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1969: George Harrison reacting to John Lennon forgetting lyrics // "Let It Be", dir. Michael Lindsay Hogg

"Get Back", dir. Peter Jackson.

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John Lennon and George Harrison during the Imagine sessions

(26 May 1971)

Timothy White: What was it like working with John on Imagine in 1971? You contributed slide guitar or dobro to "Crippled Inside," "How Do You Sleep?" "I Don't Want to Be a Soldier Mamma," "Gimme Some Truth" and "Oh My Love." George Harrison: It was nerve-wracking, as usual. Previously I'd worked on "Instant Karma." At that time very strange, intense feelings were going on. Sometimes people don't talk to each other, thinking they're not going to be the one to phone you up and risk rejection. With John, I knew Klaus Voormann, the bass player, so I could at least ask what was going on over at his little 8-track studio in his house at Tittenhurst Park, and how Klaus was doing. John said, "Oh, you know, you should come over," so I just put me guitar and amplifier in the car. I turned up and he was openly pleased I came. I enjoyed "How Do You Sleep?"; I liked being on that side of it with Paul [chuckles] rather than on the receiving end. Moreover, I was earnestly trying to be a slide guitar player at that time but I always blacked out at solos, especially live ones. I seemed to have no control over what was happening and my mind'd go blank. That was one of them where I hit a few good notes and it happened to sound like a solo. We did all that work in one day. -- Timothy White interviews George Harrison for Musician magazine (Nov. 1987)

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george's yellow jacket appreciation post

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John regretted this interview not long after it was published but it is important that it happened. Erasing it from history makes no sense as it gives us a glimpse of John's headspace at the time and it had consequences for his public image and the people around him. We can contextualize it with what we know now and not take everything in it too literally though.

i hate that some people want john's rolling stone 1970 interview be discarded from history.

it's a historical document of what he thought at that time in that moment and i don't care if you don't like the interviewer" i don't" or that john backtracked what he said or what that interview spawned in terms of narratives/ image.

you can't rewrite history or try to softened it, AND he didn't lie there's some truth in what he said.

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“We’re going up to Benares. It’s either now or twenty years from now, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be around twenty years from now. We’re targets for assassination, you know.”  “Oh, George, stop that,” Olivia said. “Just stop that!” (1976)

[Alistair Taylor] recalled an incident [in 1963] when The Beatles were flying to London from Liverpool Airport, but George hadn’t turned up. The others went to London, leaving Alistair to contact George. “I rang him at home to find out what was going on. George said, ‘I don’t want to be a Beatle’. In a panic, I went round to talk to him and George said he didn’t like all the pressure and the frenzy of the crowds and the fans. Thankfully, he came to his senses and the matter was never discussed again until they finished touring in 1966.” - Liddypool: Birthplace of The Beatles

"When the door, in fact, did open, a girl reached in, grabbed George’s hair and tore at it. Out in the crowd, pushing our way through, I noticed blood trickling down his forehead. If you’re interested in that kind of frenzy, where love turns to violence, you should read a Greek tragedy called The Bacchae. Two thousand years ago, its author, Euripides, could tell you all about Beatles fans, only his hero had not just his hair but his arms and legs pulled off. Mum kept the head." - Victor Spinetti "He had a very, very bad experience in Manila and that remained unforgettable for George. He was a very slight man, very light in weight, and the fear of being vulnerable to fans, and crazy people, remained with him.” - Pattie Boyd

"Nobody else knew that George Harrison was in fear of his life ‘cause he actually had some poison pen letters saying, 'You’ll die in the next five days,’ and the assassination of Kennedy wasn’t so far away. It was pretty hair raising stuff." - George Martin "Those tours in the United States were crazy. The first big American trip, when we arrived in San Francisco in 1964, they wanted to do a ticker tape parade and I remember saying 'No, no, no.' That imagery of people being shot. Kennedy, Beatlemania, madness. Talk about pressures!" - George Harrison

"He used to enjoy a drink at the Row Barge pub in Henley but he didn’t go into the town as much after John Lennon was shot.” Mr. Robb’s wife, Mina, added: “That really shook him — he used to say that if he landed after a flight, and came out onto the steps of the plane, he would be wondering which person might have a gun.” - A Generous Man “I remember him visiting me on tour in Germany. He would come to the side of the stage and look out. But he really didn’t want to go on. He would go, ‘It’s so loud and smoky, and they are acting so crazy. I just feel better back here.’" - Tom Petty

