All Things Must Pass at 55: George Harrison's Masterpiece and Why It Still Matters

May 14, 2026

George Harrison All Things Must Pass T-Shirt Grey — officially licensed

On 27th November 1970, George Harrison released a triple album as his debut solo record. It contained 23 songs. It ran to over 100 minutes. It was produced with Phil Spector's Wall of Sound at its most expansive. It featured Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, and a small army of session musicians. It reached number one in the UK and the US simultaneously.

It was, by any measure, one of the greatest albums ever made. And it had been sitting in George Harrison's drawer for years, waiting for The Beatles to give him the space to record it.

They never did. So he did it himself.

The Songs That Couldn't Wait

Throughout the later Beatles years, Harrison had been writing prolifically — but Lennon and McCartney's dominance of the band's songwriting meant he was typically limited to two or three songs per album. Songs like "All Things Must Pass", "Isn't It a Pity", "Let It Down", and "Beware of Darkness" had been offered to The Beatles and rejected, or simply never considered. They accumulated, unrecorded, through 1968 and 1969.

When The Beatles broke up in April 1970, Harrison had a backlog of some of the finest songs written by any member of the band. He went straight into the studio.

The Recording

Sessions began at Abbey Road in May 1970, with Phil Spector producing alongside Harrison. The sessions were enormous — dozens of musicians, multiple orchestras, layers upon layers of sound. Spector's Wall of Sound technique, which had seemed excessive on Let It Be, found its natural home here: Harrison's songs were big enough to fill the space.

Eric Clapton, Harrison's closest friend, played guitar throughout. Ringo Starr drummed on several tracks. Billy Preston, who had played on Let It Be, contributed keyboards. The sessions had the atmosphere of a celebration — musicians who loved each other making music without the tensions that had plagued the final Beatles years.

The album was completed in the summer of 1970 and released that November as a three-LP set, with a fourth disc of instrumental jams titled Apple Jam. Nothing like it had ever been released as a debut solo album.

The Songs

"My Sweet Lord" — the opening track and lead single — became the first number one single by a solo Beatle, reaching the top in both the UK and the US. Its blend of gospel fervour and Hindu devotion was unlike anything in the pop mainstream, and its success demonstrated that Harrison's spiritual interests were not a commercial liability but a genuine strength.

"Isn't It a Pity" — in two versions on the album — was a meditation on human cruelty and indifference that many consider Harrison's greatest song. "What Is Life" was pure joy. "Beware of Darkness" was a warning. "All Things Must Pass" itself, the title track, was a Buddhist reflection on impermanence that felt, in the context of The Beatles' dissolution, almost unbearably apt.

The album closed with "Hear Me Lord" — a prayer, simple and direct, from a man who had spent a decade as one of the most famous people on earth and had found, in spirituality, something more durable than fame.

The Legacy

In 2001, Harrison oversaw a remastered and remixed reissue of All Things Must Pass, restoring some of the warmth that Spector's production had buried. He died later that year, on 29th November 2001 — exactly 31 years and two days after the album's release.

In the years since, the album's reputation has only grown. It regularly appears on lists of the greatest albums ever made. It is cited as an influence by artists across every genre. And it stands as the definitive answer to anyone who ever suggested that George Harrison was the least of the Beatles — proof that he had been holding back a masterpiece all along, waiting for the moment when he could finally let it go.

All things must pass. But some things endure.