On the top deck of a bus in Liverpool, a teenaged George Harrison pulled out his guitar and played Duane Eddy’s “Raunchy” for his friends who had a band. That single performance secured his position in that band that would go on to redefine pop music forever. He was the youngest Beatle, the Quiet One. The Dark Horse. The band’s kid brother. It took him a while to be heard as a songwriter in the Beatlemania years, competing at the highest possible level between his two bandmates in John Lennon and Paul McCartney. But he got there — and then some.
Infused with sarcasm, humour, and earnest spirituality, George Harrison’s songbook is arguably the most consistent of all The Beatles. Choosing his best material is a daunting task, both inside the Beatles and in his solo career and side projects. Yet, here are 20 great George Harrison songs — hits, deep cuts, and B-sides — revealing his exemplary voice as a songwriter, and something of the man as he was, too.
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If I Needed Someone
Harrison’s ear for simple yet supremely effective melody is applied to every solo he ever played as the lead guitarist in The Beatles. But “If I Needed Someone” from 1965’s Rubber Soul scales the heights with jangly, Byrds-like grandeur that brings up his game as a songwriter.
The vocal melody is by no means intricate. Yet the elements found in it create an amazing alchemy, brought to life by the blended voices of the singers that make this cut soar. “If I Needed Someone” is a Western folk-rock tune. But it reveals Harrison’s early appreciation for an Eastern-style meditative groove, with the main melody sounding chant-like against the drone of Harrison’s jangly Rickenbacker 12-string.
Listen: “If I Needed Someone”
Taxman
Kicking off 1966’s Revolver, “Taxman” is a sarcastic missive against the British tax system — possibly a hard pill to swallow coming from a wealthy rock star, yet easily appealing on a purely visceral level. Harrison once again employs a simple melody, and bolsters it with tight ensemble playing with his bandmates, deceptively simple in their individual parts.
Saying that, Paul McCartney is MVP on this cut, particularly with his raga-influenced guitar solo that helps to put his bandmate’s signature onto it so effectively. The song would inspire a number of cover versions and homages, most notably The Jam’s 1980 single “Start!” which liberally and purposefully borrows from its bassline and overall vibe.
Listen: “Taxman”
Within You, Without You
“Within You, Without You” from The Beatles’ 1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is an expression of ambitious musical fusion between two disparate approaches to composition and arrangement. The song comes together with substantial aid from producer George Martin to create a call-and-response tension between one musical pole and another.
“Within You, Without You” is a sumptuous blend of Western orchestral instruments and Indian percussion and strings. As innovative as any song on Pepper, it’s a key track that bridged two musical worlds and opened up a vista of sonic possibilities for Harrison, his peers, and for music fans in general.
Listen: “Within You, Without You”
It’s All Too Much
Appearing in the 1968 film and on the soundtrack for Yellow Submarine, “It’s All Too Much” is an epic-scaled slice of British psychedelia. Chock full of sound, from organ to brass to a range of studio effects to create a vast and orchestrally-scaled drone, this song is an embodiment of Sixties idealism and childlike wonder.
In this song, Harrison goes deeper into the connections he was making with meditation, Eastern philosophy, and (briefly at least) psychotropic drugs in his attempt to pursue a kind of enlightenment for himself. In the middle of that, “It’s All Too Much” doesn’t forget to invite the listener into one of his most welcoming and warmest songs.
Listen: “It’s All Too Much”
The Inner Light
Harrison covers similar thematic ground on this song, the B-side to The Beatles’ 1968 single “Lady Madonna”. This time, the sound is stripped back and primarily played on a sarod (an Indian lute), instead of the vast (wonder)wall of sound that we hear on “It’s All Too Much”.
Effectively, this is a Harrison solo track with the help of Indian musicians, and with his bandmates only making a cameo appearance in the (sublime!) three-part harmony vocal on the final line. For all of the songs he would write to communicate his spiritual values, this one is among his most concise and affecting, not to mention timeless.
