Music The song that made Paul McCartney feel like George Harrison
When The Beatles finally disbanded in 1970, some media outlets sensationalised the degree of animosity between the four members. That said, while recording the final two albums, Abbey Road and Let It Be, the band endured significant power struggles attributable to its demise. Most notably, a rift between George Harrison and Paul McCartney widened in the closing months of the band’s history.
When The Beatles’ beloved manager, Brian Epstein, tragically passed away in August 1967, McCartney assumed a de facto managerial role. As displayed in Peter Jackson’s intimate documentary of 2021, The Beatles: Get Back, McCartney was the Beatles’ dominant creative force throughout their final two albums. John Lennon appeared increasingly distracted in his relationship with Yoko Ono, while Harrison struggled to get a song in edgeways.
Despite the rift between Harrison and McCartney towards the end of the ’60s, the pair rekindled a friendship and returned to each other’s fond thoughts by the end of the ’70s. While McCartney was somewhat forceful with his ideas and critical of Harrison’s, his favourite songs of Harrison’s were born during the Get Back sessions.
The 1969 album Abbey Road housed two Harrison compositions: ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Alongside ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ from the previous, self-titled album, they are considered Harrison’s finest songwriting contributions to The Beatles catalogue.
In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, McCartney was asked what his favourite Harrison composition was during a Reddit AMA session. “‘Here Comes The Sun’,” he replied. “It is a brilliant song and the kind of song that’s really good in times like these”.
Over the years, McCartney has also shown love for ‘Something’, frequently including it in his solo repertoire. During his recent live shows, McCartney has played ‘Something’ using a ukulele that Harrison once gave him. “I was round at his house one day,” McCartney said, introducing the track at Glastonbury in 2022. “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.”
In 2003, McCartney began writing and recording material for his 13th solo studio album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. Comprising the first solo material written after Harrison’s death in 2001, McCartney mourned a lost friendship, especially in ‘Friends to Go’, which was dedicated to the late Beatle.
Speaking to BBC Radio 6, McCartney once revealed that he wrote ‘Friends to Go’ while imagining he was the so-called ‘Quiet Beatle’. “The funny thing about it was I felt as if I was almost George Harrison during the writing of that song,” he said. “I just got this feeling… this is George. So it was like I was writing – I was like George – writing one of his songs. So I just wrote it – it just wrote itself very easily ’cause it wasn’t even me writing it.”
