#olivia harrison

[harrisonarchive]

(Bonus post connected to this post, with extended quotes.)

“[Mary] Hakkinen in 1998 worked part-time at the Maharishi Ayurvedic Health Center in Lancaster where she was a ‘Jane of all trades.’ […] ‘I’d just settled in and kicked off my boots when I looked up and George Harrison came through the door carrying a teacup and saucer. Security was tight, because the center didn’t want him hounded by the media. I was speechless. ‘After a few days of chitchat, he asked me what I did for a living. I laughed and told him I made fairies, and angels, mermaids, and elves. He said he’d love for me to bring some in to show him and his wife, Olivia, who had just been to a museum full of fairies in England.’ Hakkinen said she came home and worked frantically to create as many designs as was humanly possible. ‘I brought in a few and he asked for more. He really liked the elves. He said he was going to put them in the nooks and crannies of his garden wall. He inspired me no end and boosted my self-esteem and my belief in my product. Here was this man who could buy just about anything he wanted, and he wanted my fairies.’” - The Recorder (June 14, 2001) “Harrison, and his wife Olivia, have ordered cases of fairies and gnomes from Hakkinen. […] ‘They literally ordered something of everything, just tons of stuff. He said he wanted to put them in his garden wall at his house in England. He really loved the gnomes sitting in the mushrooms and the fairies in milkweed ponds,’ Hakkinen said. ‘It was so weird sitting there with him, I had to get over that, because he’s such an idol to me. But, he told me to relax. “It’s just me,” he said. Right?’ Hakkinen brought an old plastic Beatle ‘Kaboodle Kit’ from the 1960s (she used to keep her railers in it) for Harrison to autograph. The inscription reads: ‘To Mary the Fairy, from George Harrison.’ Hakkinen said Harrison told her he had never seen that particular example of Beatle memorabilia before. ‘He didn’t know what it was,’ she laughed.” - article by Karen Nugent, Telegram & Gazette (December 20, 1998)

[harrisonarchive]

Meditation instructor Greg Schweitzer and his wife Karen Schweitzer with George Harrison at the Maharishi Ayurvedic Health Clinic in Lancaster, Massachusetts. Photo courtesy of Greg Schweitzer, via Reading Eagle.

“What a thrill it was to meet George Harrison, a very humble, no pretense, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.” - Greg Schweitzer, Reading Eagle (June 30, 2018) “[Mary] Hakkinen in 1998 worked part-time at the Maharishi Ayurvedic Health Center in Lancaster where she was a ‘Jane of all trades.’ […] On a weekend when she wasn’t feeling in top form, she received a call to come into work. She shook her head. ‘I almost didn’t go, but something told me to just do it. So, I did. I’d just settled in and kicked off my boots when I looked up and George Harrison came through the door carrying a teacup and saucer. Security was tight, because the center didn’t want him hounded by the media. I was speechless. ‘After a few days of chitchat, he asked me what I did for a living. I laughed and told him I made fairies, and angels, mermaids, and elves. He said he’d love for me to bring some in to show him and his wife, Olivia, who had just been to a museum full of fairies in England.’ Hakkinen said she came home and worked frantically to create as many designs as was humanly possible. ‘I brought in a few and he asked for more. He really liked the elves. He said he was going to put them in the nooks and crannies of his garden wall. He inspired me no end and boosted my self-esteem and my belief in my product. Here was this man who could buy just about anything he wanted, and he wanted my fairies. If Cinderella’s fairy godmother had zapped her with a magic wand, she wouldn’t have been happier. ‘Next to giving birth, this is the most exciting that happened to me. I’ve always been a Beatles fan. Here I was having tea with him and trying to bring myself back down to earth.’ Hakkinen asked him to sign a Beatles kaboodle box she owned. The box looks like a child’s vinyl lunch box. She used it hold curlers. Harrison signed it, ‘To Mary (the fairy), love from George Harrison.’” - The Recorder (June 14, 2001) “The two built small campfires in the snow [at the health clinic] and Harrison played guitar for [Russell] Robbat. […] In a late-night conversation Harrison tried to get Robbat thinking about something other than the material world. Harrison was passionate about his wife, Olivia, gardening and the music of Ravi Shankar.” - The Daily Item (December 1, 2001)

[batskumalo]

George, you lucky bastard (when I catch you, it's on sight for what you did to these amazing ladies). Like ladies, just get with me, I'll treat you better.

[50mphjellybean]

I’m not sure if posting on here actually gets any more reach than just posting to ao3 but I will anyway so you don’t miss it if you’re interested in my stuff <3

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[georgeharrisonsmiling]

George loving telephone line even before he met Jeff is sweet, especially considering that George and Olivia met through phone calls.

