The George Appreciation Thread

[Lt Pepper]

How come everybody forgot "Think for Yourself"?

my favourite song on rubber soul, behind drive my car

[Whiplash]

TBRB inspired me to finally go out and check out some of the Beatles' solo projects. I checked out All Things Must Pass, first. It's now in my top 10 albums of all time, it's that good. Fantastic songwriter. It's amazing that he was like, the guy coming off the bench to write songs for them. The amount of talent in the band was sick.

[Skeleshredder]

George's emergance as a songwriter is one of the many reasons they broke up?

Nah, I wasn't trying to say that. I just meant that by the time the band split, George had become the equal of John and Paul. Several of his songs, such as "It's All Too Much" and "Something," are so wonderful that John and Paul have only a few that can match them. I didn't mean to imply that I thought that contributed to the split (although, it has been said that he was increasingly unhappy with the limited a mount of album space he was being given, so it may well have been a factor).

[Inaudible-Whisper]

That's incorrect. He was only allowed to contribute one or two songs to each album, despite allegedly being an equal partner. He built up enough of a backlog of songs to release a triple album the year the Beatles broke up, so it's obvious he wasn't "struggling" to write worthy songs.

He was struggling up until The White Album/Abbey Road/Let It Be. As my Lennon quote showed, both him and McCartney felt that his songs simply weren't good enough up until that point and it's their word against yours. If you think that he had a secret stash of unbelievable songs hidden away throughout most of his time in The Beatles you'd be wrong. Most of 'All Things Must Pass' was written during the Get Back sessions; very few songs dated back to earlier years (the earliest song being from '66 I believe). Most of his good songs from earlier were the ones found on the albums. By the point of the Get Back sessions, George had finally grown to prove himself as an equal besides Lennon and McCartney and they both recognised that, Lennon by saying the best songs on Abbey Road were Harrisons and McCartney by saying that at that point Harrisons songs were "just as good as ours". Fair enough, they may have still shared the bulk of the albums, but even if you put a few more Harrison tracks on each of those latter albums it wouldn't change or prove anything; just that by that point Harrison had truly grown and developed as a song writer.

His only "struggle" was to gain the equal recognition and contribution he deserved. You're basically trying to justify your position by defending his exclusion and then using it to show why you think he didn't put in enough. That's like your boss locking you out of your workplace, and then firing you because you didn't do any work.

No, I'm justifying my position by saying that George, throughout The Beatles, has NEVER proved himself capable of producing such a vast amount of top-quality songs in such a short period of time. 'All Things Must Pass' proves nothing other than the fact that he did have a lot of solid songs in him. We already know this. I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing the fact that that somehow makes him as equal a member of the Beatles as Lennon and McCartney. Had The Beatles went on for another 10 years then sure, things could have been different. But as it stands, he was no Lennon/McCartney in The Beatles. To use a poor analogy, it's like having 2 movie directors one of which has made 10 movies, all of which have been masterpieces since his debut and another who has been growing over 8 movies and has created 2 masterpieces. Some would then proclaim, "See, I told you he was just as good" to which I would say "Come back and say that when he has created 10 in a row".

[JohnnyBGoode28]

Definitely my favorite Beatle. His songs always end up in my favorites list, and now I REALLY want to go and get his solo records (or at least that compilation they put out not too long ago). Very peaceful, nice guy. Maybe not underappreciated, especially if your a Beatles fan, but perhaps just overlooked...
Wow, that sounded a lot smarter in my head. Regardless, George is awesome. End of story

[thedoorsdk]

George is my favorite Beatle (in terms of personality, Beatle's catalog, and solo work). In fact, he's the only one I really like at all.
All Things Must Pass > any Beatles record (imo).

[bonethug0108]

(the earliest song being from '66 I believe)

Did you watch the interview posted? He said he had so many songs built up just by 1965.

[Inaudible-Whisper]

Did you watch the interview posted? He said he had so many songs built up just by 1965.

I never said he didn't write songs before '65. I said that at that period the reason many weren't featured on the albums was simply because John and Paul didn't think they were good enough, and that continued until later (the get back sessions and such). George himself didn't continue forward with these very early songs even during his solo career. As I said, the earliest song on All Things Must Pass was from '66 (Isn't It A Pity) but the vast majority were from from the Get Back sessions and later, some of which during various visits with Dylan. Until the later stages, Harrison never had a huge stash of hidden away album-worthy songs and when he eventually did, The Beatles were on the verge of a split anyway, dare I say it was probably a deciding factor (for George at least).

[bonethug0108]

And I don't give a jumpin' jack flash what paul and john thought.

[soup567]

I think George is a good song writer, guitarist, and underrated, but not the best song writer for The Beatles. I would have to say the best song writer for The Beatles and of all time is Paul. He and John were the main force behind most of The Beatles catalog and was the most successful solo artist of them(he is a billionaire after all); but that's beside the point. Anyway George is awesome and it's too bad he couldn't write more songs for The Beatles.