"By the time Tania and I arrived at Friar Park, George and Liv were patched up, but angry, like all victims of violent crime, and in need of good friendship. Nobody had more good friends all round the world, and flowers and faxes poured in. We played guitars and sang. George was very shaken. I had never seen him like this. He needed constant hugs." - Eric Idle "When he had that dreadful thing happen to him in 1999, when he was stabbed in his own home, he was so emotional and was very vulnerable. He phoned me and said he couldn’t stay in the house, saying ‘Jackie, you know all the hotels in London, I thought the Grosvenor House would be good because I’ve been there with you’. I told him 'you can’t go there because that boxer who bit someone’s ear [Mike Tyson] is living there and there’s media around all the time. You can’t go there, George’. And he said, 'Oh, can I come to your house?’ So he, Olivia and Dhani came to live with us for a little while. He was a gentle man and to be violated in that way was a terrible thing for him." - Sir Jackie Stewart

"You know, I was lying there and I was thinking, 'I can't believe it. After everything that's happened to me, I'm going to be murdered. I'm being murdered in my own home. Since I'm being murdered, and I'm going to die, I better start letting go of this life, and I better start doing what I've been practicing to do my whole life — so that I can leave my body the way I want to." - George Harrison "George died two years after the stabbing incident, under much more peaceful circumstances… and that’s really the core story of 'Heroic Couple.' 'The point of writing that poem, and I didn't really know the point of it until I got to the end, was that it wasn't long afterwards that death proper — not imposter — happened,' Olivia explains. 'You know, if [the home invasion] would've been his actual death, that would've been just the worst thing. The fact is, when George did die, he did it on his own terms. He was very much in control and in charge of that day. And he felt that John Lennon was really cheated. I mean, it's one thing to have your life stolen from you, but to also have stolen the opportunity to leave your body in a way that would be beneficial? If you believe that the way you die is important — and I do, and George did — then to be robbed of the chance to leave how you want to leave is just the worst. And that's why it was almost like George earned the death that he had. Had he died that night [during the knife attack], I don't know how I would [have] recovered from that. It just would've been awful. It came close. But the point of writing that poem was really to say that George didn't die that way.'" - Olivia Harrison interviewed by Lyndsey Parker

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George and Olivia in a screenshot from the "Real Love" music video.

“The money [for a home for children from Kamathipura, India — Asha, along with her siblings and others] had come from many directions, mostly individuals with small, sacrificial offerings. One of the larger gifts was given by George and Olivia Harrison, who both took a personal interest in Asha. Her story had touched them and they wanted to help. George had a great love for India and he was moved by our mission to rescue children from sex slavery. He held on the photographs of the girls at the home, studied it closely, and told me, ‘Make sure that you use reliable builders and that they use good-quality materials. These houses must be built well and be strong.’ When the Beatles Anthology was released, George suggested that a portion of the profits should go to charity, and our work [Jubilee Campaign] in India was one of many to benefit. With George and Olivia’s donation, through the Apple Foundation, we were able to pay the entire running costs for the home for a year. After George’s death, ‘My Sweet Lord’ was re-released and hit number 1 in the charts with the profits going to good causes, and Olivia remembered us and donated a generous amount to this work in India. She said, ‘George was very interested in Jubilee’s work in India, having spent so much time there and having such love for that country.’ […] In 1971 George Harrison had organized The Concert for Banga Desh with an all-star case that included Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. It was the first ever rock charity event and set the template for Band Aid, Live Aid, and all that followed. When the DVD/CD was remastered and released in 2005, Olivia directed a generous portion of the profits to our work in India through the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. The donations helped us through a critical time.” - Danny Smith, Shouting Into the Silence: One Man’s Fight for the World’s Forgotten (2013)

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dump

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If you don't mind me asking, what's your day job? Does it involve music somehow?

My job doesn't involve music at all. I like listening to music but I'm quite bad at it 😅.

I'm an engineer in a company that produces auto parts. I have one of those boring job descriptions that would take a lot of time to explain. It irks me when people use the same language I hear in the office (efficiency, performance, charts, etc) to measure the Beatles because art is not supposed to be valued the same way.

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"Ringo was always against Paul in business" . Maybe because Paul always looked after Paul in business so Ringo didn't trust him? If it were for Paul, Ringo (and George) would have never got a cent of songwriting royalties, John was the one who gave them a 5%. Until the late the 80s, Paul was fine with earning more from record sales than the others. The lawsuit around that time was to pressure Capitol to pay them all the same.

I also think that, once he became really interested in drums, Paul wanted to treat Ringo like he had been treating George for years but Ringo didn't allow it. Paul was not a master drummer, other people around say that he wasn't good at drumming during the white album sessions and it took 3 people to get the drumming of Back to the USRR together for example. People really underestimate Ringo, because he quit the moment Paul got into his nerves and had to be asked to come back.

