The only punk singer that George Harrison ever liked: “I’m pleased about his success”
George Harrison was not a fan of punk. Despite people claiming that The Beatles essentially invented the genre the second they wrote ‘Helter Skelter’, when the 1960s rolled into the mid-1970s, and the angst kicked up a gear, Harrison clocked out.
The other members of the Beatles, though, were far more open to it. John Lennon, in particular, was a punk fan. “I love all this punky stuff. It’s pure,” he told Playboy in 1980 as he saw this new sound as something exciting and organic, liking that the musicians leading the way were simply saying it how it was. The only thing he didn’t like so much was the lifestyle. During this period of his life, Lennon had turned into an enlightened man with a more settled life; the punk behaviours weren’t really for him, as he said, “I’m not, however, crazy about the people who destroy themselves.”
Meanwhile, Paul McCartney, for a time, seemed completely enamoured. “The thing was that the music was great and suddenly realised, after a day or two of horror: ‘My God! What’s going on? What’s happening to our England?’” he said, casting aside any scepticism people might have to declare, “These guys were just shaking it up, and it needed shaking up.” To him, punk was vital.
Harrison, however, wasn’t on board at all. It makes sense given that his solo career strayed down a more gentle path where there were a few rockers, but his light, spiritual sensibilities naturally seemed to keep him away from the carnage and violence of punk.
“As far as musicianship goes, the punk bands were just rubbish – no finesse in the drumming, just a lot of noise and nothing,” Harrison once said, painting them all with the same brush.
However, one slipped through the cracks and gained his approval. “Elvis Costello is very good – very good melodies, good chord changes. I’m pleased about his success,” he said, before adding in one last quick dig, “but I never liked those monotone kinds of yelling records.”
It makes sense that Costello would sit as Harrison’s one passable punk act, given that he was never really punk at all. He gets thrown in with that ground mostly because he was there, moving back to London just in time for the punk wave and basically just playing his guitar and singing loudly during pub gigs to join in with them.
But it seemed that no matter how much punk inspired Costello as he fully engaged with that scene, nothing could quite undo the diet of pure rock and roll, folk and even tenderer songwriters like Randy Newman that he was raised on, meaning that his songs never quite loosened to the extent more punk acts exist at.
Always holding more of a classic rock and roll energy, that’s likely what allowed George Harrison to get into it, considering Costello as the only passable punk because he wasn’t really punk at all. “Well, musically the punks have been and gone, haven’t they,” he said, thankfully, “and it all seems to be very musical again.”
To him, Costello seemed to appear as a beacon of hope that the kids might be alright after the racket era he hated.
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