The two Paul McCartney songs George Harrison hated
While George Harrison may have been the humble understudy to his more recognised bandmates, he certainly harboured an acute sense of taste. Underneath the bushy eyebrows sat a piercing gaze, a window into a soul that would eventually write what many consider The Beatles’ greatest love song: ‘Something’.
In the early part of the 1960s, he was certainly enjoying the ride from the backseat, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney clutched firmly at the steering wheel. But he wasn’t just blissfully looking out the window, watching a world of screaming fans go by. Instead, he had one eye on the dashboard, taking notes and developing his own songwriting prowess.
By 1968, when The Beatles released The White Album, their genius was so overwhelming to the general public that they borderline abused it. They were operating at a level of creative freedom afforded by unwavering dedication from a fanbase so massive that they could stretch the boundaries of silliness just to see if the audience caught on. Fortunately for the band, they got away with a lot.
But within the walls of the studios and the safety of the camaraderie they had built over ten steady years, from adolescence to now, such nonsense would be called out. McCartney’s ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ is perhaps the greatest example of his foolish songwriting, and Harrison was having none of it.
After sitting through the recording session for McCartney’s song, a frustrated Harrison wrote the following lyrics for the track ‘Savoy Truffle’: “But what is sweet now, turns so sour / We all know Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da / But can you show me, where you are?” A scathing take that not only hinted towards Harrison’s growing artistic frustration, but the spiteful underbelly that would slowly develop as cracks in the band’s dynamic, before their eventual disbanding at the end of the decade.
Come 1969 and Abbey Road, Harrison’s songwriting impact would be plain for all to see. ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘Something’ remain some of the band’s finest ever takes, and they have ‘the quite Beatle’ to thank. But, on the same album, McCartney penned the track that every other member would unanimously hate.
‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was a typical McCartney melody, in the sense that it was relatively inoffensive, but nevertheless, it found a way of rubbing the band up the wrong way. Harrison said, “Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs,” adding, “I mean, my God, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was so fruity. After a while we did a good job on it, but when Paul got an idea or an arrangement in his head…” a sentence left hanging in the balance with a pretty predictable conclusion, and a Harrison eye roll, which McCartney himself recalls receiving from the former, remembering that he said to him, ”You’ve taken three days; it’s only a song.”
With over 213 songs to their name in the 1960s, it would actually be more concerning if they were to genuinely like all of them. Truly, it was this subtle friction and sibling-like rivalry that existed between The Fab Four that sparked the embers of a genius that now, 60 years on, we still talk about and admire.
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