Beatles News

George Harrison spun musical gold throughout a four-decade-long career. Whether his talents were lent to the Beatles, the Traveling Wilburys, or to his own solo endeavors, he crafted great masterpieces in song. His works sounded unearthly and were lyrically profound, textured by inventive arrangements, and set alive with spirituality.

While the Harrison name itself carries a lot of weight, his style is unmistakable and instantly recognizable in the recordings of others. We’ve touched on a few, but here are three more songs George Harrison wrote for other artists that still echo his mystifying songcraft.
1. “Far East Man” – Ron Wood (1974)

Harrison joined forces with another great rocker, The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood, to produce the slow grooving 1974 hit, “Far East Man.” They both would release recordings of the tune that year only months apart. Wood’s appeared on his solo debut, I’ve Got My Own Album to Do, released that September with Harrison’s arriving on his acclaimed Dark Horse in December.

While it was a collaboration that was born from the pair’s various romantic entanglements at the time, the result was a song about friend details

Paul McCartney said he wrote a song for The Beatles’ The White Album with Donovan. The track was originally about the moon but it turned into a song with simple lyrics. Paul is a big fan of the song but it’s nothing compared to a Hollies song with a similar name.

Paul McCartney said one song from The Beatles’ The White Album has one of his best melodies. Notably, he said another rock star helped him write the song. Despite Paul’s feelings about the track, it’s nothing special.

“I remember sitting around with Donovan, and maybe a couple of other people,” he continued. “We were just sitting around one evening after our day of meditation and I played him this one and he liked it and we were trying to write some words.”

Paul and Donovan had difficulty writing words for “I Will.” “We kicked around a few lyrics, something about the moon, but they weren’t very satisfactory and I thought the melody was better than the words so I didn’t use them,” he said. “I kept searching for better words and I wrote my own set in the end; very simple words, straight love-song words really. I think they’re quite effective.&rdqu details

John Lennon said The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Rain” reflect his early sonic experiments. Paul McCartney said “Tomorrow Never Knows” contains some loops that sound like seagulls. The birdlike sounds are actually sped-up clips of Paul’s laughter. A seagull | Spencer Weiner / Contributor

The Beatles‘ “Tomorrow Never Knows” is one of the Fab Four’s most mystical songs. Paul McCartney said it sounds like seagulls. Despite this, the birdlike sound on the track is not actually the sound of seagulls.

John Lennon said some of The Beatles’ songs reflected the experiments he did at home

The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon includes an interview from 1980. In it, John discussed how “Tomorrow Never Knows” came together. He said used to “make kinda freaky music at home” when he was still living with his first wife, Cynthia Lennon.

Source: Matthew Trzcinski/imdb.com

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John Lennon’s antiwar activism in his solo career caused people to see him as the most political member of The Beatles, but Paul McCartney said this was not the case. While Lennon might have been the most outspoken about politics in his solo career, McCartney claimed that he was the one to introduce political messages to the band. He explained that he felt more politically motivated after a conversation with Bertrand Russell.
A black and white picture of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon of The Beatles wearing black jackets.

The Vietnam War raged as The Beatles rose to success, but McCartney said they didn’t pay much attention to it. This changed after he met with Russell.

“Just when we were getting to be well-known someone said to me, ‘Bertrand Russell is living not far from here in Chelsea why don’t you go and see him?’ and so I just took a taxi down there and knocked on the door,” McCartney told Prospect Magazine in 2009. “There was an American guy who was helping him and he came to the door and I said, ‘I’d like to meet Mr Russell, if possible.’ I waited a little and then met the great man and he was fabulous. details

By the late 1960s, George Harrison was ready to leave The Beatles and go off alone. Not only did he feel creatively stifled by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but he was also fed up with the band’s business side. He wrote a few songs to air out his grievances, and one song he referred to as a ‘piss-take.’

“Only a Northern Song” is a Beatles track written by George Harrison that debuted on 1969’s Yellow Submarine soundtrack. The lyrics consist of Harrison sharing his discontent with The Beatles’ publishing company as he says none of the chords he’s playing or lyrics he’s singing matter since it’s “only a Northern song.”

In a 1999 Billboard interview (shared via Rolling Stone), Harrison wrote the song as a “piss-take” after realizing he owned none of his music and the business profits more from his work than he does.

Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com

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When Cynthia Powell first met John Lennon, she wasn’t impressed. In fact, she was turned off by his rude, boyish behavior. But she eventually fell for the future Beatle and did what she could to woo him. Part of their origin story, though, is a lie she told him after he asked her to dance.

The two both attended Liverpool Art College, where they met. When Cynthia first got acquainted with John, she brushed him off as not her type. He didn’t look like the clean-cut boys she was used to, and his behavior was devilish.

“His outspoken comments and caustic wit were alarming: I was terrified he might turn on me, and he soon did, calling me ‘Miss Prim’ or ‘Miss Powell’ and taking the mickey out of my smart clothes and posh accent,” Cynthia wrote in her 2005 book titled John.

When he wasn’t teasing Cynthia, John was often making fun of his teachers. This caused many of the Art College teachers to refuse him entrance to their classes.

“He’d give us a wicked commentary on the teacher,” she wrote, “or provoke hoots of laughter with his cruelly funny and uncannily accurate cartoons of teachers, fellow students, or of twisted, grimac details

Paul McCartney has been a longtime activist for animal rights. He is a well-known vegetarian and frequently tries to teach people about the benefits of not eating meat. While he became a vegetarian with his first wife, Linda, another inspiration for his love of animals came from Disney, who taught him some important life lessons.

Growing up in Liverpool, Paul McCartney ate meat frequently, as it was challenging to eat a veggie diet then. His first brush with vegetarianism came in 1968 during the Beatles’ trip to India. However, he didn’t commit to the lifestyle until the mid-1970s.

In an interview with The Guardian, McCartney shared when he became a vegetarian. He and Linda were eating meat when they looked out the window, saw a group of adorable lambs, and decided to stop devouring meat then and there.

“It was like, the penny dropped,” McCartney shared. “The light bulb lit up. We thought, ‘We might just give this up.’”

Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com

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Paul McCartney is an impressive musical talent who knows how to play numerous instruments, including the guitar, the bass guitar, the piano, and the drums. He hasn’t played the ukulele much in his songs, but he once surprised George Harrison by playing one of his most famous Beatles songs on the instrument.

George Harrison wrote “Something” for The Beatles’ Abbey Road. It’s a stunning love ballad that proved Harrison was capable of writing hit songs for the band, since his songwriting talents were limited with the fab four. Many famous artists, such as Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles, have covered it. However, the most surprising rendition might have come from his fellow bandmate, Paul McCartney.

McCartney performed the song in 2022 at Glastonbury, but before playing it, he told the crowd about a time when he played it on the ukulele for Harrison.

“I was round at his house one day,” McCartney said. “We were sitting there just jamming, and I said to him, ‘I’ve learned one of your songs on the ukulele. So we played it together that day, and we’d like to play it for you now.”

Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com

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Drummer Ringo Starr was the last to become a member of the Fab Four, but his attitude was the central piece that held the Beatles together for a long time. He played a key role in ensuring the group did not end up like their mentor Elvis Presley at the height of their fame.

Ringo is considered one of the most famous and admired drummers ever because of his work with the Beatles, but he never allowed his achievements to get into his head. His calm and understanding nature came to bear when drummer Keith Moon who left The Who requested to become a member of the Beatles. However, Ringo was not bitter or sad about the development; he instead built a relationship that outlasted the Beatles itself.

Source: doyouremember.com

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The Beatles’ “Flying” was inspired by 12-bar blues songs. Paul McCartney said it’s credited all members of the band because it’s not a real song. The tune appeared on the hit album Magical Mystery Tour.

The Beatles‘ “Flying” is a track with no lyrics that appears in the movie Magical Mystery Tour. Paul McCartney explained why the song features writing credits from all four of The Beatles. Subsequently, a notable band covered the song for a film based on Fab Four tunes.

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed the origin of “Flying.” “‘Flying’ was an instrumental that we needed for Magical Mystery Tour so in the studio one night I suggested to the guys that we made something up,” he said. “I said, ‘We can keep it very very simple, we can make it a twelve-bar blues. We need a little bit of a theme and a little bit of a backing.'”

