In 1974, George Harrison Said His Biggest Achievement to Date Was That He Was Still Sane
In 1974, George Harrison said his biggest achievement to date was that he was still sane. He’d recently emerged from The Beatles, which often put him through the wringer.
George Harrison said his biggest achievement to date in 1974 was that he was still sane
During a press conference in 1974 (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), a reporter asked George, “What do you consider to be the crowning glory so far in your musical career?”
George didn’t exactly know how to answer the question. He replied, “As a musician? I don’t think I’ve got any yet. As an individual, just being able to sit here today and be relatively sane. That’s probably the biggest accomplishment to date.”
Despite George’s cynical views, he had accomplished many things by 1974.
What George should’ve said his biggest achievement was in 1974
Despite his response during the press conference, George should’ve said his biggest achievement in 1974 was becoming God-conscious.
It wasn’t that he’d been a Beatle or survived being a Beatle. Nor was his biggest achievement organizing the Concert for Bangladesh, the first benefit concert, in 1971, or forming his own record label, Dark Horse Records.
Being God-conscious was all George cared about, and he achieved it in 1965 after taking LSD for the first time. George said the drug opened his mind, leading him to Ravi Shankar and spirituality. He connected to God by playing music, gardening, and meditating.
During a 1967 interview on The Frost Programme (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), George explained that you could see your true self by doing yoga and meditating.
“Because the thing is, your true self isn’t on this level; again, it’s on a subtler level,” George said. “So, whatever the true self is, the way to approach it is through that meditation or some form of yoga. We’re not saying that this meditation is the only answer; it’s obviously not.
“Yoga incorporates lots of different techniques, but the whole point is that each soul is potentially divine, and yoga is a technique of manifesting that, to arrive at that point that is divine.”
Why George was thankful he was still sane
George said his biggest achievement in 1974 was that he was still sane because he’d been through a lot as a Beatle.
On the fans who kept wanting The Beatles to get back together, George told Rolling Stone, “They’ve got lots and lots of songs they can play forever. But what do they want? Blood? They want us all to die like Elvis Presley? Elvis got stuck in a rut where the only thing he could do was to keep on doing the same old thing, and in the end his health suffered and that was it.
“The Beatles fortunately did that hit-and-run. But every year we were Beatling was like twenty years; so although it might only have been five or six years it seemed like eternity. That was enough for me, I don’t have any desire to do all that. It might have been fun for everybody else, but we never saw the Beatles.
“We’re the only four people who never got to see us. [Laughing] Everybody got on a trip, you see, that was the thing. We were just four relatively sane people in the middle of madness. People used us as an excuse to trip out, and we were the victims of that. That’s why they want the Beatles to go on, so they can all get silly again. But they don’t have consideration for our well-being when they say, ‘Let’s have the Fab Four again.'”
On whether he’d do it all again, George said, “Never. 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.
“But we had a great time. I think fondly of it all, especially as we’ve been through all the aftermath of Apple. Everybody’s sued each other to their hearts’ content, and now we’re all good friends.”
Unfortunately, George was tested again not long after that press conference. His 1974 Dark Horse tour was a failure for more than one reason. However, George began focusing more on himself and his spiritual journey after the tour. It was what he truly wanted to do with his life.
