Three decades after writing this song, the former Beatles guitarist went ‘on his way’ himself, in the literal sense, dying on the 29th of November 2001 – aged just 58 – after a battle with lung cancer.
“Sunrise doesn’t last all morning, a cloudburst doesn’t last all day,” George Harrison sang on the title track to his first post-Beatles solo album, All Things Must Pass.Īlthough the song is naturally seen as an ode to the impermanence of human life, the lyrics also note that never-ending change means that those left grieving can look to the future with hope: “Darkness only stays at night-time, in the morning it will fade away.” But Harrison also intimated, through lyrics written in the first-person, that those that die too might move onwards: “None of life’s strings can last, so I must be on my way, and face another day”.