Listen: “The Inner Light”
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
This highlight from 1968’s The Beatles (aka The White Album) is one of Harrison’s many inside-looking-out songs, a plea to listeners to consider deeper meaning and enter into a world beyond the material. His voice is the best thing about this track, Eric Clapton’s lead guitar included, as he goes outside of his comfort zone as a singer to get across lyrics in a way he’d never done before.
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” has become one of his most recognized compositions, more recently celebrated during Harrison’s posthumous Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2004 in which Prince absolutely shreds on the outgoing solo while former Harrison bandmates in the Travelling Wilburys Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne look on.
Listen: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
Long, Long, Long
One of the elements that make The White Album so influential is the presence of in-between songs — like little hallways in a house that lead to or away from larger sonic rooms. Harrison’s “Long Long Long” is one of the best of these — sparingly arranged with acoustic guitar, organ, a smattering of piano, and Ringo’s heavy drums. The latter provides intriguing contrast to George’s hushed, after-hours whisper of a vocal.
“Long Long Long” is about reconnection, personal devotion, and one that’s open-ended enough to be broadly applied, written during the band’s time in Rishikesh with Maharishi. That period found Harrison with an acoustic guitar in his hands again after time spent away with the sitar. In this, it’s a return and an expression of devotion in another sense.
Listen: “Long Long Long”
Something
“Something” is the sound of George Harrison levelling up as a writer, with lyrics that are as marked by doubts as they are by declarations of love. That emotional complexity would be enough to make it great. The clean lines of Harrison’s guitar raise it into the stratosphere, coupled with McCartney’s countermelodic bassline. The solo is one of his finest, showing his consistency as a relaxed player who makes simple lines into gloriously singable melodies as much as the vocal parts.
Artists from Frank Sinatra, to Elvis Presley, to James Brown, to Ray Charles have covered it, acknowledging its quality. And like “Long Long Long”, “Something” is designed to be broadly applied, assumed at the time to be written for his wife Pattie Boyd, yet also with the divine in mind.
Listen: “Something”
Here Comes the Sun
Famously written wandering around Eric Clapton’s backyard while playing hooky from meetings at Apple Corps, “Here Comes the Sun” is Harrison’s beaming expression of hopefulness and acknowledgement of renewal and change after a long, cold, lonely winter. It’s marked by sunny acoustic guitar contrasted with Moog synthesizer, and enhanced by George Martin’s detailed string arrangement. Those textures match the theme of moving on to bigger and better things.
“Here Comes the Sun” uniquely captures the optimism of the band and what they helped represent for an entire generation. Additionally, of all the songs on 1969’s Abbey Road, “Here Comes the Sun” is the most sonically forward-looking, and one that shows what The Beatles might have sounded like in the 1970s.
Listen: “Here Comes the Sun”
All Things Must Pass
Dating back at least as early as the Get Back sessions and notable in the form of a ghostly demo cut on his 26th birthday in February of 1969, “All Things Must Pass” provided a succinct title to Harrison’s breakout triple-disc solo record, released in November of 1970. Producer Phil Spector and a cast of all-star musicians help Harrison turn it into an epic-scaled anthem of stately brass and a perhaps expected wall of sound.
This is a song that expounds on the temporary nature of our lives and that of everything around us. It’s about valuing life in the present while knowing that things as they are won’t be around forever. Harrison delivers this in a comforting and grounded way, particularly writ large in a post-Beatles world.
Listen: “All Things Must Pass”
Beware of Darkness
A relatively recent song by the time he came to record All Things Must Pass, Harrison wasn’t out of the woods yet as far as legal wrangling, management troubles, and personal friction with his former bandmates. As such, “Beware of Darkness” can be interpreted as a reminder to himself about staying his course, and not being distracted by illusory paths to keep him from becoming who he needs to be in the middle of fraught times and petty intrigues.
Musically, it’s sombre and restrained, and reveals Harrison’s capacity to communicate as much with emotive vocal phrasing as with the directness of his lyrics. Overall, this is the voice of experience trying to avoid being waylaid from his path, a relatable state of being whether you have an Allen Klein in your life or not.
