This is Love: The George Harrison Club for Fiendish Thingies | Page 34 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

After a little search I found some information about that poem/lyrics on this blog (which is great, btw). According to Hunter Davies it was written when he was a teenager and it may be about John.

I sent a copy to Pattie Boyd, who was married to George at the time. She agreed it was George’s handwriting, and sounded like him, but she had no knowledge of it. I also sent it to Olivia, his widow, and to Paul McCartney , but neither had seen it before. I said in the book that I thought it sounded like typical teenage angst, written perhaps when George was in his late teens or early 20s, after some girl done him wrong. It’s interesting now, after all these years, as it shows that George was writing away creatively, if privately, from an early age, long before he was allowed, or had enough confidence, to contribute his own songs to Beatles albums.

Last week, I handed it over to the British Library, where it has joined the 10 or so other handwritten lyrics by John and Paul on display in the manuscript room, next to Magna Carta, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Wordsworth, Austen. It’s not there on any great poetic or musical merits, but because it is the only example the BL has of a manuscript in George’s hand. I presumed, as people studied it in the BL, or read the words in the book, that eventually some late-middle-aged woman would come forward and say “It was me, I’m the girl in George’s poem”. But I’ve now had second thoughts. I’ve decided that it’s not about a girl, but a boy. And that boy was John Lennon .

When George first joined the Quarrymen – the precursor of the Beatles – in 1958, he was just 15, possibly only 14 (no one knows the exact date), the youngest and least mature member of the skiffle group. He idolised John. John was the macho, dominant, strutting leader. George the callow boy. We all know John could be cruel, as he boasted later about his awful behaviour, making fun of cripples, drawing sick cartoons, saying horrible things. He clearly caused pain to many people who loved him – girls especially, but presumably also to George and perhaps even to Paul, his so-called best friends.

George had been invited into the group and eventually became greatly admired. Despite his tender years, he was an excellent guitarist, far better than John, who was probably quite jealous of his instrumental skills as well as his hard work and determination to improve them – something John could not always be bothered with.

The first six lines of George’s poem can therefore be read as referring to John. As for the last two lines, this could be George thinking, as many people did at the time, that John, for all his obvious originality, wouldn’t get anywhere in life – he’d muck around, end up dossing like his father Fred had done. John himself feared he hadn’t a hope of getting a normal job or earning a living. If, however, my revised interpretation of the poem is correct, then George was one person who did have faith in John.” – Hunter Davies