Video adds fresh spring to Harrison classic

Celebration of life: forty-four years after the song was recorded,
and 13 years after he died, an official video was made to accompany
George Harrison's What is Life. It captures the song's joy and freshness

When I came across the official video for George Harrison's What is Life, I was surprised and delighted; surprised because the 48-year-old track was never released as a single in the UK, therefore the existence of a video seemed unlikely, and delighted by the joy and freshness it exuded.

Harrison died in 2001. However, the video was made just four years ago. I'm sure it would have met with his approval. Before explaining how the video came to be made, here is some background on the jaunty track.

It was recorded around the time The Beatles broke up, and featured as the B-side of Harrison's first solo single My Sweet Lord, released in 1970 in the UK. It subsequently became a hit in its own right in many other countries in 1971 and went top ten in the US, making Harrison the first Beatle to achieve two top ten solo hits on the Billboard chart. It is a breezy, upbeat song about love and life that fits closely with the era of The Beatles and is dominated by a catchy chorus and masterful guitar-playing from Harrison and guest Eric Clapton.

While Harrison's version was never released as an A-side in the UK, a cover version by Olivia Newton-John made it into the UK top 20 in 1972.

So how did this video to accompany Harrison's song come to be made? In 2014, a retrospective of his solo music from his time with Apple Records was released. At the same time a competition was held for filmmakers to produce a promotional video to go with What is Life. Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison and son Dhani Harrison judged the entries and picked this video, directed by Brandon Moore, as the winner of the $5,000 first prize.

It was filmed in a neighbourhood of San Francisco. The carefree, youthful energy of the song is finely captured by two young ballet performers, Emma Rubinowitz and Esteban Hernandez. The dancing is not point-perfect, but that's why it feels so real and true to life as it celebrates free expression, imperfections-and-all, guided by joy. The transience of life and a tinge of otherworldliness are evoked as Rubinowitz twirls and bounds her way through rows upon rows of markers in the San Francisco National Cemetery as the lyrics ponder "what is my life?"

This visual imaging of a song that is almost half-a-century old adds to the appreciation of how well What is Life has stood the test of time. As to the question, what is life? Well, I can't say for sure, but if it's anything like the feeling of joy, verve and boundless possibilities that emanate from this video, I'll take it.

Evocative writing style from another era

Wordsmith: The late George Mackay Brown.

I'm currently reading George Mackay Brown's Northern Lights. It is a collection of writing that was put together many years after his passing in 1996.

Mackay Brown was a storyteller, journalist, dramatist and perhaps most of all a poet. His visually rich language so readily found in his poems, is also a hallmark of his prose. There is a depth of description and thought, a capturing of place, atmosphere and feeling that is so dense and powerful - like an exceedingly rich cake - that it must only be consumed in small doses if it is to be properly savoured and enjoyed.

His prose burns brightly and hails from a different era; an era before today's increasingly simplistic forms of expression and communication that are ever more watered down, unfulfilling and bereft of characteristics. It seems the overwhelming need now is to cater for shortening attention spans and social media "shortcuts" that render words into woefully butchered versions of their original, even into single characters, pictograms or emojis.

When I read a piece of descriptive work by Mackay Brown, I feel uplifted. My mind is emboldened and inspired to search for its own greater artistic expression.

I am left to wonder if the style and depth of writing that Mackay Brown so magnificently mastered, and that is fading to a twilight ember in the face of today's throwaway blandness, might be revived. Could we see a reversal of the trend and with it a lifting of our spirit - a sensory renewal, through the written word, of the world around us?
I hope so.