I'd Have You Anytime

With the strong public association that existed between Harrison and Dylan by 1970, some music critics remarked on the American singer's presence on All Things Must Pass, even though he did not contribute to the album.Their two reclusive personalities meshed ..."[6] The connection developed in May 1966, when Harrison, Lennon and Paul McCartney visited Dylan in his London hotel, midway through his controversial world tour with backing band the Hawks.[31][15][nb 2] Music journalist John Harris comments that, unlike in their previous meetings, "there were no hangers-on [this time], Dylan's head was clear, and the protective barriers of cool could come down – which, eventually, they did.[27] The year 1968 marked the start of what Dylan himself later termed his "amnesia", referring to a form of writer's block he experienced post-John Wesley Harding (1967), when painting had replaced songwriting as his preferred creative outlet.[34] Well known for his unsophisticated musical approach,[28][35] particularly in comparison to Harrison's broader "harmonic palette", author Simon Leng suggests, Dylan was now eager to learn some more-advanced chords.[63] During the same period, according to engineer and producer Glyn Johns' recollection in his book Sound Man (2014), Dylan expressed an interest in recording an album with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.[76] The released recording of "I'd Have You Anytime" features a sparse musical arrangement, in what Leng terms the "minimalist" tradition of Dylan and the Band, similar to the treatment given to "Behind That Locked Door", "Run of the Mill" and "If Not for You".[82] While Leng and Spizer credit Barham with a string arrangement on "I'd Have You Anytime",[29][81] American musician Bobby Whitlock writes in his 2010 autobiography that the sound was a harmonium, which he himself often played during sessions for the album.I had Eric playing the solo, and Bob had helped write it …[87] Defying pop convention – as the Band's Music from Big Pink had in July 1968, by opening with the funereal "Tears of Rage"[88] – Harrison selected the slow, gentle "I'd Have You Anytime" as track 1 on All Things Must Pass,[81] which was released on Apple Records in late November 1970.Schaffner viewed the "Dylanesque numbers" as "somewhat overshadowed" by those with the obvious Spector Wall of Sound production qualities, but identified songs such as "I'd Have You Anytime", "If Not for You" and "Behind That Locked Door" as being "far more intimate, both musically and lyrically, than the rest of the album".The beautiful I'd Have You Anytime is Harrison at his most harmonically luxurious … the song has George showing [Dylan] his posh major sevenths and Bob responding with the forthright middle eight.[29] Elliot Huntley similarly views "I'd Have You Anytime" as the "perfect choice" for the first song, and praises the "drifting quality" of Harrison's vocals on this "haunting, dream-like lullaby", as well as Clapton's "tastefully beautiful" lead guitar.[109] In November 2011, in its deluxe edition format, the British DVD release of Martin Scorsese's documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World contained a CD that included an alternate take of "I'd Have You Anytime".[112] Since his death in November 2001, "I'd Have You Anytime" has appeared on Harrison tribute albums such as He Was Fab (2003), on which Champale contribute a "low-key, near-epic version" of the song, according to AllMusic's Tom Sendra,[113] and Suburban Skies' George (2008).[116] Actor and singer Evan Rachel Wood contributed a cover of "I'd Have You Anytime" to the 4-CD compilation Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International in 2012.