How did George Harrison feel about The Beatles’ breakup?
While the split of The Beatles shocked the world, those in the band had seen in coming. When the news was officially confirmed, George Harrison had been ready for a new adventure for quite some time, and the guitarist knew it was the perfect moment to start the next chapter of his life. In his mind, the big break-up of Britain’s best-ever band had reached its natural conclusion.
While conspiracy theorists will point to Yoko Ono as being the catalyst for The Beatles’ split, that notion is simply not true. While her studio influence may have been a contributing factor to growing resentment, there were various reasons why the band called it a day, and the main cause was creative differences rather than salacious headline material. The Fab Four were, to put it simply, just not the same people they were at the beginning of their journey. Searching for another level of creative fulfilment, it was clear that each member needed to go in separate directions.
When The Beatles began, Harrison wasn’t an accomplished singer-songwriter, but by the end of Beatlemania, he had a whole host of material that the band had rejected. It was evident to the guitarist that he needed to find a new musical endeavour, and his first solo album, Wonderwall, was released while the band were still active.
Before their official split, Harrison had briefly quit the band on one occasion and needed to exit for his own sanity. Later, in 1987, Harrison admitted to Musician Magazine: “I just got so fed up with the bad vibes. I didn’t care if it was the Beatles, I was getting out.”
Rather than feeling bitter about their break-up, Harrison was overcome with relief and compared it to leaving the family home. On The Dick Cavett Show in 1971, the former Beatle said: “I don’t regret really anything. That’s what happened, and it was good, but it was also good to carry on and do something else. In fact, it was a relief. Some people can’t understand that, you know, because The Beatles were such a big deal”.
Harrison continued: “They can’t understand why we should actually enjoy splitting up, but there’s a time. There’s a time. People grow up and leave home or whatever they do. They go for a change, and it was really time for a change.”
Furthermore, when speaking to WABC-FM New York’s Howard Smith (via BeatlesInterviews) in 1970, Harrison opened up about why the split was positive, explaining that it meant they no longer had to compromise. However, Harrison’s comments suggest he saw the break as a hiatus rather than a permanent end to the Fab Four. “Paul and John and myself have got just so many songs, I think this is a good way, you know, if we do our own albums,” Harrison said. “That way we don’t have to compromise. I mean, we lose whatever we get from each other — we sacrifice that in order to do a total sort of thing.”
He elaborated: “Because in a way, Paul wants to do his songs his way. He doesn’t want to do his songs my way. And I don’t wanna do my songs their way, really. I’m sure that after we’ve all completed an album or even two albums each, then that novelty will have worn off.”
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