“Inspiring”: Olivia Harrison picks the one song that defined George Harrison best
The songwriting success of The Beatles is largely attributed to the driving duo behind the band: Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Between them, they penned many of the band’s biggest hits, from melancholic offerings like ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Hey Jude’ to more experimental outings such as ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. However, there were more than two songwriters in the band, and the contributions and talents of George Harrison have occasionally been overlooked.
Although the so-called ‘Quiet Beatle’ didn’t pen quite as many songs for the band as Lennon and McCartney, he was no less skilful with a pen and a guitar in hand. During his time with the Fab Four, Harrison contributed 25 songs to the band’s discography, including three full-band tracks. Alone, he penned the gorgeous ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, the gentle ‘Something’ and the truly iconic ‘Here Comes The Sun’, proving his talent with each track.
Harrison’s talents may have been underutilised in The Beatles, lost to the collaborative and creative domination of Lennon and McCartney, but they came to the fore after the band broke up in 1970. The demise of The Beatles led each band member to embark upon their own solo career, which Harrison kicked off in the autumn of 1970 with All Things Must Pass.
Widely considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, solo Beatles offerings, the record showed off Harrison’s songwriting talents on tracks like ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘I’d Have You Anytime’, the latter of which was penned in collaboration with Bob Dylan. The album as a whole acted as a demonstration of Harrison’s writing capabilities, but there was one song that stood out to his partner, Olivia Harrison, as some of his best work.
During a conversation with Mojo, Olivia Harrison was asked to share a song that makes her feel connected to Harrison. She picked out a song from the second side of All Things Must Pass called ‘Run of the Mill’. Pairing bright guitars with horns and saxophones, the track is hopeful and bold, driven by the idea that we get to choose our own fate in life.
“How high will you leap, will you make enough for you to reap it?” Harrison asks part way through the song, “Only you’ll arrive at your own made end, with no one but yourself to be offended, it’s you that decides.” Olivia Harrison rightly described the track as “beautiful”, acknowledging her particular love for the lyrics, which she deemed “inspiring”.
Olivia Harrison was particularly enthusiastic about a line from the first verse, in which Harrison sings, “It’s you that decides which way you will turn.” It’s a line that sums up the ethos of the song, one that can be taken as a positive reminder that we have control over our own lives. And for Olivia Harrison, it’s also a “lovely reminder of him”.
Although ‘Run of the Mill’ may not be Harrison’s most successful solo song, overshadowed by the likes of ‘My Sweet Love’ and ‘If Not For You’, it is one of the finest examples of his songwriting talents and his ethos in life. Between those bright guitars and heartening lyrics, Harrison’s spirit feels closer than ever before in ‘Run of the Mill’, even for those who never knew him.
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