Back to business, the reason there was a deadline in the Get Back project is that Ringo had to make a film and he didn't postponed that in favor of the band. Why? In part because Ringo really needed the side job as he couldn't keep the Beatles lifestyle that Paul and John had. All the record sales earnings where with Apple who Paul and John were managing terribly but Paul and John's songwriting royalties were their own. As things were, Paul could deal with a financial failure like the MMT but Ringo didn't have the backup. Could he actually trust that his situation would improve with Paul's new family in charge?

Out of all the other Beatles, Ringo could only trust George to keep his financial interest in mind so he obviously followed him.

What's weird is Ringo was alwaya againat Paul in business matters and it doesn't matter to people.

I suppose because they don't view him as having agency, as if he was taken along for the ride by John and George.

But there's a frequent thread of Paul + Ringo having their own seperate tension. They both would say they got along fine until business came up and then they'd argue. Idk if you've heard the audio of Paul talking with the Eastmans about the others suing him in the 80s but he is brutal about Ringo. Basically calls him an idiot.

Maureen and Leslie Cavendish also pretty much confirmed Paul was the main reason Ringo quit in 68. It sounded like he was as bad with Ringo as he was George, but Ringo doesn't bring it up. Maybe since it's the two of them left he sees it as unnecessary drama.

Cavendish talked about it in this interview.

Q - Did one guy in the band stand out as giving you problems?

A - You could feel sometimes the tension in the band. The one I had problems with was Ringo because I think Ringo had a problem with the band. I'm not sure he realized how important he was in that band.

Q - Very important!

A - He was very important. At the time he didn't write. He was there to be told how to play the drums by Paul. Paul is a fantastic drummer. I saw him a few times take the drum sticks from Ringo's hand and tell him "That's not the way I want it played." Now, he would do that in the studio. I can remember being in the studio and Ringo didn't like the idea of just me being there when someone's doing that to other people and got quite aggressive.

Q - What song did that dispute happen with? Do you remember?

A - It was the "White Album". One of the songs. I never knew Paul could play drums. I knew he played piano and guitar. He's a fantastic drummer.

I haven't heard it, but that's fantastically interesting! I think there's always been a thread in this fandom of refusing to give Ringo any agency -- and even specifically in business and specifically in relation to Paul.

I know I said he's the only one the Paul girls have never tried to cancel, but one of the first Serious Discourses I ran into when I first got on Tumblr was some very heavy discussion in the Paul fandom about whether they've given Ringo a free pass for too long for siding against Paul in 1969. It's one of the only times I've seen people openly admit that it might be unfair, or at least unrealistic, how much we minimize Ringo's importance to the group.

And, on that note, this perspective does sometimes work in Ringo's favor. If you don't have any agency you can't be held responsible, so the fact that so many people see him as a bumbling idiot led around by his nose means he's easy to forgive for his transgressions, but also generally ignored in discussions of the group and not taken seriously as an individual. Tbh, it's possible that even people in Ringo's own life choose to see him that way, including Paul.

In regards to Paul and Ringo, I have been digging and digging for this passage about the early days of the beatles and the anxiety Ringo felt that he could be replaced. I know it specifically implied -- or maybe even explicitly said -- that Paul wasn't terribly sympathetic about that anxiety, and may have even contributed to it. I remember thinking that this seemed pretty realistic given the way Paul has described himself as a young man ("I went through a big part of my life without realizing that I had any faults.")

But I just can't seem to find that passage anywhere 🤦‍♀️Please let me know if you have it! It was specifically about the early years of the band, pre-US breakthrough, and I think they mentioned how popular Ringo ended up being in the US.

Anyway, I don't think it's controversial to acknowledge that Paul often had an issue with people not being "good enough" for him, and if that created tension with people who were themselves concerned that they weren't good enough (or that their talent just wasn't being respected), it wouldn't really surprise me.

That link above goes to an interview in 1968 when Paul claimed that, about two years prior, he'd had a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment and realized he couldn't keep assuming he was perfect. I do think he was being somewhat facetious, but I also think he's aware (or was at least aware at some point) that his assumption of superiority can become grating sometimes.

It does feel like Paul ideates this to himself as a minor flaw he might've had when he was younger, a flaw he quickly grew out of and everybody got over it (except maybe George). There might be some truth to that, but it does clash a bit with the way that Ringo seemed to continue to harbor a little bit of resentment towards the way Paul treated him (and arguably continued to treat him).

Honestly, it might not even be resentment, it might just be that having a series of negative experiences with Paul caused him to put a wall up that he never fully brought down. That happens in a lot of long term friendships and it can be a pretty heartbreaking thing on both sides.

