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"Be Here Now" is a song by English musician George Harrison released on his 1973 album ''Living in the Material World''. The recording features a sparse musical arrangement and recalls Harrison's work with the Beatles during 1966–68, through its Indian-inspired mood and use of drone-like sitar. Part of Harrison's inspiration for the composition was the popular book ''Be Here Now'' by spiritual teacher Ram Dass – specifically, a story discussing the author's change in identity from a Western academic to a guru in the Hindu faith. Harrison biographers interpret "Be Here Now" as a comment from him on the public's nostalgia for the past following the Beatles' break-up. Harrison wrote the song in Los Angeles in 1971, while working on the soundtrack to the Ravi Shankar documentary ''Raga'', and shortly before organising the Concert for Bangladesh. The recording took place in late 1972 at his Friar Park home, with musical contributions from Klaus Voormann, Nicky Hopkins, Gary Wright and Jim Keltner. Contrary to the song's message, its release coincided with heightened speculation regarding a possible Beatles reunion, following Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon recording together in Los Angeles in March 1973. "Be Here Now" has received critical attention for its dreamlike sound and the quality of Harrison's acoustic guitar playing. Stephen Holden of ''Rolling Stone'' described the track as a "meltingly lovely meditation-prayer",〔 while author Ian Inglis views it as a musical expression of "the spiritual, scientific, and metaphysical implications of time".〔Inglis, p. 42.〕 Singers Robyn Hitchcock and Ian Astbury have each covered the song. ==Background and composition== In his 1980 autobiography, ''I, Me, Mine'', George Harrison recalls coming up with the tune for "Be Here Now" while staying in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, in the spring of 1971.〔 At the time, Harrison was in Los Angeles producing the soundtrack to ''Raga'',〔Badman, p. 36.〕 an Apple Films documentary about Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar.〔Lavezzoli, p. 187.〕〔Clayson, p. 308.〕 The same visit led to Harrison staging the Concert for Bangladesh in New York that summer,〔Lavezzoli, pp. 187–88.〕 following a plea from Shankar, a Bengali Hindu, that something be done to raise international awareness for refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War.〔Greene, pp. 185–86.〕〔Shankar, pp. 217, 219–20.〕 In his autobiography, Harrison says of writing the song: "I was almost falling asleep. I had the guitar in bed and the melody came fast."〔George Harrison, p. 252.〕 In keeping with this description, "Be Here Now" is noted for its meditative〔John Metzger, ("George Harrison ''Living in the Material World''" ), ''The Music Box'', vol. 13 (11), November 2006 (retrieved 11 January 2015).〕 and dreamlike qualities.〔Spizer, p. 255.〕〔Tom Doyle, "George Harrison ''Living in the Material World''", ''Q'', November 2006, p. 156.〕 The song is in the musical key of A, with a time signature of 4/4 throughout.〔"Be Here Now", in ''George Harrison ''Living in the Material World'': Sheet Music for Piano, Vocal & Guitar'', Charles Hansen (New York, NY, 1973), pp. 78–79.〕 According to his handwritten note on the lyrics reproduced in ''I, Me, Mine'', Harrison played the guitar part in open G tuning〔George Harrison, p. 253.〕 – which would typically require the placing of a capo on the guitar's second fret, to attain an open chord of A major.〔Keith Wyatt, "G Whiz: How to Play Like Keith Richards, Master of Open G Tuning", ''Guitar Legends'', March 2007, pp. 60, 61.〕 Author and music journalist Paul Trynka writes of "Be Here Now" containing "modal folk riffs".〔 Harrison drew inspiration for his lyrics from "The Transformation: Dr. Richard Alpert, PhD. into Baba Ram Dass".〔 A humorous story,〔Clayson, p. 322.〕 "The Transformation" was the first of four sections in Ram Dass's book ''Be Here Now'', a popular introductory text to Hindu spirituality.〔Allison, p. 85.〕 As Richard Alpert, Dass had been a Harvard academic and an associate of Timothy Leary during the early 1960s,〔Tillery, p. 43.〕 before embracing Hinduism – like Harrison in 1966, via experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs〔George Harrison, in The Beatles, pp. 179–80.〕〔Olivia Harrison, p. 190.〕 – and changing his name.〔MacDonald, pp. 164, 167fn.〕 Before the book's publication in 1971, according to musicologist Ian MacDonald, the phrase "Be here now" had become a "hippie maxim",〔MacDonald, p. 167.〕 reflecting a fundamental contention of Hindu philosophy regarding the all-importance of the present moment.〔 For Harrison, the present meant his identity outside the public's perception of him as a Beatle,〔〔Allison, p. 137.〕 a role he had already tired of in 1965–66,〔The Editors of ''Rolling Stone'', pp. 144–45.〕 during the height of the band's fame.〔Doggett, pp. 21–22.〕〔Lavezzoli, p. 176.〕 Author Ian Inglis writes of the parallels between "Be Here Now" and one of Harrison's 1968 compositions for the Beatles, "Long, Long, Long", due to the two songs' "common subject matter: time".〔 In "Be Here Now", Harrison delivers his message in simple terms, stating that "''The past was''", whereas "''Now is''".〔〔Josh Hathaway, ("VCV: George Harrison – 'Be Here Now'" ), Blogcritics, 25 February 2010 (retrieved 11 January 2015).〕 According to theologian Dale Allison, the song also addresses the Hindu concept of ''maya'',〔Allison, pp. 83, 115.〕 whereby the physical world is an illusion and the only truth is to realise the divine nature of one's soul.〔Tillery, pp. 106–07.〕〔Schaffner, pp. 142, 159.〕 Harrison warns against what Allison terms "mistak() the material world, which is only a grand illusion, for the real world", particularly in the lyrics to the song's middle eight:〔Allison, pp. 114–15.〕 Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, views "Be Here Now" as the singer questioning the validity of his role as a world-famous musician.〔Leng, p. 137.〕 Leng writes of Harrison yearning to escape "a Fab Four prehistory that so obsessed the media and his fans", and draws parallels between the former Beatle's predicament and a comedy sketch by Monty Python, featuring the character Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.〔Leng, p. 133.〕 In the sketch, Jackson is a composer of modern symphonies, yet the interviewer fixates on the trivial detail of how he acquired his unusual nickname.〔 In his book discussing the religious themes in Harrison's songwriting,〔Inglis, p. 171.〕 Allison qualifies the literal message of "Be Here Now" by stating, "this song must be understood as an endorsement (Dass's book )", yet it is "hardly the typical George".〔Allison, pp. 84–85.〕 Allison cites a number of compositions from throughout Harrison's career, all covering issues of karma and reincarnation, as evidence that Harrison "encourages all of us to ponder our inescapable end and so imagine the future", rather than focusing only on the here and now.〔Allison, pp. 79–80, 85.〕 Harrison would return to the specific theme of "Be Here Now" in later songs such as "Flying Hour"〔Inglis, p. 102.〕 and "Just for Today",〔Huntley, p. 208.〕 the last of which adopts the here-and-now message as an inspirational statement for members of Alcoholics Anonymous.〔Allison, pp. 137, 142, 148.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Be Here Now (song)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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