George Harrison didn’t have the easiest time being a Beatle, but at least being one of the Fab Four heightened his awareness of the world. Then, he took that awareness and used it for something good.
George Harrison didn’t have the easiest time as a Beatle
George didn’t have the easiest time as a Beatle. John Lennon and Paul McCartney treated him like a glorified session man and pushed him and his songs aside. He realized early on that he didn’t enjoy fame or adulation.
During a Rolling Stone interview in 1979, George said he “never” thought of being a Beatle again. “Not in this life or any other life. I mean, a lot of the time it was fantastic, but when it really got into the mania it was a question of either stop or end up dead.
“We almost got killed in a number of situations – planes catching on fire, people trying to shoot the plane down and riots everywhere we went. It was aging me.”
For George, being a Beatle was like having a previous incarnation. He likely felt that way because he saw Beatle George as someone else. According to Rolling Stone, George once said, “The Beatles exist apart from myself. I am not really Beatle George.
“Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion, and until the end of my life people may see that shirt and mistake it for me. I play a little guitar, write a few tunes, make a few movies, but none of that’s really me. The real me is something else.”
However, being a Beatle did heighten his awareness of the world.
George said being a Beatle heightened his awareness of the world
In 1989, George told Mark Rowland (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) that being a Beatle had its uses. It heightened his awareness of the world.
“I mean you’ve had for a long time an awareness of the sort of things you’re talking about—a strong kind of moral framework, I would put it—in your songs and a lot of your actions,” Rowland said. “Do you think that that would have emerged as strongly had it not been that you lived in the crucible of a situation like the Beatles where you got to really experience the excess…?”
George replied, “Yeah. It might have taken much longer, I think. I mean I think the experience we had in those years—plus certain substances people kept putting in our coffee, you know—just sped up the growth. I don’t know. I may just be some sort of thick, sort of … miner or something, I don’t know, if I hadn’t been in a band. But it certainly did heighten the awareness.”
George refers to his and John Lennon’s dentist putting LSD in their coffee. His experience with the hallucinogen opened his mind up to God-consciousness. Without The Beatles, George wouldn’t have entered the world stage.
The Beatles made the world aware too
While George’s perception of the world was heightened by being a Beatle, The Beatles constantly boosted the world’s awareness.
George told his ex-sister-law, Dr. Jenny Boyd, that The Beatles “blanketed everything,” and it amazed him.
“I thought it was pretty strange why we made the enormous impact that we did—or have still,” George said. “It’s strange how the chemistry between the four of us made this big thing that went right through the world. There wasn’t any country in the world, even the most obscure places, that didn’t know about the Beatles—from grandparents to babies. It just blanketed everything, and that amazed me more than anything.
“We always felt that if we could get the right record contract, we’d be successful. But our tiny little concept of success that we had at the time was nothing compared to what happened. It was just enormous. It does make one think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
The Beatles were very important to the cultural movement at the time. They showed the world new ideas and philosophies through their music. George might not have enjoyed his time as a Beatle, but at least the group used its incredible influence for good.
