What was the last song George Harrison wrote for The Beatles? Bringing in the final classic.

What was the last song George Harrison wrote for The Beatles?

Wed 12 February 2025 0:00, UK

By the time The Beatles were breaking up, George Harrison didn’t really need the rest of his bandmates anymore. There were moments when he would come to John Lennon for guidance on a handful of lyrics, but since everyone was pushing his songs to the side, it was only a matter of time before he realised that his bandmates were wearing him down. Still, if he was going to make records with them for the time being, he was going to make sure whatever he came up with put the rest of his bandmates to shame.

After all, Harrison certainly had the potential to make a massive hit if he wanted to. There had been countless artists who would given their left leg to have worked with him, so why did he have to bother himself playing on Paul McCartney’s ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ or have to sit through the Get Back sessions and watch nothing get done?

He had far better things he could be doing with his time, and that meant stockpiling as many tunes as he could. So when he finally quit The Beatles midway through Get Back, he already had a lot of songs already lined up for what could have been a solo album. He had already gone through his phase of being immersed in Eastern music, but songs like ‘Wah-Wah’ and ‘Beware of Darkness’ had the bitterness of the band’s breakup as well as his trademark spirituality.

If the band were going to go out, they deserved to go out on a high note. Harrison still had a handful of half-decent songs that eventually surfaced, like ‘I Me Mine’, but he found his last piece of brilliance with nothing but a song in his head and an empty garden as he decompressed at Eric Clapton’s house.

So what was the last song that George Harrison wrote for The Beatles?

Even though this era was far from the happiest of Harrison’s career, watching the sun rise over the landscape with ‘Slowhand’ was enough inspiration he needed for ‘Here Comes the Sun’. All Things Must Pass may have already been flirting with folksy songs, but this is about as close to perfection as Harrison ever got with an acoustic guitar in his hands, eventually putting it next to something when contributing tunes to Abbey Road.

And compared to everyone else’s songs on the record, Harrison’s track is the greatest ear candy of the bunch, from the soaring harmonies to the synthesiser added during the song’s bridge. Besides sounding gorgeous, the tune also operates as a great amalgamation of everything he had been working towards, using Eastern rhythms, pop melodies, and philosophical lyrics that show him turning into this wise musical guru.

While Lennon and McCartney have always been known as the main creative forces behind the group, Harrison also got the last laugh by having his last song become the most popular Beatles song of the modern age. Whereas Lennon’s songs could get too political and Macca’s could get a little bit goofy, something this beautifully simple was enough for it to become the highest-streamed Beatles song, blowing every other Fab hit out of the water at over a billion streams.

But it’s worth noting that ‘Here Comes the Sun’ is far from the best composition Harrison had at his disposal. His debut solo album was about to leave the rest of his bandmates in the dust once they broke up, so while this last song ended his career with The Beatles on a high, it was only a preview of things to come.