It’s impossible to pit any Beatles song against another. The Fab Four created their own sonic identity on every single record, and while not every one of them could be a winner, it made a lot more sense to take their listeners on a journey than let their musical competitiveness get the better of them. But even George Harrison knew when some songs shone above the rest.
Compared to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, though, Harrison was always a bit of a late bloomer to the art of songwriting. When he first joined, he only wanted to be a guitar player and occasional singer when the time called for it, but as he slowly started to see what his old mates were doing, it was only a matter of time before he started crafting masterpieces of his own.
Granted, a song like ‘Don’t Bother Me’ is far from the greatest composition anyone has ever made, but it’s still a decent start. Harrison was already on the path to making great material, but even if he needed help throughout the process, no one could argue with the results. Then again, the touchiness between stepping on everyone’s creative toes is half the reason why we didn’t get as many Harrison songs during his Fab days.
Because while everyone was tense during the Get Back sessions, one of the biggest crimes was the group not working on ‘All Things Must Pass’ enough. This was Harrison’s magnum opus in lots of ways, and even if the rest of them were busy working on Abbey Road, you’re really telling the world that this masterpiece could be shelved and yet ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ demanded to be heard.
Then again, that might have been a bit of an unfair comparison considering Harrison and McCartney’s relationship. The guitarist was always considered a “little brother” figure in the group, but compared to the whimsical tunes that Macca wrote, things were always bound to go in some strange directions whenever Lennon came in with tracks like ‘I Am the Walrus’ or ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.
And having grown into a songwriter by the end of the band’s tenure, Harrison still felt that Lennon was always miles above everyone else whenever he wrote, saying, “[John] wrote, I think, the best Beatles songs that I can think of — like ‘Walrus,’ ‘Glass Onion,’ and ‘Strawberry Fields.’ Those obvious John-songs. You know, I miss that side. I miss that in music, when I listen to other records. There’s nobody who does anything that’s that neat.”
That’s because Lennon always thought outside the box whenever looking at his material. He could write the same beautiful melodies that McCartney could, but he was never satisfied with writing simple pop songs, and a tune like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is the perfect example of someone taking the structure of a Top 40 hit and paving a new way for people to hear music.
Harrison may have been unconventional in his own way whenever he moved on to his solo career, but that’s only because he had one of the best musical teachers a pop songwriter could have asked for. Lennon had thrown away the musical rulebook a long time ago, and the best pieces that the group ever came up with usually stemmed from him deliberately making things sound slightly weird.
