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George Harrison made his way into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame despite not having much support from his Beatles bandmates or producer George Martin. The so-called quiet Beatle made it as a member of the Fab Four and a solo artist. George’s friend Jeff Lynne made it to the Rock Hall with his group Electric Light Orchestra, but he beat Harrison into another musical hall of fame.

Jeff Lynne beat George Harrison into the Songwriters Hall of Fame with his 2023 induction

George, of course, gained fame with The Beatles in the 1960s. Even though his songs didn’t appear on Fab Four records as frequently as Paul McCartney and John Lennon tunes, his were some of the band’s best. See, for example, “Taxman,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Something.” 

Lynne co-founded ELO and was their chief songwriter throughout their career. Many of the band’s standout songs, such as “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “Mr. Blue Sky,” and “Livin’ Thing,” were his tunes. Their string-heavy pop music was incredibly popular in the 1970s, but like most bands, ELO never gained the same notoriety as The Beatles.

Yet Lynne beat Harrison into the Songwriters Hall of Fame with his 2023 induction. Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Dogg, and Gloria Estefan were also part of the 2023 class with him.

Lynne joined other notable musicians and writers in the prestigious institution, including McCartney and Lennon, Chuck Berry, Burt Bacharach, Elton John, David Bowie, and Chic co-founder, ace songwriter, and Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman Nile Rodgers.

ELO might not be mentioned in the same breath as other classic rock bands, but they were no less successful in their prime than bigger-name acts. With Lynne as the guiding force, the band achieved 15 top-10 hits in England, per the Official Charts Company. Those tunes spent 51 weeks in the top 10. ELO achieved its first No. 1 song in 1980 with “Xanadu,” the Olivia Newton-John-sung tune from the movie of the same name.

With Lynne getting into the Songwriters Hall of Fame before, George is the only member of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup he co-founded with Lynne not to be in the hall. Bob Dylan (1982), Roy Orbison (1989), and Tom Petty (2016) preceded Lynne into the musical hall of fame. Now the quartet is just waiting on Harrison to join them, and it’s hard to argue he doesn’t belong.

George deserves a spot alongside Lynne, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon in the hall

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Paul and John frequently blocked George’s songs from appearing on Beatles records. “Taxman,” “Love You To,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Here Comes the Sun” were stellar Fab Four songs, but “Something” was the only George tune to become a No. 1 hit for the band.

Yet Harrison was prolific in his own right and deserves to be enshrined in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

It’s not only that he put five songs into the Billboard top-10: “My Sweet Lord,” “What Is Life,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth),” “All Those Years Ago,” and “Got My Mind Set on You.” George also wrote hits for Ringo Starr (“Photograph”) and played vicious slide guitar (and made Ringo sound like a genius) on the trans-Atlantic top-10 tune “Back Off Boogaloo.”

George also wrote songs for and with his close friend Eric Clapton (a 2001 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee), including Cream’s “Badge” and “Run So Far” off Slowhand’s 1989 album, Journeyman. And we haven’t yet mentioned Harrison’s late-1980s comeback with the Traveling Wilburys, where he, Lynne, Dylan, Orbison, and Petty co-wrote the songs.

Lynne raced past his friend George and into the Songwriters Hall of Fame first. If there’s any justice, Harrison should join his friends and bandmates in the prestigious musical hall of fame at some point.

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