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Sour Milk Sea
"Sour Milk Sea" is a song written by George Harrison and released by English rock singer Jackie Lomax as his debut single on the Beatles' Apple record label in August 1968. Harrison wrote the song during the Beatles' stay in Rishikesh, India and gave it to Lomax to help launch Apple Records. Lomax's recording is a rarity among non-Beatles songs since it features three members of the band – Harrison, who also produced the track, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Performed in the hard rock style, the song also includes musical contributions from Eric Clapton and session pianist Nicky Hopkins. It was the first of many Harrison productions for artists signed to the Beatles' record label.
Harrison wrote "Sour Milk Sea" to promote Transcendental Meditation, which the Beatles had been studying in Rishikesh with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In the lyrics, Harrison espouses meditation as a remedy for worldly cares. The group recorded a demo of the song while considering material for their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the White Album). On release, Lomax's single was overshadowed in Apple's "Our First Four" promotional campaign by the Beatles' "Hey Jude" and Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days"; it enjoyed only minor success internationally, becoming a top 30 hit in Canada. Together with its B-side, the Lomax-written "The Eagle Laughs at You", the song was included on the singer's only Apple album, Is This What You Want?, released in March 1969.
"Sour Milk Sea" received favourable reviews in 1968 and has continued to invite praise from music critics, particularly for the energetic quality of the performance. Several writers consider that the song deserved to be a hit for Lomax and that, had the Beatles retained it for the White Album, it would have been among the best songs on the album. The track also appears on the 2010 multi-artist compilation Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records.
"Sour Milk Sea" was one of several songs that George Harrison wrote while staying at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, from February to April 1968. Having first visited India in September 1966, following the Beatles' final concert tour, Harrison became enamoured of the teachings of the Maharishi and led his Beatles bandmates to Rishikesh to study Transcendental Meditation two years later. With Life magazine labelling 1968 "the Year of the Guru", the Beatles' visit generated wide interest in Transcendental Meditation, and Eastern spirituality generally, among Western youth. Author Simon Leng writes that with "Sour Milk Sea", Harrison adopted "the role of advertising executive" to further promote meditation. Leng views it as a follow-up to "Within You Without You", in which Harrison had first channelled the teachings of the Hindu Vedas into a song.
In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison says that "Sour Milk Sea" espouses meditation as a means to improve the quality of one's life, as well as advocating a proactive approach when faced with difficulty. He says he named the composition after a picture titled Kalladadi Samudra, which reflects the theme of Vishvasara Tantra in sacred Hindu texts, particularly regarding "the geological theory of the evolution of organic life on earth". Singer Jackie Lomax, whose debut solo album Harrison had agreed to produce before the Beatles departed for India, said that the Sour Milk Sea symbolises "a fallow period" during each of the Earth's 26,000-year evolutionary cycles, before the planet begins its process of regeneration.
As with the other songs he wrote in Rishikesh, "Sour Milk Sea" marked the start of Harrison's return to the guitar as his main instrument, coinciding with a gradual relinquishing of his attempts to master the Indian sitar. In a September 1968 interview, he recalled that he wrote the music "in ten minutes" since he was without a guitar at the time and had to borrow John Lennon's. He also said that, although it was not until June that he decided to forgo Indian classical music and fully re-engage with rock music, "[Even when] I was in India, I always imagined the song as rock 'n' roll."
Referring to the compositional draft for "Sour Milk Sea", musicologist Walter Everett states that together the various chords suggest "a pentatonic minor scale on A, allowing B♭ as a tritone-related ornament to E7". The song makes limited use of the expected A major chord, however, instead centring on E over the verses and D in the choruses, with the latter representing what Everett terms "the Mixolydian ♭VII area". Described by author and critic Richie Unterberger as a melody filled with "tense chord ascensions", the composition shares part of its melodic characteristics with "Savoy Truffle", another Harrison song from 1968.
