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George Harrison claimed he didn’t understand how so many different nationalities around the world knew and liked The Beatles. Every time he and his band traveled to a new place, George thought no one would know who they were. He was deeply mistaken.
George Harrison had contradicting views on The Beatles
Throughout most of his life, George made contradictory statements about The Beatles. On the one hand, he thought they were innovative and a cultural phenomenon. At the same time, he didn’t think their music was that good. He sometimes even called his own songs average. To him, it was questionable if any of The Beatles’ songs would’ve been hits if any other band had recorded them.
If George believed The Beatles were only OK, despite their cultural impact, he would never understand why fans harped on about them and wanted them to continue.
“I realize that the Beatles did fill a space in the sixties,” George said during a press conference (per Joshua M. Greene’s Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison). “All the people that the Beatles meant something to have grown up and want to hold on to something. People are afraid of change, but you can’t live in the past.”
Greene wrote, “If the life of a Beatle had taught him anything it was that masses of people could obsess over a mental image. The Beatles may have been a great rock band, but they came nowhere near justifying the messianic plateau fans accorded them.”
George even doubted his band’s abilities while they were globe-trotting throughout Beatlemania.
George was surprised so many nationalities liked The Beatles
During an interview after his 1991 Japanese tour, George explained that he couldn’t believe there were so many different nationalities of people who liked The Beatles.
He said, “It’s been 25 years since ‘Sgt. Pepper.’ … I don’t really think about it; I’m kind of detached from it now, you know? I don’t think they were all they were cracked up to be, really [Laughs].
“No, I think it’s wonderful, really, that people like them. They wrote some great tunes, we did some great tunes, and we said some good things. We tried to be nice and influence people, maybe not always to the best things, but basically, I think they could’ve had a lot worse, well they have now; look what’s around nowadays.
“So, I think The Beatles was a good thing. I can’t understand why so many people liked it and so many nationalities. I mean, we used to look for places on the planet where you’d think they wouldn’t have heard of The Beatles.
“I remember going to India in 1965 thinking, ‘Oh, great, this is gonna be good.’ And as soon as we got off the plane, there was all these brown faces all chanting, ‘Beatles, Beatles!’”
The spiritual Beatle said the band ‘blanketed everything’
During an interview (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews And Encounters) with his former sister-in-law, Dr. Jenny Boyd, George claimed so many people loved The Beatles because they became part of a collective unconscious.
“I thought it was pretty strange why we made the enormous impact that we did—or have still,” he said. “It’s strange how the chemistry between the four of us made this big thing that went right through the world. There wasn’t any country in the world, even the most obscure places, that didn’t know about the Beatles from grandparents to babies. It just blanketed everything, and that amazed me more than anything.
“We always felt that if we could get the right record contract, we’d be successful. But our tiny little concept of success that we had at the time was nothing compared to what happened. It was just enormous. It does make one think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
Even Eric Clapton was initially skeptical of what The Beatles were trying to do the first time he saw them. They acted as if they were one person, a phenomenon.
Whatever George thought about The Beatles’ music, he couldn’t deny that they made a massive impact on culture. There are a million reasons why they struck a chord with the world.
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