Talk:Writing's on the Wall (George Harrison song)

Handling of supposed influence of Lennon's murder
Hi. Regarding your recent additions, about how Inglis and Arnold interpret the song ... I'd read Inglis' text – he's used in much of the article, of course – where he writes "there is little doubt that Lennon's killing is uppermost in [Harrison's] mind", but I decided to ignore what is, quite frankly, ignorance on the author's part. There, and in other statements he makes about Somewhere in England, Inglis is obviously unaware that Harrison completed all bar four of the album's songs in September 1980. The lyrics of "Writing's on the Wall", as the track was originally submitted to Warner's in October, are identical to those in the released version; in fact, the track was barely changed at all in the 1981 remix. I've found this quite common in Inglis' writing: he gets a misinformed idea and runs with it. (Other examples include deciding that "Miss O'Dell" makes reference to the Vietnam War, when in fact it's the Bangladesh Liberation War.)

For that reason, I kept any mention of a perceived relevance to Lennon getting "shot away" for the Release section, which is in keeping with how Madinger & Easter treat the point, anyway. Also, I'm not sure that Mark Arnold actually states that Harrison was singing about Lennon's death – I read his comment as meaning that it merely added to the album's Lennon "commentary" on release ("All Those Years Ago"; dedication on the LP sleeve) but, as he qualifies, "though not directly attributed to it". So I think the new sentence "Some commentators, including author Ian Inglis and historian Mark Arnold, have suggested that this line was influenced by Lennon's death, even though that is not the subject of the song ad the song was actually written prior to Lennon's death" should go. Firstly because we're highlighting Inglis' lack of basic research (when we can simply ignore it), and secondly because we're misrepresenting Arnold's comment. Are you okay with that? JG66 (talk) 03:36, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * OK Rlendog (talk) 19:51, 21 June 2017 (UTC)