Ever since The Beatles formed, George Harrison was one of the most neglected members of the group. Although the band always presented themselves as a democracy whenever making decisions, seeing Harrison’s compositions get pushed to the side so often in favour of John Lennon and Paul McCartney songs was bound to wear on him after a while. He may have needed time to find his footing as a songwriter, but Harrison still thought that he deserved a little bit of credit for helping his bandmates finish off their songs.
Compared to the rest of the band, Harrison was a relatively late bloomer in writing songs. The only reason he managed to get his first song on a Beatles record was more or less a fluke, just coming up with the song ‘Don’t Bother Me’ after being sick in bed and wondering if he could write something halfway decent.
Once he discovered he had a knack for it, he started slowly presenting his songs to the group, often twisting the tone of many of their big hits. Whereas half of Rubber Soul still dealt with love in one form or another, ‘Think For Yourself’ is a far more salty version of love than what they were talking about on songs like ‘Girl’ or ‘In My Life’ from the same record.
That’s not to say that Harrison didn’t need some help as well. Throughout his time in the Fab Four, he was constantly talking to his bandmates to see if they could help him with tracks, with Lennon helping throw together the last few verses for ‘Taxman’ and even offering up a line that would find its way into ‘All Things Must Pass’ at the end of the group’s tenure.
When Lennon finally heard Harrison talk about his compositions in his autobiography I Me Mine, he was shocked that he was never credited for his help. Lennon wasn’t exactly suffering in songwriting credits in those days, but it must have stung for Harrison to not even acknowledge that he added his own words to the mix.
While Harrison wasn’t exactly apologetic for not including Lennon in his autobiography, he did admit that there were some songs by his old mate that he never got credit for, either, saying, “He was annoyed that I hadn’t said that he had written one line of the song. The point to that was I didn’t say that I wrote two lines to ‘Come Together’ or three lines to ‘Eleanor Rigby’. I think in the balance, I would have more things to be niggled with him about.”
It’s not like Harrison doesn’t have a point. When you think about what goes into making a song outside of the lyric sheet, Harrison should have been given a lot more songwriting credit on a number of the group’s classics, like coming up with the central riff to ‘And I Love Her’ suggesting the idea of slowing down ‘We Can Work It Out’ so it would sound like it was in waltz time on the bridge.
But just a few petty songwriting credits were never going to break the bond between any of The Beatles. The later years showed them to be far from the best of friends all the time, but when you’ve gone through those formative years together, that’s the kind of bond that’s bound to last across multiple lifetimes.