Listen: “Beware of Darkness”
What is Life
A huge international hit that’s since been heard on several movie soundtracks, “What is Life” sounds like a callback to Harrison’s early days as a part of a pure pop landscape. This one is a Beatles-meets-Motown confection, hinting at that same open-ended dynamic of love of another/love of the divine. It certainly demonstrates that his instinctive feel for making accessible electric guitar-based pop music, that skill still very much intact by 1970.
The fantastically fuzz-toned descending figure of a central riff is one of Harrison’s most recognizable and highly effective in the “getting in your head” stakes. Considering his role in The Beatles, that’s certainly saying something.
Listen: “What is Life”
Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)
This song from 1973’s Living in the Material World, a number one hit, is a potent and personal statement on a few of fronts. First, the lyrics to “Give Me Love” provide a clear manifesto for the artist, a plea from a spiritual seeker who finds himself in a hostile world. Second, it reveals his enduring sense of optimism. Third, the song features a prime instance of George Harrison’s now-signature clean and languid slide guitar sound that would become a trademark of his post-Beatles years.
In this, “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” is decidedly solo-Harrison. It’s a measure of the kind of sound he’d created for himself as a singular artist outside of the fab foursome of which he once was a part.
Listen: “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)”
Dark Horse
After the dissolution of his marriage to Pattie Boyd, Harrison entered into what he described as his “naughty period” in which he regularly overindulged himself. At the same time, he was very busy launching 1974’s Dark Horse album, the label of the same name, and embarking on the accompanying world tour. This period found Harrison’s voice as a gravelly, and not-very-Beatle-George-sounding instrument — the result of laryngitis and physical exhaustion.
That change in voice only accentuates the darker mood of this song. Normally very centred as a narrator in his own material, “Dark Horse” finds Harrison angry, defensive, and with something to prove to his detractors. Yet, it also reflects a kind of appealing and hard-edged drive to go along with his wonderful compositional sense that adds dimension to what he was always capable of delivering.
Listen: “Dark Horse”
This Song
By the mid-Seventies, George Harrison had spent way too much time in court. The My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine copyright case in 1976 found George unconsciously borrowing the melody from The Chiffon’s 1962 hit. “This Song” from the Thirty-Three and a Third album that same year was his lighthearted and even irreverent response to a serious legal matter with an accompanying video that’s cheekily set in a courtroom.
That lightness of tone, coupled with a loose and celebratory rock n’ soul feel, only makes this song more of a bop. It showcases Harrison’s flair for catchy pop tunes, this time with Monty Python member Eric Idle’s vocal interjections helping dial up the humour factor. All that makes this cut one of Harrison’s most appealing singles while expanding on the idea of a song as something to be enjoyed, not fought over.
Listen: “This Song”
Blow Away
A highlight on 1979’s self-titled album, “Blow Away” is a positive, wistful reflection on many of the themes he’d set down in other songs. The clean, melancholic slide part is one of the finest examples of his skill with that particular texture, couched in smooth, even restful production. The lyrics are about focusing on what’s important in the present, all the while with an understanding that everything in the world is temporary — even pain and trials.
One of his most life-affirming songs, “Blow Away” is the sound of a happy man in a new phase of life, and far from where he’d been at the beginning of the decade. It’s an evolution for Harrison on the songwriting front, with his some-time propensity for sermonizing gone as he offers his thoughts on a moment of personal realization instead.
Listen: “Blow Away”
All Those Years Ago
Imagining what the devastation of John Lennon’s murder must have felt like for George Harrison isn’t an easy thing to assess. But 1981’s “All Those Years Ago” is a celebration of the man as George knew him, instead of a lament on what was lost. In this, the song lends a certain perspective, while presenting another example of George’s distinct melodic sense with his signature breezy and relaxed vibe.