I used "Sour Milk Sea" as the idea of – if you're in the shit, don't go around moaning about it; do something about it:
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Sour Milk Sea
"Sour Milk Sea" is a song written by George Harrison and released by English rock singer Jackie Lomax as his debut single on the Beatles' Apple record label in August 1968. Harrison wrote the song during the Beatles' stay in Rishikesh, India and gave it to Lomax to help launch Apple Records. Lomax's recording is a rarity among non-Beatles songs since it features three members of the band – Harrison, who also produced the track, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. Performed in the hard rock style, the song also includes musical contributions from Eric Clapton and session pianist Nicky Hopkins. It was the first of many Harrison productions for artists signed to the Beatles' record label.
Harrison wrote "Sour Milk Sea" to promote Transcendental Meditation, which the Beatles had been studying in Rishikesh with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In the lyrics, Harrison espouses meditation as a remedy for worldly cares. The group recorded a demo of the song while considering material for their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the White Album). On release, Lomax's single was overshadowed in Apple's "Our First Four" promotional campaign by the Beatles' "Hey Jude" and Mary Hopkin's "Those Were the Days"; it enjoyed only minor success internationally, becoming a top 30 hit in Canada. Together with its B-side, the Lomax-written "The Eagle Laughs at You", the song was included on the singer's only Apple album, Is This What You Want?, released in March 1969.
"Sour Milk Sea" received favourable reviews in 1968 and has continued to invite praise from music critics, particularly for the energetic quality of the performance. Several writers consider that the song deserved to be a hit for Lomax and that, had the Beatles retained it for the White Album, it would have been among the best songs on the album. The track also appears on the 2010 multi-artist compilation Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records.
"Sour Milk Sea" was one of several songs that George Harrison wrote while staying at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, from February to April 1968. Having first visited India in September 1966, following the Beatles' final concert tour, Harrison became enamoured of the teachings of the Maharishi and led his Beatles bandmates to Rishikesh to study Transcendental Meditation two years later. With Life magazine labelling 1968 "the Year of the Guru", the Beatles' visit generated wide interest in Transcendental Meditation, and Eastern spirituality generally, among Western youth. Author Simon Leng writes that with "Sour Milk Sea", Harrison adopted "the role of advertising executive" to further promote meditation. Leng views it as a follow-up to "Within You Without You", in which Harrison had first channelled the teachings of the Hindu Vedas into a song.
In his autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison says that "Sour Milk Sea" espouses meditation as a means to improve the quality of one's life, as well as advocating a proactive approach when faced with difficulty. He says he named the composition after a picture titled Kalladadi Samudra, which reflects the theme of Vishvasara Tantra in sacred Hindu texts, particularly regarding "the geological theory of the evolution of organic life on earth". Singer Jackie Lomax, whose debut solo album Harrison had agreed to produce before the Beatles departed for India, said that the Sour Milk Sea symbolises "a fallow period" during each of the Earth's 26,000-year evolutionary cycles, before the planet begins its process of regeneration.
As with the other songs he wrote in Rishikesh, "Sour Milk Sea" marked the start of Harrison's return to the guitar as his main instrument, coinciding with a gradual relinquishing of his attempts to master the Indian sitar. In a September 1968 interview, he recalled that he wrote the music "in ten minutes" since he was without a guitar at the time and had to borrow John Lennon's. He also said that, although it was not until June that he decided to forgo Indian classical music and fully re-engage with rock music, "[Even when] I was in India, I always imagined the song as rock 'n' roll."
Referring to the compositional draft for "Sour Milk Sea", musicologist Walter Everett states that together the various chords suggest "a pentatonic minor scale on A, allowing B♭ as a tritone-related ornament to E7". The song makes limited use of the expected A major chord, however, instead centring on E over the verses and D in the choruses, with the latter representing what Everett terms "the Mixolydian ♭VII area". Described by author and critic Richie Unterberger as a melody filled with "tense chord ascensions", the composition shares part of its melodic characteristics with "Savoy Truffle", another Harrison song from 1968.
I used "Sour Milk Sea" as the idea of – if you're in the shit, don't go around moaning about it; do something about it: