Music / ↳ Heading for the Light

Heading for the Light

Written by: George Harrison, with Jeff Lynne Lead vocals: George Harrison Length: 3:37 Album: Vol. 1, track 7

An upbeat rocker built around a saxophone solo from Jim Horn and Lynne's characteristically lush production, "Heading for the Light" is, by consensus among Harrison scholars, about as purely joyful as his songwriting ever got. Biographer Simon Leng has called it an "obvious Harrisong" for its musical and lyrical fingerprints, and critic Ian Inglis has described it as Harrison's most joyous account yet of the spiritual recovery that had pulled him out of a genuinely difficult stretch in the early 1980s.

Musically, the song shares real DNA with Cloud Nine, unsurprising given Lynne co-produced both, and its ascending, confident melody has been compared to a more mature version of Harrison's own 1966 Beatles composition "I Want to Tell You." Tom Petty later recalled that Harrison arrived at the Wilburys sessions riding an enormous wave of confidence from Cloud Nine's success, and "Heading for the Light" is that confidence rendered directly into sound: bright, uncomplicated, and completely unbothered by anyone's expectations.

Petty has also spoken about how healing the entire Wilburys experience, and his friendship with Harrison specifically, felt during a personal low point of his own (arsonists had burned down his family's home the previous year). "Heading for the Light" captures exactly the kind of environment that made that healing possible: low stakes, real joy, and a former Beatle finally sounding like he was having fun again.

Previous track: Congratulations. Next track: Margarita. Or see the full Vol. 1 tracklist.