The one artist George Harrison was always thankful for: “I love that sort of madness”
No one will ever be able to gauge the kind of impact that George Harrison made upon the world.
Every detail of The Beatles’ career has pretty much been etched in stone at this point, and even if Harrison was known as the quiet one whenever they performed live, his music spoke volumes whenever he had the right idea for one of their songs. But even if he wasn’t looking to be the centre of attention, his musical taste catered to the kinds of musicians that he hoped would be around long after he was gone.
That’s probably why Harrison took proper care and attention to every tune he worked. If he was going to say something, he wanted it to be important whenever he got up to the microphone, and even if he wasn’t the biggest fan of touring when he first went out on the road, the least he could do was expose people to new genres of music, whether it was helping raise money during the Concert for Bangladesh or working with Ravi Shankar to help bring many of his Dark Horse shows together.
In fact, the music of India is probably the purest influence that Harrson ever had when he started working on his first solo songs. Shankar was the one teaching him about how to connect with his higher power through music, and even if every song didn’t necessarily cater to religious themes or anything, you can feel the pure passion in Harrison’s voice when he sings tunes like ‘My Sweet Lord’ or ‘Awaiting on You All’.
He was trying to show everyone else that they could experience the same spiritual high that he did, but that music couldn’t replace a well-written tune in his eyes. Despite his many spats with Paul McCartney over the years, he could admit when a tune like ‘I’m Carrying’ piqued his interest every once in a while. But during the time when the Fab Four were becoming more in tune with folk music, no one seemed to stand out more than Bob Dylan.
Harrison had already listened to some of the greatest guitarists of his time, like Carl Perkins and even legends like Django Reinhardt, but Dylan was always looking for something different. His lyrics were the most important thing that he brought to the table, and even if he didn’t necessarily have a great vocal range compared to Harrison, the conviction that he had while singing those early songs was enough to knock Harrison out, even when he started working with him during the days of the Traveling Wilburys.
And while Harrison could quote nearly any Dylan lyric that applied to his life, he held out hope that Dylan would keep reminding everyone of why he was so great, saying, “I’ve had the same list of favorites for years [like] Bob Dylan. I think his voice is great, I love that sort of madness. And as a person he’s somebody who—well, as he said, ‘Time will tell who has fell and who’s been left behind.’ Bob is still out there and whether you like him or not he’s Bob. I’ve always listened to his music. I’m thankful there’s people like that.”
While Harrison has long since passed on, it’s not like Dylan ever stopped trying to find that one song no one has touched on yet. He was in constant search of that one lyric that he hadn’t covered, and while some of his records could be hit and miss, his later output on records like Love and Theft and Modern Times were a better indication of the kind of artist that he always wanted to become.
He was the voice of a generation for far too many years, but even after people stopped turning to him for the answers to what life should be like, he was always marching to the beat of his own drum. And while we’ll never know how long his influence will last, the spirit of Dylan’s early work is always to exist in the hearts of people who want to change the world through the songs they sing.
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