Doctor Mooney's 115th Dream: Jackie Lomax’s Forgotten Gem, “Sour Milk Sea”

Jackie Lomax’s debut single on the Beatles boutique label, Apple Records is a genuine force of nature. If yer not familiar with the rock 'n roll Liverpudlian, Jackie Lomax (formerly of the Undertakers) was the first artist signed to the Apple label in the late-sixties and one of the first non-Beatles artists to have his name on the famed Granny Smith logo.

While George Harrison penned the White Album-era demo, “Sour Milk Sea” in Rishikesh India, in the majestic foothills of the Himalayas, he never recorded the song. As Harrison maintains, “It was done by Jackie Lomax on his album Is This What You Want? Anyway, it's based on Vishvasara Tantra, from Tantric art. 'What is here is elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere'. It's a picture, and the picture is called Sour Milk Sea - Kalladadi Samudra in Sanskrit. I used Sour Milk Sea as the idea of - if you're in the shit, don't go around moaning about it: do something about it”

Released on September 6, 1968, as Apple 3, the Harrison produced, "Sour Milk Sea” is an explosive knockabout – a restless rock and roll banger in its truest sense that featured a who’s who of rock royalty: Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Nicky Hopkins and George Harrison. The journeyman rocker, Lomax recalls, “I must admit that when I heard the backing track with Eric and Ringo, it sounded better, and I started to think, I'm not sure if I can sing this damn thing because it sounds so good as an instrumental! When I sang it, there were three people in the booth looking at me - George, Paul and Ringo.” The highlight is Harrison and Clapton’s dynamic double lead guitar riffing and the irritable, wrecking ball solo “Slowhand” fires off towards the end of the first minute.

Jackie Lomax’s remastered Apple debut, Is This What You Want? will be released on CD and via digital download on October 26, 2010.

“Sour Milk Sea”
Words and Music: George Harrison

If your life’s not right, doesn’t satisfy you
You don’t get the breaks like some of us do
Better work it out, find where you’ve gone wrong
Better do it soon as you don’t have long

Get out of Sour Milk Sea
You don’t belong there
Get back to where you should be
Find out what’s going on there

If you want the most from everything you do
In the shortest time your dreams come true
In no time at all makes you more aware
A very simple process takes you there
Get out of Sour Milk Sea you don’t belong there
Get back to where you should be
Find out what’s going on there

Looking for release from limitation?
There’s nothing much without illumination
Can fool around with every different cult
There’s only one way really brings results
Get out of Sour Milk Sea you don’t belong there
Get back to where you should be
Find out what’s going on there

Get back to where you should be
Find out what’s going on there

Get back, get back, get back
Why don’t you get back now
You don’t belong here
Get out of here, babe

Take Up Thy Rock 'N Roll Stethoscope and Walk,