George Harrison Said He Would’ve Become a ‘Bum’ if He Didn’t Join The Beatles
George Harrison said if he hadn’t joined The Beatles, he would’ve become a “bum.” All George thought about as a teenager was becoming a musician and playing in a band. Even if he didn’t join a future famous band, George would’ve been a performer of some kind.
George Harrison joined The Beatles to his father’s dismay
When George was 10, his mother, Louise, allowed him to buy a beginner’s guitar from a boy at school for three pounds, 10 shillings. According to Joshua Greene’s Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison, his father, Harold, was the one who arranged for his first guitar lessons.
“His father had a friend who ran a pub and played guitar, and he showed George how to finger chords to tunes from the twenties and thirties such as ‘Dinah’ and ‘Whispering,'” Greene wrote.
George practiced until his fingers bled and the cheap guitar’s neck bent. Louise happily replaced the guitar with a better one, but Harold became increasingly worried about his son’s obsession with music.
Harold was a very hard worker and wanted his children to become equally great workers and “productive members of their community.”
Greene wrote, “If all else failed, Harold reasoned, maybe George could become an electrician and open a repair shop with his brothers. His Christmas gifts to 12-year-old George included a set of electrical tools. The war had taken its toll, and screwdrivers were what a sane man gave his youngest son, something dependable.”
George felt that school was a waste of time and eventually dropped out. Despite having “no taste for manual labor,” George eventually got a job.
He interviewed with the Youth Employment Center and became an apprentice electrician at Blackler’s shop for 1 pound, 50 pence a week. “At Blackler’s, he barely did his work, preferring darts in the basement while waiting for the day to end so he could race home to play his guitar,” Greene wrote.
George soon joined The Beatles.
George said he would’ve become a ‘bum’ if he didn’t join The Beatles
George joined The Beatles shortly after starting work at the electrician’s shop. Within the next five years, The Beatles were internationally famous.
In 1988, George spoke with his former sister-in-law, Jenny Boyd (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), about what he would’ve done if he hadn’t joined The Beatles.
“The guitar and music were the first things I was interested in,” George explained. “I didn’t like school most of the time; it was much too serious. I didn’t have a clue of what I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be anything. The only thing that held my interest was music and the guitar and how to get out of getting a proper job.
“If it hadn’t been for the band, I would have just been a bum.”
The former Beatle said he didn’t think about being anything else other than a musician
Thankfully, George joined The Beatles and didn’t become a bum. George might’ve struggled with the fame that came with being in the band, but at least he became a great musician.
He didn’t have any other plan for his life other than becoming a guitarist. In 1976, the BBC asked George if he thought about becoming anything other than a musician.
George replied, “No, if I hadn’t been a guitar player, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I was definitely not a welder. I was an electrician for about six months after I left school. That was just a job, in my mind, just to fill in time between school and doing this professionally.”
If George had listened to his father and kept guitar to the side, we might not have gotten one of the best guitarists in rock ‘n’ roll.
