George Harrison Once Revealed Which of His Songs He Liked Best That Everyone Overlooked
George Harrison once revealed which of his songs he liked best that everyone else overlooked. The former Beatle tended to like the songs that didn’t do well on the charts.
George Harrison said writing songs helped ‘get rid of some subconscious burden’
In his 1980 memoir, I Me Mine, George wrote that writing songs stemmed from something deeper in someone like him who was born during a war. If you get all the persecution of being born in war, vibrations making you wonder what it’s all about, “you can see where it all comes out. I mean in your dreams.
“So it’s the unwinding of your nervous system,” George wrote. “The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams. To write a song then, even one like ‘Don’t Bother Me,’ helps to get rid of some subconscious burden.
“Writing a song is like going to confession. That was also the result of the LSD really, writing songs to try and find out, to see who you are.”
However, in The Beatles, it was harder for George to get his “subconscious burdens” out of the way. In his solo career, George got his songs out easier.
George revealed the songs he liked, which many overlooked
In a 1992 interview, Timothy White (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) asked George, “Do you have a favorite song or composition that’s sometimes overlooked?”
“There’s one I liked a lot called ‘Life Itself,'” George replied. “But it’s not a rock and roll song; it’s a mystical kind of lyric. And I like that one you mentioned, ‘Wake Up My Love.’ I got the idea for that from a Paul Robeson song. I’m happy I’ve written a rock’n’roll song like ‘Devil’s Radio,’ which is actually saying something.”
White added, “Teardrops”? George replied, “That’s quite a nice song. That could be done by some black group, because you could make a good dance routine to that one. There’s one song I wrote [on Gone Troppo] called ‘Baby Don’t Run Away.’ It’s not a good production, but it could be a good R&B song. ‘The Pirate Song,’ that was one I wrote with Eric Idle: ‘I’d like to be a pirate, a pirate’s life for me/ All my friends are pirates and sail the BBC!’
“There was one called ‘Your Love is Forever,’ which was quite nice, a nice melody, on the album I did with Russ Titelman.”
George thought the charts killed the actual good songs artists made
In the late 1970s early 1980s, George was unenthusiastic about releasing new music because he thought the charts were “killing” the actual good songs artists released.
During a 1988 interview with The Journal, George said, “Sometimes you can do stuff which isn’t actually bad, but it’s not popular so therefore they say it didn’t get in the top 20s so therefore it was bad,” George explained. “But it actually-I don’t know, I’ve written tunes, which have been better than some of the hits I’ve had, but because they weren’t hits, they write about them as if they were terrible disasters.”
Between 1975 and 1985, George only had five songs chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Only “All Those Years Ago” charted in the top 10 at No. 2. George always liked his more obscure (at least in terms of the charting success he hated) songs. However, there was a deeper reason why his tunes and others failed to chart.
During an interview with Guitar Player, George felt the record companies wanted the same music. If the music was obscure, they didn’t advertise it as much or put it on the radio. That was one of the reasons why George didn’t make an album between 1982’s Gone Troppo and 1987’s Cloud Nine.
Ultimately, George wanted to make the songs he liked. Eventually, he stopped caring what the record companies wanted.
