George Harrison Realizes It's Time to Move On From the Beatles
In The Beatles Anthology, George Harrison recalled, "There used to be a situation where we'd go in (as we did when we were kids), pick up our guitars, all learn the tune and chords and start talking about arrangements. But there came a time ... when Paul [McCartney] had fixed an idea in his brain as to how to record one of his songs ... It was taken to the most ridiculous situations, where I'd open my guitar case and go to get my guitar out and he'd say, 'No, no, we're not doing that yet.' ... It got so there was very little to do, other than sit around and hear him going, 'Fixing a hole ...' with Ringo [Starr] keeping the time."
John Lennon would allow Harrison to weave guitar hooks into his compositions, but McCartney would sometimes remove Harrison's guitar solos on songs like "Another Girl," "Penny Lane," and "Hello, Goodbye." Throughout the Seventies, guitarists for Wings would quit after realizing they would have almost zero input on what they played or did not play. Which is fine; McCartney's a musical genius and should be able to hire who he wants to do what he wants. But Harrison didn't need or want to be a faceless session man getting paid on the clock.
Harrison was also losing Lennon, the big brother/mentor with whom he had gone through every phase from rockabilly to acid – to Yoko Ono. Lennon recounted to Rolling Stone magazine, "And George, shit, insulted her right to her face in the Apple office at the beginning; just being 'straight forward' you know, that game of 'Well, I'm going to be upfront because this is what we've heard and Dylan and a few people said she's got a lousy name in New York, and you gave off bad vibes.' That's what George said to her and we both sat through it, and I didn't hit him. I don't know why."
By: Andrew Grant Jackson
Source: Rolling Stone