All this being said, I should mention that I don't think Ringo is just doing fanservice when he talks about how much he adored the other guys. He's obviously very attached to Paul if he's calling him his brother, but, as anyone with brothers (or lifelong friends) knows, that doesn't preclude negative experiences or the tension and pain of navigating old scars you can't entirely erase.

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Case in point: Nancy tried to sue him for palimony when he left her for Barbara (as far as she knew they were engaged and one day he didn't come back). She got accused of being a gold digger ever since.

I think about the kids too. John gets a lot of flack for being a deadbeat dad to Julian - rightly so! - but what about Ringo? He was gallivanting around the world throughout the 70s and idk how much time he spent with them after the divorce but reading what he was up to it's easy to forget they existed.

Nancy told a story where they were in the Yucatan jungle for a week until Ringo suddenly got paranoid and desperate to get off the island. He insisted despite being told the plane available couldn't handle the weight and a tropical storm was coming. They almost crashed.

I think about how many times stuff like that happened until he got sober. What did the kids see? Maureen had to deal with that and she was so young.

I'm really glad he managed to turn it around.

Oh there is SUCH double standard in how we talk about John vs Ringo. I know there's reasons for this -- John is more of a hero/icon so more people care, Ringo is still with us, and John never sold himself as an "aw shucks" guy so accepting him as a tormented, morally gray character is an easier step to take.

But Ringo is REALLY lucky that his kids still want a relationship with him. He's also really lucky that Maureen forgave him. I think that's a huge part of the reason we all feel entitled to sweep his dark side under the rug, because the people personally affected by it were ultimately able to forgive him and focus on his kindness rather than the cruel things he'd done to them.

I do wonder if, like a lot of addicts, he's just incredibly good at apologizing and making nice and making you think it wasn't that big of a deal when he did that horrible scarring thing to you. It's easier to get away with having a dark side when your nice side is so wonderfully nice and people can focus on that part of the relationship and try to pretend it cancels out all the other horrible shit you did to them, especially if they still have to have you in their life. And I think Ringo really is wonderfully nice when he needs to be, and that helped him get away with being an abusive, drunken tyrant a lot of the time, too.

Or maybe I'm being unfair and he's not manipulative at all, and just got lucky that he tended to be surrounded by extremely forgiving people. Or maybe he really is such a great guy when he's sober that you can't help but forgive him for what he did to you before. It's genuinely touching that he was able to rebuild/retain so many of these relationships, it's just that it would also be completely valid if his kids and partners hated his guts, and either way we still have to reckon with both Good Ringo and Bad Ringo when we try to figure out who this guy is.

To be clear, I'm not trying to cancel him or anything, I just do find it really interesting that Ringo gets a pass for doing so much of the same shit that John did, and for longer. His cuddly, relatable persona is a lot harder to pierce than the untouchable icon thing was for John.

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GEORGE HARRISON AND HIS GUITARS, FRIAR PARK

BRIAN ARIS, 1979.

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Photo by Kevin Mazur.

Happy birthday, Dhani!

“‘George never held anything back, even when Dhani was really young, so they were very close, and Dhani had a clear understanding. Some of the things George told him, it was almost like he knew he might not be around later on, so he had to tell him then. ‘So yes, it’s difficult to make your own way, but that’s what it was, and Dhani loved that guy, they were very close.’ Olivia could equally be talking about herself.” - Huffington Post (September 24, 2014) “I didn’t really learn to play from my dad, I learned to play with my dad. He never really taught me anything but the 12-bar and the fundamental chords; we just played a lot together. [...] There’s a lot of laughter in my family. My family is a bunch of wise guys — my dad and I were like a double act, and after he died I found myself surprisingly less funny for a very long period.” - Dhani Harrison, Filter (Fall 2011) “Seeing how amazing, sweet and talented Dhani is, and how cool and amazing Olivia is — you can tell a lot about a person by who their friends are and who they love. […] They’re such incredible people, and they love him so much, and you can see how much he loved them. I love his art, his gardens and his home, and all the incredible things he’s written, but I think my favorite moment of George’s is Dhani and Olivia.“ - Regina Spektor, Filter (Fall 2011)

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JOHN LENNON AND GEORGE HARRISON

SPUD MURPHY, 1971.

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George Harrison & Bob Dylan “If Not For You” Concert For Bangladesh rehearsal, July 31, 1971.

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George's important events on August 1st:

He wrote Blue Jay Way.

He officially formed Handmade films.

The concert for Bangladesh.

His son Dhani was born.

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GEORGE HARRISON — The Concert for Bangladesh (1972)