Ranking Every George Harrison Top 40 Song
Even as his early creative peak, George Harrison would typically be given two slots to fill on Beatles albums. That tends to happen when your bandmates are named John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
The Beatles split in 1970 and Harrison quite understandably began his solo career with a backlog of great songs. He came roaring onto the charts: Every single Harrison issued over the first five years of his solo career reached the Billboard Top 40 – and two of them hit No. 1.
He'd add four more Top 40 hits, including another No. 1 hit, before taking a break from music in the early-'80s. Then, as before, Harrison returned with a clutch of great songs in the early '00s. How George Harrison Staged a Remarkable Comeback.
Harrison would score the most recent solo Beatles U.S. No. 1 song during a period of late-'80s rebirth. He almost cracked the Top 20 twice with two other singles in this same era – and then was halted just outside the U.K. Top 40 with 1990's "Nobody's Child" with the Traveling Wilburys.
There were some strange anomalies, too. Harrison scored a hit in his native U.K. with the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care," but the single only reached No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their follow-up single, the then-ubiquitous "End of the Line," somehow stalled at No. 63 on the main charts – and got no further than No. 52 in the U.K. (Both were No. 2 smash singles on Billboard's mainstream rock chart.)
As with his former bandmate Lennon, Harrison's music would revisit the top of the charts in the wake of his too-early death. A reworked version of his first-ever chart-topping smash soared to No. 1 again in the U.K. amid mourning after Harrison lost a battle with cancer.
Source: ksenam.com/Nick DeRiso
