How many George Harrison songs did The Beatles play live?
Despite The Beatles only being together for a decade, it’s becoming clearer and clearer with time that those ten years represent a herculean feat of patience from one George Harrison. Ever the little brother of the group, Harrison was content to be the quiet, supernaturally talented guitarist for a few years. The dedicated lieutenant to the two generals fronting the group, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Famously, this strained silence wouldn’t last.
It wasn’t as if he was getting no time in the spotlight whatsoever. Even on their debut album Please Please Me, he got to sing lead on their cover of the Gerry Goffin and Carole King (yes, that Carole King) classic ‘Chains’. Their second album, 1963’s With The Beatles, saw his first original song featured on record. The typically grouchy rock ‘n’ roll shuffle of ‘Don’t Bother Me’ gave Harrison a taste of not only the critical respect Lennon and McCartney were getting as songwriters but also the lucre.
Suddenly, Harrison became very, very keen on getting more of his songs on the records. Unfortunately, he’d strike out on the next two, A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles for Sale. Perhaps doubling his previous tally to two songs on 1965’s Help!, the tracks, ‘I Need You’ and ‘You Like Me Too Much’, made the rejection of the previous two albums go down a little smoother. This is unlikely as it would take more than that to get George Harrison out of a mard, especially when the next year would be the last year The Beatles would spend touring and performing live.
This makes for a truly ludicrous statistic given The Beatles’ history that one might go some way to explaining the colossal chip on Harrison’s shoulder. For as long as they were performing live, they only ever had one song by their lead guitarist as part of their live show. It’s true! Now, in fairness, a part of the reason for this was that live shows in the 1960s were a lot shorter than we know them today.
How were concerts in the time of The Beatles different to today?
In contrast, at the time of writing, Olivia Rodrigo is touring her second album, Guts, around the festivals and enormo-domes of the world. Those concerts are about 20 songs and an hour and a half long. Fairly standard stuff for two megahit albums in 2025. By 1966, The Beatles were touring their seventh album in six years, Revolver, and they were playing just over half the amount of songs for a third of the time. About half an hour of music every night. At least The Ronettes were on the bill.
Whatever the reason, the fact was that in their storied history as a live act, the only George Harrison song played live by The Beatles was the Rubber Soul album track ‘If I Needed Someone’. No disrespect to The Byrds-y charm of that love song to Patty Boyd, but considering that ‘Taxman’ was right there, one can’t help but feel it was a missed opportunity. Perhaps not to the band, though.
Famously, the band were pretty much through with the idea of performing live by that point. The music they were making in the studio could by no means be played by a standard rock combo of the time, and Harrison was right at the forefront of this. His fascination with Indian classical music inspired Lennon to write ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ for Revolver and later, informing Harrison’s own ‘Within You, Without You’ for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
‘Within You…’ was still the only song of Harrison’s featured on that seminal album, despite the prolific guitarist building a back catalogue of great tracks he felt deserved their day in the sun. Possibly, though, even if more of Harrison’s songs were played while The Beatles were a live band, that still wouldn’t have staved off his dissatisfaction with Lennon and McCartney for long.
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