What would the band have been without George? | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

This is an interesting question. Paul and John to a large degree didn’t realise how lucky they were in having George a player who selflessly gave himself to their songs and made such key contributions to the bands work. But his personality was key too, in taking a back seat to the Lennon/mccartney thing. Why didnt they appreciate him more ?  They never appreciated him enough for a variety of reasons I think. His youth, his lack of assertiveness and probably because they were working in the era of the 60s guitar gods and possibly felt a bit frustrated at times with him. The Beatles as a band would have been horrible with a virtuoso like Clapton involved though. Georges tasteful playing was far more appropriate, not to mention how well his vocals fitted in the groups arrangements.

His contribution was huge, its just a shame that Lennon and Mccartney couldn’t give him the approval as a peer he so desperately wanted from them (particularly Paul). In its own way it led to the break up of the band because he never, ever  got over it. Although Paul supported his songwriting musically he never really gave him what he needed as a guitarist or a songwriter and if he had I’m sure George would have fought harder to keep the group together. 

Ironically this forced him towards John in the breakup of the band and someone who was so self absorbed that they would never give George what he needed. He obviously felt in the early 70s that he would work more with John and prove to Paul that he could play well without him around. And on ‘how do you sleep’ he certainly proved that, but he learned pretty soon that John really didn’t care about him as an artist. It was incredibly painful for him and something that John regretted later on but didn’t really know how to fix. 

I feel really sorry for George, in a lot of ways he went through the same pain and humiliation twice,  But he really WAS important to the groups sound, especially pre 1966. After that point Paul could do it all himself and John became less and less accessible. He became a prisoner really, as he realised after the ‘White Album ‘. Paul paid special attention to him during ‘Abbey Road ‘ to try and make some amends but by then it was too late.

You can see in parts of ‘anthology’ that he’d never really gotten over it, but in a way he was the architect of his own downfall.