Brainwashed is the twelfth and final studio album by English rock musician George Harrison. It was released posthumously on November 18, 2002, almost a year after his death at age 58. Recordings began over a decade before Harrison’s death but were repeatedly delayed. The album’s overdubs were completed by his son Dhani and longtime friend and collaborator Jeff Lynne.

Brainwashed reached the top 30 in the UK and the top 20 in the US, and received mostly favourable reviews. The instrumental “Marwa Blues” went on to receive the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, while “Any Road” was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Harrison began recording the tracks that eventually were issued on Brainwashed as early as 1988 (with “Any Road” being written during the making of a video for “This Is Love” from the album Cloud Nine) and continued to do so in a sporadic manner over the next decade and a half. Progress was delayed by business problems with Harrison’s former manager, Denis O’Brien, as well as his work with the Traveling Wilburys, Ravi Shankar, and his work on The Beatles Anthology. In an interview in 1999, Harrison announced the title of his next album to be Portrait of a Leg End, and played songs entitled “Valentine”, “Pisces Fish” and “Brainwashed”. During the promotion for the 2001 re-release of All Things Must Pass, Harrison joked that the name of the album would be Your Planet Is Doomed – Volume One. After recuperating from being attacked in his home on 30 December 1999 by a man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, Harrison focused on finishing the album, simultaneously sharing his ideas for all its details (from the sound of the finished songs to the album’s artwork) with his son Dhani – information that ultimately proved very valuable. On 29 November 2001, Harrison died, leaving Brainwashed unfinished.

Three of the tracks from Brainwashed were included on Harrison’s career-spanning compilation album, Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison: “Any Road”, “Marwa Blues” and “Rising Sun“.

On the street of villains taken for a ride
You can have the devil as a guide
Crippled by the boundaries, programmed into guilt
‘Til your nervous system starts to tilt

In a room of mirrors you can see for miles
But everything that’s there is in disguise
Every word you’ve uttered and every thought you’ve had
Is all inside your file the good and the bad

But in the rising sun you can feel your life begin
Universe at play inside your DNA
You’re a billion years old today
Oh the rising sun and the place it’s coming from
Is inside of you and now your payment’s overdue
Oh the rising sun, Oh the rising sun

Oh the avenue of sinners, I have been employed
Working there ’til I was near destroyed
I was almost a statistic inside a doctor’s case
When I heard the messenger from inner space
He was sending me a signal that for so long I had ignored
But he held on to my umbilical cord
Until the ghost of memory trapped in my body mind
Came out of hiding to become alive

And in the rising sun you can hear your life begin
And it’s hear and there nowhere and everywhere
Though it’s atmosphere is rare
Oh the rising sun and the place that it’s coming from
Is inside of me and now I feel it constantly
Oh the rising sun, Oh the rising sun

And in the rising sun you can feel your life begin
Universe at play inside your DNA
You’re a billion years old today
Oh the rising sun and the place it’s coming from
Is inside of you, now your payment’s overdue
Oh the rising sun
Songwriters: George Harrison