George Harrison penned the lyrics to a small percentage of Beatles songs, but he still had several hits for the band. He fought hard to have his bandmates take his songwriting seriously, and the way that they overlooked his writing severely dampened his interest in the group. Despite this, Harrison once said he didn’t write very good lyrics. Here’s what he had to say about his skill level.
George Harrison had to fight to get his bandmates to take his songwriting seriously
When Harrison first joined The Beatles, he didn’t have much interest in writing music. “To get it straight, if I hadn’t been with John and Paul I probably wouldn’t have thought about writing a song, at least not until much later,” he told Guitar World in 1992. “They were writing all these songs, many of which I thought were great. Some were just average, but, obviously, a high percentage were quality material. I thought to myself, If they can do it, I’m going to have a go.”
He admitted that his bandmates were not very interested in his lyrical contributions to the group. John Lennon and Paul McCartney had been the only songwriters, and they were content to keep it that way.
“But it’s true: it wasn’t easy in those days getting up enthusiasm for my songs,” Harrison said. “We’d be in a recording situation, churning through all this Lennon/McCartney, Lennon/McCartney, Lennon,/McCartney! Then I’d say [meekly] can we do one of these?”
He once insulted his lyrics
Harrison fought with his bandmates for the right to include some of his songs, but he wasn’t very complimentary of his writing ability. He described the first song he wrote for the band as “crappy” and admitted that he didn’t think he was very good at writing lyrics at all.
“The words are always a bit of a hangup for me,” he said, per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “I’m not very poetic. My lyrics are poor, really. But I don’t take any of it seriously. It’s just a joke. A personal joke. It’s great if someone else likes it, but I don’t take it too seriously myself.”
George Harrison was too hard on his songwriting
Despite Harrison’s self-deprecating comments, he wrote some of the band’s most enduring songs, such as “Something,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “If I Needed Someone.” Frank Sinatra even referred to “Something” as one of the greatest love songs of all time.
While Harrison didn’t write as many hits as Lennon and McCartney, he was able to capture human emotion well in his songs. His lyrics are enduring because they feel honest and poignant. He also introduced new themes to the Beatles’ music when he embarked on his spiritual journey and became increasingly interested in Indian music. He may not have thought highly of the songs he wrote with The Beatles, but there’s a reason they were a success. With his writing, he proved that he, like Lennon and McCartney, could write moving songs loved by thousands.
