Harrison’s first songwriting efforts were relatively slight, with his tracks on With the Beatles and Help being among the weakest ones on those albums, though “I Need You” from Help was decent and even his first song, "Don't Bother Me" from With the Beatles, was okay. His writing improved fairly quickly, however, with his songs on Rubber Soul being quite solid, and his three songs on Revolver were only slightly outshone by the incredible brilliance of the best of McCartney and Lennon’s contributions to that album full of amazingly good music. “Taxman”, the first Harrison song to feature as the opening track on a Beatles album, exhibited Harrison’s sardonic humor and “I Want to Tell You” made interesting use of dissonance. The third of Harrison’s songs on Revolver, “Love Me To” was his first Indian-style composition, a direction he further pursued with his sole contribution to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the excellent “Within You Without You”. Two other songs written around this time but only released in 1969 on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack were the tongue-in-cheek “Only a Northern Song” and the chaotic “It’s All Too Much”, both of which were solid efforts. While “Blue Jay Way” from Magical Mystery Tour was a tad monotonous, Harrison’s third Indian-flavored song, “The Inner Light”, was another very good composition, and the first to appear on a Beatles single, if only as a B-side.
Four of Harrison’s songs appeared on the double album The Beatles (aka The White Album), the greatest number to be used on any of the group’s albums (though in terms of ratio, Revolver had the most Harrison songs). These included the classic “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, which featured Harrison’s friend Eric Clapton on electric guitar, and the biting social comment of “Piggies”. The bluesy songs “For You Blue” and “Old Brown Shoe” were released on Let It Be and as a B-side respectively. Another Harrison song to appear on Let It Be was “I Me Mine”, which was the last Beatles song to be recorded (though Lennon wasn’t present), since it was recorded after Abbey Road, unlike all the other tracks on Let It Be (some overdubs were done to the title track at the same recording session). Other than the session at which “I Me Mine” was recorded, the last Beatles recordings were those that appeared as Abbey Road, and it was on this album that Harrison demonstrated beyond question that he could equal Lennon and McCartney as a songwriter, with his songs “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun” being among the best on the album. “Something” was the first Harrison song to be the A-side of a Beatles single and has reputedly gone on to be the second-most covered Beatles song after McCartney’s “Yesterday”, while “Here Comes the Sun” is widely regarded as one of the group’s classic songs.
Harrison had briefly left the Beatles in early 1969 during recording sessions for what became Let It Be after arguments with McCartney and Lennon, and in this period he started working with other musicians (having already contributed one of his compositions to Jackie Lomax, he also co-wrote “Badge” with Eric Clapton for Cream’s last album, playing rhythm guitar on the recording). When the group finally broke up in early 1970, Harrison immediately embarked on his solo career. In the last few years that the Beatles had been together, Harrison had built up a backlog of unused compositions, so he decided to record a triple album (though the third record consisted of fairly routine jams and tends to be ignored). This album, All Things Must Pass, was released in late 1970. It featured the hits “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life” as well as numerous excellent album tracks, such as “Isn't It a Pity”, “Wah-Wah”, “Beware of Darkness”, “Art of Dying” and the beautiful title track. The album was a massive success both critically and commercially, and is still regarded by many (including myself) as one of the best solo albums by a solo Beatle. “My Sweet Lord”, which topped charts in the US and the UK as well as many other countries, did receive some negative notoriety in later years when Harrison was successfully sued over the song’s similarity to the early song “He’s So Fine”, but this has done little to tarnish the album’s legacy. In the year following the release of All Things Must Pass, Harrison made history by organizing the first large scale superstar charity rock concert, The Concert for Bangladesh.
Harrison’s first studio album following All Things Must Pass was 1973’s Living in the Material World. While not quite the artistic and commercial success that his debut was, it sold well and contained a lot of good songs, such as the US No. 1 hit “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” and the excellent “Don't Let Me Wait Too Long”. His next album, 1974’s Dark Horse, was marred somewhat by the laryngitis that Harrison was suffering from during the recording and by slightly weaker material. His next few albums, Extra Texture (Read All About It) (1975), Thirty Three & 1/3 (1976), and George Harrison (1979) are generally regarded as hit and miss, with a fair amount of average material mixed in with some high quality songs such as Extra Texture’s "You" and “This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)”, Thirty Three & 1/3’s “Crackerbox Palace” and “This Song” (a humorous reflection of the plagiarism case surrounding “My Sweet Lord”), and George Harrison’s “Blow Away” (the latter album also contained the first formal release of the White Album outtake “Not Guilty”, though the Beatles’ rough but harder-edged version recorded in 1968 and released in 1996 on Anthology 3 is superior). After John Lennon’s murder in 1980, early the next year Harrison released “All Those Years Ago”, a tribute to Lennon that Starr and McCartney also appeared on. This was included on Somewhere in England that same year, though that album contained few other notable tracks and didn’t sell particularly well. Harrison’s next album, 1982’s Gone Troppo, was the poorest selling of his career, and he stopped recording for the next few years to concentrate on other interests, such his movie production company Handmade Films (originally founded to help fund Monty Python’s Life of Brian), which produced films like Time Bandits and Shanghai Surprise.
Harrison made a comeback in 1987 with his album Cloud Nine, produced by Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra. This featured a surprise US No. 1 in his reworking of James Ray's“Got My Mind Set On You” and a second hit in his excellent Beatles pastiche “When We Was Fab”, as well as some good album tracks like “Devil’s Radio”. The year after Cloud Nine was released, Harrison formed the Traveling Wilburys with fellow superstars Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. The group released a pair of albums (though Orbison was only on the first, as he died soon after its release) in 1988 and 1990, with each Wilbury credited under a pseudonym (Harrison was variously known as Nelson Wilbury or Spike Wilbury). In 1989 Harrison also released a compilation album, Best of Dark Horse, which included a couple of new songs. But subsequently, other than occasional guest appearances, Harrison pretty much stopped releasing music for the following decade. He underwent surgery for throat cancer in 1997 and in 1999 he was stabbed by a psychotic “fan” who had broken into his house and only survived because his wife Olivia succeeded in knocking the attacker out by hitting him with a lamp (it was no doubt fortunate for Harrison that he lived in the UK, so his attacker did not have a gun – unlike the psychotic “fan” who shot Lennon in the US). Despite these difficulties, Harrison had continued to work on and off on a new solo album. Unfortunately a recurrence of his cancer eventually proved fatal, with Harrison succumbing in late 2001. His final album, Brainwashed, was assembled by Jeff Lynne and Harrison's son Dhani and released in late 2002, a year after Harrison’s death. This proved to be his best album since All Things Must Pass, with virtually all the tracks being good and several being excellent, including “Any Road”, “Stuck Inside A Cloud”, “Looking For My Life”, and “P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)”.
Harrison, like the other Beatles (except possibly McCartney), was not necessarily technically the best at his instrument, but was nevertheless innovative and highly influential. His slide guitar playing in particular was highly regarded. Harrison was as essential to the group’s chemistry as any of the rest, and his deadpan humor was an important part of the group’s charisma. In fact he may have ensured that the group got a recording contract when, after George Martin said to the group “Is there anything you’re not happy about?” and Harrison responded “Well, I don’t like your tie,” cracking Martin up and convincing him that they were worth taking a chance on. That same droll humor appeared in many of Harrison’s songs over the years.
As noted above, Harrison’s songwriting improved rapidly over the Beatles’ career. His very best songs with the group rank with the best by Lennon and McCartney, and by the end he was become more prolific as well. However, his solo career seems to indicate that he had difficulty writing top-notch material at the same rate that Lennon or McCartney could (though Lennon actually released slightly less material in the last decade of his life than Harrison did in the same period, many would argue it was somewhat more consistent than Harrison’s; McCartney, despite having a fairly large proportion of mediocre songs, released so much that even if the weak tracks are discounted he had about half a dozen albums worth of good songs in that same time period). One reason for the success of All Things Must Pass was that he had a backlog of unused songs from the last years before the Beatles broke up; it also helped that he hit a peak as a writer in this period. While he was able to more or less keep up the pace for a couple of years after the breakup, his writing fell off as the 1970s wore on, so that while he still wrote some very good songs, most of his albums were a mixed bag. It is almost certainly no coincidence that his last two albums, especially the final one, were marked improvements over those from the late 1970s and early 1980s, as they came after long breaks in which he had more time to come up with great material. Nevertheless, Harrison’s very best solo albums, All Things Must Pass and Brainwashed, and to a lesser degree Living in the Material World, are among the best Beatle solo albums. Harrison also wrote some great material for others, particularly Starr, with “Photograph”, the song he co-wrote with Starr for the latter’s best solo album Ringo, ranking among the best Beatle solo tracks.
The first list below includes all of the songs Harrison wrote for the Beatles. Not all of these were great and I originally intended to list only the best of them, but only two or three were less than very good and so I ended up just listing them all. The second list includes thirty of Harrison’s best solo songs (plus one by the Traveling Wilburys). Though I’ve heard all of Harrison’s solo albums at one time or another, the only ones I have copies of are All Things Must Pass, Living in the Material World (which I only acquired recently), and Brainwashed, plus his Best of Dark Horse compilation covering 1976-1989, so my familiarity with some of his material is limited. It’s possible that some of my choices might change on further listening, and as usual with such lists even my favorites among the more familiar songs are not set in stone.
George Harrison with the Beatles
(All songs written by George Harrison and performed by the Beatles)
Don’t Bother Me
I Need You
You Like Me Too Much
Think for Yourself
If I Needed Someone
Taxman
Love You To
I Want to Tell You
Within You Without You
Blue Jay Way
The Inner Light
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Piggies
Long Long Long
Savoy Truffle
Only a Northern Song
It’s All Too Much
For You Blue
Old Brown Shoe
Something
Here Comes the Sun
I Me Mine
Not Guilty
George Harrison Solo
(All songs written and performed by George Harrison except where otherwise noted)
All Things Must Pass
What Is Life
My Sweet Lord
Beware of Darkness
Art of Dying
Isn't It a Pity
Wah-Wah
Bangla Desh
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)
Don't Let Me Wait Too Long
The Day the World Gets Round
Dark Horse
You
This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)
Crackerbox Palace
This Song
Blow Away
Faster
All Those Years Ago
Life Itself
Gone Troppo
When We Was Fab (Harrison/Lynne)
Devil's Radio
Got My Mind Set on You (Clark)
Handle with Care (Traveling Wilburys [primarily Harrison]; performed by the Traveling Wilburys)
Cockamamie Business
Any Road
Stuck Inside a Cloud
Looking For My Life
P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night)
Honorable Mentions: Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll), Apple Scruffs, Sue You Sue Me Blues, Hari's On Tour (Express), The Answer's at the End, That's the Way It Goes, Wake Up My Love, Cloud Nine, Heading for the Light (Traveling Wilburys [primarily Harrison]; performed by the Traveling Wilburys), Cheer Down (Music: Harrison; Lyrics: Harrison/Petty), Pisces Fish, Marwa Blues, Horse to the Water (George Harrison/Dhani Harrison; performed by Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra featuring George Harrison)
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