Six songs George Harrison wrote for other artists
It can’t have been easy. By the time The Beatles’ lead guitarist George Harrison penned ‘Don’t Bother Me’ in 1963, Beatlemania was already nearing its zenith, with Fab Four songsmiths John Lennon and Paul McCartney dominating the charts with an electric run of singles, including ‘From Me to You’ and ‘She Loves You’. Two years would pass before Harrison made further songwriting contributions, with Help! marking the beginning of a trend—every album from then on would feature at least one or two of his own compositions.
By The Beatles’ close, Harrison was boasting serious composition chops. Following a steady peppering among each album of his unique lyrical gift of simple refrains that point to grand, spiritual expanses, Harrison bloomed into one of the band’s finest songwriters, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ among The Beatles’ most lauded works, and famously Frank Sinatra highlighting ‘Something’ as “…the greatest love song of the past 50 years”, under the impression it came from the Lennon-McCartney songbook.
The two principal songwriters still shunned many of his songwriting efforts, assembling such a bag of unrecorded material Harrison entered EMI Studios on February 25th, 1969, to record his debut triple-LP All Things Must Pass, made up of songs rejected by the band, in the case of ‘Isn’t It a Pity’ dating back to Revolver.
Harrison was a busy man from then on, organising The Concert for Bangladesh, kickstarting his production and distribution company HandMade Films, and lending his guitar virtuosity to scores of artists and musician friends. He was also writing at an electric pace, gifting many stars of the day his own compositions, in addition to a plethora of uncredited collaborations and co-writes.
Originally recorded as a demo during The Beatles sessions, ‘Sour Milk Sea’ was gifted to rock and soul singer Jackie Lomax, an Apple Records signee whose bluesy stomp front belied the song’s exploration of transcendental meditation, its lyrical inspiration sparked during The Beatles’ Rishikesh retreat under the spell of guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. That same year, Harrison returned Eric Clapton’s favour for his guitar solo on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, helping write ‘Badge’ on Cream’s final album, Goodbye.
In The Beatles’ aftermath and alongside a growing professional relationship with Wall of Sound architect Phil Spector, Harrison invited Spector and his wife Ronette to London’s EMI and Trident Studios to cut ‘Try Some, Buy Some’, a song written during the All Things Must Pass sessions examining the material realm’s useless pursuits in the way of religious epiphany. It was heady stuff for Ronette’s orchestral pop and perhaps off the mark from its intention as her “comeback” record. Harrison later included his version on Living in the Material World, and David Bowie included a cover on 2003’s Reality.
Naturally, all former Beatles lent a hand to old drummer and friend Ringo Starr. The 1973 effort Ringo saw Harison assisting on three tracks, but the folk-shanty ‘Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away Raymond)’ was his sole composition, inspired by a trip to Ireland with his wife, Pattie Boyd. Harrison always kept Ringo in mind, penning ‘I Still Love You’ for Ringo’s Rotogravure, originally intended for Welsh singer Shirley Bassey.
Jumping from The Travelling Wilburys ultimate boomer ensemble, Harrison found the time to write another tune for Clapton, ‘Run so Far’, which was featured on his post-sobriety comeback Journeyman. He could have had ‘That Kind of Woman’ too, but Gary Moore nabbed it for Still Got the Blues, more suited to Moore’s gritty front than Clapton could muster. Harrison’s musical output slowed down from then on, providing vocals for ‘Horse to the Water’ in 2001 with Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and his son Dhani before dying of lung cancer complications eight weeks later.
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