[harrisonarchive]

Wishing Dhani a very happy birthday!

Clip from a 2024 DIONZ interview.

Q: “Has remarrying and having a child significantly changed your life?” George Harrison: “Yeah, that’s been a wonderful thing for me. Everybody who has a baby thinks their child is wonderful, and it is.” - Rolling Stone (1979) Q: “I was wondering if your son Dhani has any musical aspirations?” George Harrison: “He has, yeah, he’s sensational actually, but he plays William Tell on the piano but he does it in the minor, you know, like when the arrow missed the apple and got him right in the neck, he plays that version, you know. [hums] da-da-dum, da-da-dum, dum-dum-dum, you know, that one. Anyway, he’s really good.” - Rockline (1988) “[‘Soft Touch’] actually came from a remark Jim Keltner made in one of his lighter moods about me being a soft touch. I had Dark Horse Records at the time, and people think that you’re a bank and come to you for money. By the end of the song, though, I’d changed some of the words so that it became more about my baby boy.” - George Harrison, Goldmine (1992) “There’s a song he wrote about our son when he was born that I really love, and it’s become a favorite. It’s called ‘Unknown Delight’ and it’s on the Gone Troppo album.” - Olivia Harrison, NPR (2004) “Of course, one of my favorites on [Gone Troppo] is ‘Unknown Delight.’ He was saying, ‘What should I write about? What should I write a song about?’ I said, ‘Write a song about Dhani.’ And he wrote this beautiful song which was very prescient actually.” - Olivia Harrison, Dark Horse Radio (2018) “Shortly after Dhani was born Ravi and Alla Rakha took the train over to visit us [George, Olivia and Dhani], and I picked them up at Reading. They came over to see the baby, and Ravi wrote a tune called ‘Dhani.’ The name ‘Dhani’ actually came from my study of Indian music: from the scale of Sa-Ri-Ga-Ma-Pa-DHA-NI-Sa. So he wrote this song, and Alla Rahka played on one half of the tabla, the bayan.” - George Harrison, Raga Mala (1997) “The only things he felt I had to do in my life are be happy and meditate.” - Dhani Harrison, Rolling Stone (2011) “[George] did everything with a big, open heart and lots of love… He taught me that anything can be accomplished as long as you set out to do it with love.” - Dhani Harrison, Yahoo Music (February 8, 2015)

[willowmeetsthebones]

how can people hear dark sweet lady and not love olivia harrison

[harrisonarchive]

George Harrison photographed by Guido Harari in San Remo, 1988.

“Such arrogance comes from the Government. They are forgetting we, the people, employ them. I’m talking now not as this famous George Harrison, I’m talking now as an ordinary member of humanity and of the British public. I’m quite a reasonable person, but the way I feel about the environment, I could just go and throttle those people. I tend to try and turn a blind eye and just do it through music, or quietly. It’s not every day I talk like this, exclusively to a newspaper. You would think the Minister of Environment would be out there looking after all the birds and the trees and the oxygen. All Nicholas Ridley ever did for the environment was concrete over it. They won’t be happy until we are all squatting in the back of some f***ing hatchback on the motorway, and that’s the reality we are facing. What are we going to do about all this traffic? They’ve got to ban it. The only vote I have ever cast is Green. By putting this present Government down, it doesn’t mean to say that Neil Kinnock is going to be any better. They are all the same; they switch their policies just to suit whatever is in vogue. We can’t go on and on creating more and more waste. The whole planet is operating on the waste of over-indulgence. It’s just ridiculous. ‘Money doesn’t speak, it swears,’ [Bob] Dylan said that years ago.” - George Harrison, Daily Express (July 1989) “It’s a real low-level game, that’s how I see politics. They don’t have any kind of budget limits for Gulf wars or Falklands wars, but if it’s for national health or something it’s hard to get them to put any money in.” - George Harrison, RCD (1992) “[The song ‘Brainwashed’] is very anti-establishment, just like punk music, or Rage Against the Machine. And all that stuff is great. But a lot of the time music that denounces what’s happening in society doesn’t offer an alternative; it just says, ‘Well, this is wrong,’ but it doesn’t say, ‘Go and realize God,’ or, ‘Go and meditate for a bit.’ And that’s why I think ‘Brainwashed’ is so strong — because of the contrast that he presents in the song. It leaves you with something positive rather than just denouncing the brainwashing and leaving you depressed. Because, you know, my dad was very alarmed by the state of affairs in the world. He was very disturbed by it.  That’s why he didn’t go out much, why stayed in his garden.  Because he didn’t like traffic jams and mobile phones, and governments and war.” - Dhani Harrison, Guitar World (January 2003) Annual revisiting of these quotes...