Ignored           Obscured            Restored

In late 1974, George Harrison released Dark Horse, his fifth solo album that coincided with a concert tour.  Anyone who is familiar with this album or witnessed the tour knows that Harrison sounded different than he had ever sounded before.  His voice was suffering from laryngitis, the result of alcohol, drugs and over working.

His next album, Extra Texture, has often been considered as an inconsequential effort that was produced with little focus simply to take advantage of time available in A&M studios that would otherwise have gone unused (and to satisfy his contractual commitment to Apple/EMI).

But Extra Texture has a few highlights, like its lone single, “You,” that reached #20 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Another is today’s SotW – “Tired of Midnight Blue.”

The song’s backstory is that Harrison wrote it after a night out in LA where he was bored with the phony club scene and wished he had simply stayed at home instead.

The sun came into view 
As I sat with the tears in my eyes 
The sun came up on you 
And as you smiled, the tear-drop it dried.

I don’t know where I had been 
But I know what I had seen 
Made me chill right to the bone 
Made me wish that I’d stayed home – along with you 
Tired of midnight blue.

The track has a beautiful piano intro, played by Leon Russell.  In fact, it has one of Russell’s finest performances throughout.  Jim Keltner was on drums (and cowbell) and session man Paul Stallworth played bass.

Even Harrison’s least important records had some very worthwhile music to hear, and “Tired of Midnight Blue” is a textbook example.

Enjoy… until next week.