Paul and Ringo join George as backing vocalists on this cut, with the latter also providing the backbeat — the closest thing audiences would get to a Beatles reunion until “Free as a Bird” in 1995. The overriding emotion here is one of affection rather than sorrow or rage, delivered in one of Harrison’s warmest singles that was very welcome on the radio at the time after a such a harrowing loss.
Listen: “All Those Years Ago”
When We Was Fab
Working with Jeff Lynne on his 1987 album Cloud Nine, George found himself with the perfect person to work up this song that overtly references The Beatles’ 1967 sound. For years, Lynne had used it to inform his template for ELO. George spent an entire career moving away from it. Between them on this occasion, George leans in with vigour and palpable affection. With some distance and water under the bridge, and like “All Those Years Ago”, the emotional content here is all about that.
This time, there’s more than just a dash of self-referential humour. Characterized by Ringo’s distinctive drumming, a George Martin-style cello part, and with a very Eastern outro, Harrison does the Beatles justice on “When We Was Fab”. Perhaps predictably, it was a hit in an era after a 20-year span from Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour which upped the affection stakes even more.
Listen: “When We Was Fab”
Handle with Care
A loose co-write built on an existing Harrison song between fellow Travelling Wilburys, this cut was originally meant as a B-side to a George Harrison solo single in Europe. Yet the effusive joy found here was obvious even to those who contributed to it, inspiring a whole album — Travelling Wilburys, Vol. 1 — created between five master songwriters who had all seen their fair share of tribulations as music industry survivors.
“Handle With Care” is candid and emotionally direct, yet also lighthearted in tone to make this song one of Harrison’s most self-revealing songs. Like the singles from Cloud Nine, “Handle with Care” was a welcome radio hit in 1988, this time from a band of songwriters that music fans were thrilled to hear sing together with such casual joy. In this, that sense of Harrison-style optimism and subtle humour permeates the whole, resonant even today.
Listen: “Handle with Care”
Rising Sun
By the end of the Nineties and into the 21st century, George knew that he had to put his house in order due to his cancer diagnosis. One of the things he had to take care of was his follow up to Cloud Nine, which he’d been working at piecemeal for years. His son Dhani and friend Jeff Lynne helped bring it together, finishing it up, and putting it out after George died as 2002’s Brainwashed.
In that context, “Rising Sun” is a final statement of perspective on his life, of the sources of meaning to him, and serving as a song of comfort to his fans as we listen. It’s full of signature Harrison guitar-and-ukelele strum with Beatlesque cello and sounding like a coda to some of the things George had been telling us all along — there’s lots to distract us in a world of absurdity, but focusing on what’s important and meaningful in the now will help get us through every time.
Listen: “Rising Sun”
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Runners up and bubbling under:
- I Need You
- Love You To
- Piggies
- Savoy Truffle
- Old Brown Shoe
- For You Blue
- My Sweet Lord
- Isn’t It a Pity?
- Let it Down
- Behind That Locked Door
- Run of the Mill
- Wah-Wah
- I’d Have You Anytime
- Sue Me, Sue You Blues
- Be Here Now
- This Guitar (Can’t Keep from Crying)
- Crackerbox Palace
- Here Comes the Moon
- Life Itself
- This is Love
- Cheer Down
- Any Road
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George Harrison managed at least two near-impossible feats in his life as a songwriter. He managed to carve out a significant place for himself in the biggest band in the world and between two other songwriting giants. Then, he grew past that band to make great music on his own. Along the way, he provided personal insights that span from the earnest to the wonderfully whimsical in a singular body of work.
The takeaway is how much affection he built into his songs — affection in the way he created it, but also in the way he presented it to his audience. Harrison did what all songwriters seek to do, which is to bring clarity to what’s common between artist and listener. While doing so, he revealed himself, too. For one labelled as the Quiet One, and one known for being very private otherwise, that was perhaps something unexpected. But in the end, The Dark Horse won.
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Learn more about George Harrison at georgeharrison.com
For stories about George, and images too, from a wide spectrum of authoritative sources, check out The Harrison Archive on Instagram.
Of course, there’s always thebeatles.com, too
