McCartney Times

Paul McCartney had gotten there earlier. So had Ringo Starr and even John Lennon with some singles. And technically speaking so had George Harrison.

But with 1970’s All Things Must Pass, the Quiet Beatle finally released his first proper solo album, a warts-and-all three-record declaration of independence that corralled a career’s worth of frustrations and ambitions into its 105-minute running time.

Harrison’s years leading up to the Beatles’ breakup in early 1970 were filled with two experimental and mostly instrumental solo records, a growing aggravation with Lennon and McCartney’s insistence on dominating the group’s songwriting, and disillusioned walkouts as recording sessions became more and more contentious. So when All Things Must Pass arrived in November that year, it sounded like a huge exhale by an artist who’d been asked to hold it all in far past the usual tolerance levels.

Sure, Sides Five and Six were unwieldy and thinly thought out compared to the preceding two records, and the immediately hooking songs came early, leaving the more introspective tracks for later. But there’s no doubt it’s a revelatory artist statement, more so than McCartney’s self-titled album and on par with Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. As far as solo records by disgruntled band members go, All Things Must Pass is the king of the heap.