The Rolling Stones member George Harrison felt closest to: “I don’t think he had enough”
The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were simply never meant to get along. That’s how the industry powers designed it anyway, pitting these two emerging bands against each other in the spirit of profitable partisanship.
What better way to ruin music and make tons of money off it by creating a rivalry as fierce as anything that exists in football, and force fans to choose between the two? A decision made with the knowledge that these two bands really had no right being compared. Other than the fact that they were a collection of mop-topped 20-somethings, the similarities were hard to spot.
The Beatles were studio experimentalists, pushing the boundaries of contemporary pop, while the Stones were a rugged blues-rock inspired outfit, delivering the sort of live show energy The Beatles were never afforded. They should have existed in harmony for those reasons alone, not least the fact that the two groups actually got along to some degree.
Even the fearless leaders, who were supposed to spearhead this rivalry, got along, hanging out frequently, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney featuring on ‘We Love You’, while Mick Jagger and Lennon shared the stage gloriously on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
But the friendships ran deeper, past the frontmen and into the more introverted members of the group, thus proving that the kinship between the bands was more concrete than cynics and label executives cared to admit. George Harrison, who spent most of his Beatles career in the shadow of Lennon and McCartney, found some quiet solace in his friendship with the Stones’ founding member, Brian Jones.
“When I met him, I liked him quite a lot,” he remembered, “He was a good fellow, you know. I got to know him very well, I think, and I felt very close to him; you know how it is with some people, you feel for them, feel near them. He was born February 28th, 1943, and I was born on February 25th, 1943, and he was with Mick and Keith, and I was with John and Paul in the groups, so there was a sort of understanding between the two of us.”
Harrison treasured that shared understanding and what it meant to exist in the back alleys of fame. But the outcome for Jones was far different, and dare I say it, more grave. Jones spiralled into a drug addiction, which ultimately resulted in his overdose, and he was no longer a friend, but a rock and roll cautionary tale.
Harrison continued, “The positions were similar, and I often seemed to meet him in his times of trouble. There was nothing the matter with him that a little extra love wouldn’t have cured. I don’t think he had enough love or understanding. He was very nice and sincere and sensitive, and we must remember that’s what he was.”
The crux of Harrison’s plea is ultimately what undercuts the entire ridiculousness of The Beatles vs The Stones discourse. They weren’t bitter rivals, but young musicians, trying to cobble together this mad sense of fame that they were thrust into for simply wanting to play good music.
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