the old days. Can you
do a cover? I took the same picture from the
revolver cover, the old George, and put a new
George on the bottom. Wow, just directly stacking
them. Yeah, it's highly effective because it
forces the viewer to look at the unvarnished
passage of time directly. Here's where it gets
really interesting though. Because if the cover
art was a clever juxtaposition of old and new,
the music video was an absolute explosion of
visual mythology. Explosion is the perfect word
for it. It was directed by the duo Godly and
Krem and filmed at Green Food Studios in London
in December of 1987. It was so meticulously crafted
that it garnered six nominations at the 1988
MTV Video Music Awards. Six. Yeah, including
a nomination for Best Art Director for Sid Bartholomew.
I want you, the listener, to think of this video
as an interactive Where's Waldo of British Ross
lore. That is exactly what it is. The premise
of the video is seemingly simple. George Harrison
is busking, which, you know, simply means playing
music on the street for loose change in front
of a brick wall while various people pass him
by. Pretty standard music video setup. Right.
But the execution is totally loaded with symbolic
weight. First of all, Harrison is depicted with
multiple arms playing multiple instruments simultaneously.
Like an illusion. Yes, evoking the many armed
gods of Hindu traditions, which is a direct nod
to his deep spiritual connection to India. Oh,
of course. He's also wearing his highly distinctive,
brightly colored outfit from the cover of Cy
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. You can't miss
it. No, you really can't. And there's a prominent
visual of a green apple. the undeniable corporate
logo of the Beatles company, Apple Records. And
the cameos. It's a literal street parade of British
music royalty. It's insane who shows up. You've
got Ringo Starr showing up twice. Yeah. First
as Harrison's roadie, and then later as a drummer.
You got his co -producer, Jeff Lynn. You have
Elton John walking by and dropping a coin into
Harrison's busking cup. I love that Elton John
is just casually dropping a coin in. I know,
it's so funny. Percussionist Ray Cooper is there.
And... maybe the most poignant cameo of all.
Neil Aspinall, The Beatles, former road manager
and head of Apple Corps, walks by holding a physical
copy of John Lennon's 1971 album, Imagine. Yeah.
Aspinal holding the Imagine album is a really
profound visual metaphor. It definitely hits
hard. It's a way of ensuring Lennon's presence
is felt in this retrospective, honoring him without
disrupting the playful tone of the video. The
history of the Beatles was incredibly burdensome
for the individuals involved. Oh, absolutely.
The pressure must have been immense. Definitely.
So by dressing up in the old iconic suit and
literally playing for loose change on the street,
Harrison is playfully reclaiming his own narrative.
He's stripping away the untouchable God -like
myth of the band and bringing it back down to
earth. But the funny thing is, by playing with
the myth, they deliberately created a brand new
one. Yep, they did. Digging into the specific
imagery of this video naturally leads us to the
most enduring mystery it generated. It proves
that this visual scavenger hunt was almost too
successful at getting people to look for hidden
meanings. You're referring, of course, to the
walrus. I am referring to the walrus. OK. So
in the video, there is a figure entirely enclosed
in a full body walrus suit playing the bass guitar.
And notably, the bassist is playing the instrument
left handed. Which is the massive clue. Right.
Now anyone who knows anything about the Beatles
knows that Paul McCartney is a famous left handed
bass player. So instantly the rumor mill explodes.
Everyone is convinced that Paul McCartney is
in the video secretly wearing the walrus suit
to complete a stealthy Beatles reunion. And Harrison
actively fueled the myth. He leaned right into
it. He totally did. In a televised interview
around 1988, he was asked about the rumor and
he flat out claimed that McCartney was in the
video. His exact quote was that McCartney was
camera shy that day and he kept his walrus mask
on. Which is just a brilliant, cheeky response.
But the truth was finally revealed by Paul McCartney
himself in a 1995 interview with Record Collector
magazine. Oh, what did Paul say? Courtney said,
George wanted me to be in it, but I wasn't available.
So I suggested that he put someone else in the
walrus and tell everyone that it was me. Oh my
gosh This raises important question about the
mechanics of pop culture mythology. Well, yeah,
why lie? I mean, why would two of the most famous
musicians on earth? Intentionally lie to their
millions of fans, right? Was it just an inside
joke between two old friends who were tired of
the media circus? Or was it a brilliant deliberate
marketing tactic to ensure people kept analyzing
and talking about the video? It's really a collaborative
making exercise. You have to remember the context
these two men lived through. Harrison and McCartney
survived the Paula's dead rumors of the late
1960s. Oh, where fans genuinely believed McCartney
had died in a car crash and been replaced by
a look -alike. Exactly. They watched the public
play their records backwards, looking for secret,
demonic messages. They watched people overanalyze
every square inch of their album covers, looking
for clues. It must have been exhausting. It was.
But they understood first -hand that an unsolved
mystery is often far more engaging to the public
than the simple, boring truth of a scheduling
conflict. When Harrison and McCartney lied about
the Walrus suit, they were tapping into something
fundamental about human nature. Yeah. We don't
want the boring truth. We want a puzzle. Always.
Think about how you feel when a movie director
hides an Easter egg in a background frame. It
makes you feel like an insider, like you're part
of a secret club. Right. Harrison was mass producing
that exact insider feeling. And it wasn't even
the only rumor the video spawned. There was a
secondary rumor going around for years that Paul
Simon was the figure pushing a cart in the video.
Oh, I remember that one. Yeah, that one actually
had to be shot down decades later in 2020 by
the video's director, Kevin Godley. He went on
the Nothing is Real podcast and stated he had
no recollection of Paul Simon being involved
at all. It just goes to show how effectively
this video trained the audience's brains. It
taught viewers to look at every extra, every
prop and assume it held deep, secret significance.
It's a perfect synthesis of audio and visual
storytelling. So let's recap this incredible
journey of when we was fab. We started with a
perfectly crafted sonic tribute. George Harrison
and Jeff Lin, utilizing string quartets, backwards
magnetic tapes, and buzzing sitars to intentionally
trigger the psychological anchors of 1967. We
then saw how that auditory time machine really
resonated with the public, climbing the charts
in an era dominated by synthesizers, and proving
that there is a deep human need to safely process
shared cultural memories. And finally, we unpacked
the visual puzzle box of the cover art and the
MTV nominated music video. A project so dense
with historical cameos, visual metaphors, and
deliberate Easter eggs that it spawned decades
of rumors, including a collaborative lie between
old bandmates just to keep the mythology alive.
By embracing his past with humor, musical precision,
and a bit of mystery, Harrison ensured that the
legacy of the Beatles continued to be a living,
breathing thing rather than just a dusty chapter
in a history book. And that ties directly back
to you, the listener. It's about the power of
embracing and playfully remixing your own history
rather than running away from it. You don't have
to hide from your past. You can put on a sweet
pepper suit and busk with it. I love that. Which
leaves us with a final lingering thought to mull
over today. We know George Harrison used a literal
walrus mask and a fake left -handed bass player
to playfully manipulate his own band's massive
mythology. If you were to create a piece of art
reflecting on your own past, what deliberate
masks or misleading Easter eggs would you leave
behind to confuse or delight the people trying
to decode your personal history?