When George Harrison and John Lennon “really disagreed”
In the 1960s, you could not turn on a radio without hearing The Beatles. Their songs seemed to have taken the world by storm, inciting uncontrollably high levels of fan mania. The Fab Four were constantly harassed by the media and fans; some inquisitive listeners even broke into the homes of individual members in an effort to meet their heroes.
Over the course of the decade, the band’s sound and style developed further, solidifying their status as genuine musical geniuses. The Beatles showcased their experimentalism abilities withRubber Soul, their sixth studio album, by incorporating instruments like the sitar—which wasn’t often heard in Western music—and singing lyrics with
By the end of the decade, the group had put out a number of iconic albums, including Abbey Road, Revolver, and The White Album. They had also experimented with musique concrete and sound collages, helped to establish new recording techniques, and opened the door for new genres like heavy metal. Each member of the ground-breaking band contributed something essential to the mix.
But there was always an unequal distribution of power among the group’s members, with Ringo Starr being regarded as the “least important” one. George Harrison, on the other hand, was seldom given the opportunity to fully showcase his extraordinary talents and was frequently treated unfairly by his bandmates. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the primary songwriting team, regarded as an unbeatable team of masters.
During the early days of the band, Harrison, a few years younger than the rest, looked up to Lennon a lot, seeing him as an older brother figure. Yet, as the band progressed into an unprecedented territory of success, Harrison seemed to truly find himself after experimenting with psychedelic drugs, meditation, and Eastern religion. Thus, he wasn’t afraid to stand his ground when the other members were acting unreasonably. He even temporarily quit the band in 1968 due to the tensions between them, unable to cope with McCartney’s controlling nature.
He penned a few songs that seemed to allude to the tensions and ego problems within the band, such as ‘I Me Mine’ and ‘Wah-Wah’. Harrison also became less afraid to criticise the other Beatles if he disagreed with them. Subsequently, when he heard Lennon’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’, he was vocal about his feelings regarding the message of the song.
The track, released in 1969, remains an iconic anti-war song, but Harrison was not impressed. He once said (via George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters), “This is where I really disagreed with John, because I want peace too. But I don’t think you get peace by goin’ around shouting, ‘Give peace a chance, man!’ For a forest to be green, each tree must be green. You don’t get peace by talking about peace. You don’t get any sort of peace until you really stop talking and be more on the road to peace.”
He added, “It’s like acid: people took acid in order to have some higher state of consciousness, but it doesn’t work. To get God-conscious, you have to stop taking pills and stop all that scene.”
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