Paul said he was instrumental in writing the tune. “I wrote the melody,” he said. “The only thing to warrant it as a song is basically the melody, otherwise it’s just a nice twelve-bar backing thing. It’s played on t details

It’s hardly a stretch to say The Beatles dominated the 1960s, especially from 1963 onward. Their energetic debut album, Please Please Me, bowled over young English music fans. The United States finally caught up nearly a year later with the Fab Four’s historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The fact that The Beatles had 71 songs land in the top 100 of the Billboard singles chart is as impressive as their 20 No. 1 hits.

The Fab Four existed as a recording band for eight years, but their impact and success stretched well beyond that timeline. Need proof? Three of those top 100 songs came in the 1990s, and two of those were demos (“Free as a Bird” and “Real Love) released when their trio of Anthology albums saw the light of day. “Baby It’s You” also charted in the mid-1990s.

The Beatles found the top 100 three times in the 1970s, too. “Got to Get You Into My Life” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” found Billboard success in 1976, and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” hit the charts in 1978, more than a decade after the album hit shelves. “The Beatles Movie Medley” smashed seven songs from their feature films into details

George Martin, popularly known as the “Fifth Beatle,” was in high spirits with the Beatles’ audition for EMI on June 6, 1962, after which the producer offered them a recording contract. However, he was not satisfied with the performance of the band’s drummer, Pete Best. Hence, the Fab Four had to bring in a newbie, Ringo Starr, to take charge of the drums, because they thought him better than their former drummer.

Within a month of joining the band, Ringo Starr was in jitters about his future with the Beatles due to a decision made by Martin.

After two failed prior attempts by the Beatles to record the song “Love Me Do,” Martin noticed that Starr could not keep up with the pace. In a bid to get the song out as quickly as possible, he decided to hire a session drummer, Andy White, to get the job done.

Martin revealed the reason for his decision was that the inexperienced Starr was not yet ready for a fast-paced recording session. “I didn’t rate Ringo very highly; he couldn’t do a roll — and still can’t — though he’s improved a lot since,” he said in the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr. “Andy was details

The Beatles‘ “Your Mother Should Know” was inspired by Paul McCartney’s interactions with his aunt. In addition, it was supposed to advocate peace between generations. Notably, its message was really out of step with the 1960s counterculture.

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed the origin of “Your Mother Should Know.” “My Aunty Jin and Uncle Harry and a couple of relatives were staying and they were in the living room just across the hall, so I just went to the dining room and spent a few hours with the door open with them listening,” he recalled.

This environment inspired him to write “Your Mother Should Know.” He felt the song was “basic.” Paul felt he probably wouldn’t have written it if Aunty Jin wasn’t nearby.

Source: Matthew Trzcinski/cheatsheet.com

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The Beatles wrote many songs that were love letters to various things and locations in the U.K. “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” are both dedicated to locations they visited in Liverpool. Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote one song in the early days of The Beatles as a “tribute to British rail.”

The Beatles first recorded “One After 909” in 1963 on the same day as “From Me to You.” However, The Beatles did perform it live earlier as The Quarrymen in 1960 and at the Cavern Club in 1962. The recorded version of the song wasn’t released until 1970’s Let it Be, the band’s final album. In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, John Lennon said he wrote the song around the age of 17 and claims it was primarily a solo job.

“I wrote it when I was 17 or 18,” Lennon said. “We always wrote separately, but we wrote together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes and also because they would say, well, you’re going to make an album together and knock off a few songs, just like a job.”

Source: Ross Tanenbaum/cheatsheet.com

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The Beatles’ “Come Together” and “Something” were together and initially charted at different positions. Billboard changed its rules so that A-sides and B-sides charted together. “Come Together” and “Something” hit No. 1 together in the United States.

The Beatles‘ “Come Together” and “Something” both topped the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time. This only happened because Billboard changed its rules. On the other hand, the songs did not perform as well in the United Kingdom.

The Beatles’ 1969 singles “Come Together” and “Something” initially charted at No. 23 and No. 20, respectively. Then, the songs reached No. 10 and No. 11, and then No. 2 and No. 3. Subsequently, Billboard changed its rules.

Now, A-sides and B-sides would be counted together. Because of this, “Come Together” and “Something” reached the top of the chart at the same time, making the Fab Four’s first pair of singles to do so. The same phenomenon happened to The Beatles’ later singles “The Long and Winding Road” and “For You Blue.”

Source: Matthew Trzcinski/c details