(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Sun 18 May 2025 18:00, UK
The entire story of The Beatles seems to end with a whimper instead of a bang. They were already on the road to making the most adventurous music that anyone had ever heard, but there were gradual signs that everyone was getting pulled in different directions by the time Allen Klein took over as manager. It was only a matter of time before things started to go south, but that didn’t mean George Harrison had to hold those grudges with his old mates until the end of time.
Throughout his career, Harrison was always the more spiritually inclined member of the group, and his mellow attitude usually helped put things in perspective. He knew that he had to get away from the standard quota of two songs per album in the Fab Four, but when he finally reached his status as a solo superstar, he wasn’t exactly itching to be the knockout frontman that everyone thought of him to be.
He was always more comfortable being part of a team, which explains why he had so many people around to work with him. Derek and the Dominoes were practically his backing band for many of the songs on his double album experience, and in the Traveling Wilburys, Harrison finally seemed content to be in the limelight so long that he was there with a bunch of fellow legends like Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison.
Then again, there was always the lingering question of whether or not the band would get back together. There was a lot of red tape for them to get through once the lawyers got involved, but even when they were all at each other’s throats, Harrison was more than happy to work with a few of his old bandmates when he got the chance.
After all, Ringo Starr was going to be relying on some token songs from his bandmates, and while Ringo could be the perfect lost Beatles album given that every one of them played on it, Harrison’s help in writing ‘Photograph’ is what really launched him to stardom all over again. Starr may have been a nice way for Harrison to have fun, but he always viewed John Lennon as the older brother of the group, usually sitting in with him when playing tunes like ‘How Do You Sleep’.
“John has gone through his scene, but it feels to me like he’s come around, and we’re all at the point. I mean, to tell you the truth, I’d join a band with John Lennon any day.”
George Harrison
The wounds were still too fresh for Harrison to embrace any of his Beatles past, but he was always willing to give it a shot when it came to Lennon’s material, saying, “John has gone through his scene, but it feels to me like he’s come around, and we’re all at the point. I mean, to tell you the truth, I’d join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn’t join a band with Paul McCartney, but that’s nothing personal. It’s just from a musical point of view.”
Although Harrison has never tried to be malicious towards McCartney by any stretch, that kind of animosity did show its face a little bit when working on the Anthology project. Harrison had only agreed to join knowing that Jeff Lynne was producing, and considering Macca’s perfectionist nature, it would always be difficult if he critiqued Harrison’s decisions in the studio.
And considering that Harrison felt that Lennon could have been a member of the Wilburys, it wasn’t like that love ever went away. Lennon himself may not have rated himself as a tremendous guitarist by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s no way to discount the natural chemistry that can come from people who have been playing together since they were kids.
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