George Harrison’s 10 favourite songs by The Beatles: “One of the most beautiful things we’ve ever done”
Diving into the world of The Beatles without much thought is a jump that can leave you drowning in songs. The band were prolific in their short tenure and delivered hundreds of tracks, many of which are of extremely high quality and, therefore, well worth listening to. But if you’re searching for an easy guide on where to begin then plunging into the tunes that the band themselves considered among their best is a great place to dip your toe.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were rarely shy about their preferences for some of the work by the band, with the former songwriting partners providing a long list of tracks they loved – and a fair chunk they hated – over the course of many interviews following the break up of the band. However, George Harrison was a little more concerned with the future to worry too much about the past.
After their disbandment, the ‘Quiet Beatle’ stayed true to his nickname when the question of the Fab Four’s greatest tracks came up, often avoiding the question entirely. Instead, he preferred to stay in the present – a gift few of us can boast – and concentrate on whatever project he found himself a part of, be it his solo work or his dalliance with The Traveling Wilburys.
However, if you do a bit of online rummaging, you can arrive at a pretty solid list of some of Harrison’s favourite tracks from John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. It makes for a picture of the late, great guitarist that resonates with this very day, and it is a killer playlist to boot.
George Harrison was a reserved man under the burning gaze of the public eye, the likes of which nobody had ever witnessed before. Not blessed—or perhaps cursed—with McCartney and Lennon’s quick-witted affability in front of the camera, Harrison always cut a quieter, more mysterious figure during the early days of The Beatles. While the band was being mobbed by fans and consistently flashed by cameras, he honed his craft and began songwriting in earnest, away from the view of his audience.
Though Harrison had begun life with the band as part of the songwriting team, he was soon pushed to the back of the queue with the Lennon-McCartney partnership dominating the band for many years, owing in large part to their incredible success. Soon enough, though, Harrison contributed a plethora of songs to the Fab Four’s albums despite growing tensions.
Unlike Lennon, who was never afraid to speak his mind about The Beatles or, indeed, McCartney, who was often keen to claim the due credit wherever it was being thrown out, Harrison avoided dwelling too much on the past, especially when it came to his successes. It means ascertaining his favourite Beatles songs is no mean feat.
He did, however, once clearly describe his most-loved Beatles album, “Rubber Soul was my favourite album,” he once revealed. “Even at that time, I think that it was the best one we made,” he added when reflecting on the iconic record in the ’90s. He wistfully recalled: “The most important thing about it was that we were suddenly hearing sounds we weren’t able to hear before. Also, we were being more influenced by other people’s music and everything was blossoming at that time—including us.”
Trudging through the internet’s varied archives and making a few jumps, we can bring you a list of George Harrison’s favourite Beatles songs.
First up is a track from that album and a song he discussed in a rare interview with John Lennon back in 1974, the brilliant ‘Norwegian Wood’ because he “felt where it was coming from”. Harrison included it among his list of tracks “he really enjoyed”, also including ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ saying he preferred the “inventive” songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ the band produced in comparison to the pop smashes that gathered up their initial fame.
Next is ‘Every Little Thing’, the McCartney-penned but Lennon-sung 1964 release. During the Get Back/Let It Be project, the band briefly revisited the song. Amid the tension of the rehearsals and increased pressure, the group find relief in performing a number from their now-so-distant beginnings. Harrison describes it as “a good one” before starting to play the lick, McCartney joining in on vocals—a reminder of their humble beginnings. It’s one of the more serene moments of that set of recording sessions and delivers a near-perfect tableau of their time as friends as well as bandmates.
Another track on the list of songs Harrison loved is ‘This Boy’. The 1963 song, released as a B-side to ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, was likely one of Harrison’s more cherished tracks considering the footage of him watching it below. A post-Beatles George looks back to the band’s earliest moments and as well as smiling like a proud-as-punch father and joining in with the harmonies, he turns to the camera and says: “It’s a good song though. A good song”.
As part of the promotion for The Beatles’ 1969 record Abbey Road, Harrison picked out several tracks as some of the band’s best. It’s easy to suggest here that these comments, taken only a few weeks after the LP’s release, promote the album. But we’ll take them at face value as we’ve no reason not to trust the guitarist. One track from the album is ‘She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’ which, during a track-by-track rundown of the album, Harrison described as “a very good song of Paul’s with great lyrics.” There was further praise for ‘Golden Slumbers’, which was “another very melodic song of Paul’s.”
There were clearly two standout songs on the album, though, in Harrison’s view. He picked out ‘Because’ and heaped huge praise on the song, saying it “is one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever done.” He also liked ‘I Want You, She’s So Heavy’ saying, “This is good because the riff he sings is basically a blues…the middle bit is great,” it’s one of the more potent moments of pop on the record and clearly resonates with Harrison’s preference for bolshy blues.
‘In My Life’ was one of the only Beatles songs Harrison played on his now-legendary 1974 tour with Ravi Shankar. He had performed his own Beatles numbers like ‘Something’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ but ‘In My Life’ was the only song played from the Lennon-McCartney partnership, so it’s safe to say it had a place in his heart forever, and connected his solo work back to the band that gave him his break.
What makes finding Harrison’s favourite Beatles songs so interesting is that by and large, he rarely revisited the band outside of any promotional activity. Sure, the Threeatles reunited for about five minutes, but outside of that, George Harrison gave up being a Beatle back in 1970. It means that his love for the band may have waned, but it’s still safe to say that these were the songs that inspired him along the way.
George Harrison’s favourite Beatles songs:
- ‘Every Little Thing’
- ‘This Boy’
- ‘She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’
- ‘Because’
- ‘Golden Slumbers’
- ‘Norwegian Wood’
- ‘I Want You She’s So Heavy’
- ‘In My Life’
- ‘Eleanor Rigby’
- ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’
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