'Mystery' Harrison lyrics go on display
Updated on 08 May 2009
Previously unseen "mystery" George Harrison lyrics written more than 40 years ago have gone on display.
Harrison was 23 or 24 when he wrote the untitled song in early 1967. At the time, the Beatles had stopped touring to spend more time in the studio to work on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Writer Hunter Davies found the lyrics during his research for a new edition of the band's official biography. Some had been discarded as scraps of paper on the floor of Abbey Road studios in northwest London, and he kept them as souvenirs.
The late Beatle wrote: "I'm happy to say that it's only a dream; when I come across people like you; it's only a dream and you make it obscene; with the things that you think and you do.
"Your (sic) so unaware of the pain that I bear; and jealous for what you can't do. There's times when I feel that you haven't a hope; but I also know that isn't true."
The song was never recorded by Harrison, or even put to music, as far as the British Library can tell. And the identity of the girl Harrison was dreaming about remains a mystery, but it is thought that it could have been his then wife Pattie Boyd.
On the reverse side of the lyrics are instructions on how to reach the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein's country house in Sussex, written in Epstein's hand.
Most of the British Library's Beatles collection is on loan by permission of Davies, who plans to donate it to the library after his death. It ranges from a fan club membership card to the lyrics of A Hard Day's Night, written by John Lennon on the back of a birthday card to his son Julian.
Harrison's lyrics join other treasures of the British Library, such as the Magna Carta and Shakespeare's First Folio, in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery, which is free and open to the public.
Jamie Andrews, head of modern literary manuscripts at the library, said: "The nation loves the Beatles so it's great to see George's lyric reunited with those of his band mates in the British Library."
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