George Harrison Said Mick Jagger Was ‘Always Lurking’ Around The Beatles
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were two of the biggest bands of the 1960s, but George Harrison thought Mick Jagger followed The Beatles’ lead on most things. While they were in two different groups and allegedly feuding, Jagger was, in Harrison’s words, always around. He said when The Beatles did anything, Jagger was there. He spoke about a time Jagger tagged along to a seminar on meditation.
George Harrison said Mick Jagger was always around The Beatles
In 1967, The Beatles traveled to Wales by train to attend a seminar on transcendental meditation. Harrison, growing increasingly interested in cultivating his spiritual life, was the driving force behind the trip. He even brought along Ringo Starr, whose wife had recently had a baby.
“At that time Maureen was in hospital having Jason, and I was visiting. I came home and put on the answerphone, and there was a message from John: ‘Oh, man, we’ve seen this guy, and we’re all going to Wales. You’ve got to come,'” Starr said, per The Beatles Anthology. “The next message was from George, saying, ‘Wow, man — we’ve seen him. Maharishi’s great! We’re all going to Wales on Saturday, and you’ve got to come.'”
It was a Beatles trip, but Jagger tagged along. Harrison said this was a common occurrence.
“Maharishi happened to be having a seminar in Bangor and had said, ‘Come tomorrow and I’ll show you how to meditate.’ So, the next day we jumped on a train and went,” Harrison recalled. “Mick Jagger was also there. He was always lurking around in the background, trying to find out what was happening. Mick never wanted to miss out on what the Fabs were doing.”
Mick Jagger once spoke about George Harrison’s spirituality
Harrison seems to be rolling his eyes at Jagger’s constant presence. This may be because Jagger didn’t seem to take his spirituality all that seriously at the time.
“He very much concentrated on the spiritual side of his life, and it was more than a passing fancy,” Jagger told Rolling Stone after Harrison’s death. “It looked like it was a sort of faddish thing at the time, but it stayed with him.”
While this might have rankled Harrison at the time, Jagger came to understand and respect the former Beatles’ beliefs.
“You got the feeling that most people were dabbling in spirituality, but for George it was perhaps the major part of his life once he discovered it,” he said. “And it’s very easy to ridicule someone who does that, and he was ridiculed, there’s no doubt about that, especially in England, for being like that. But he did follow through on the courage of his convictions. He stayed with it and never rejected it. And, of course, he made mistakes-anybody following this who was one of the first people of a generation to do that would make mistakes-but not any glaring ones. You’ve got to start somewhere.”
Was there a feud between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones?
Jagger’s constant presence around The Beatles might seem surprising. As two of the most successful bands of their time, the media often pushed the story that they were feuding. While they have traded insults over the years, Paul McCartney said there was little truth to the rumors.
“The idea of our being rivals with The Rolling Stones was newspaper talk,” he said. “It was natural that we would seem to be rivals, but in fact George got them their recording contract. He was at a party with Dick Rowe, the man famous for having turned The Beatles down for Decca.”
Members of the bands have worked together over the years and have long expressed their respect for one another.
