Harrison-Starr's contributions to songs | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I remember George mentioning in an interview that he also contributed some lyrics to Come Together – though I’m not sure which ones, and he came up with the title “Sexy Sadie “.

Here are some of the things George has contributed:

“I had the idea, the title, had a couple of verses and the basic idea for it, then I took it to John to finish it off and we wrote the middle together. Which is nice: ‘Life is very short. There’s no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.’ Then it was George Harrison ’s idea to put the middle into waltz time, like a German waltz. That came on the session, it was one of the cases of the arrangement being done on the session.”

— Paul McCartney on “We Can Work It Out ”, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles

“However, once Beatlemania kicked in, it became unthinkable to replace any of the four. But, good as this was for Harrison’s and Starr’s places in the band, the increasing sophistication of the arrangements was overlooked in the celebrity frenzy that accompanied the group. One result was that Harrison’s musical skills were underestimated again. An example is the closing sixth chord for their epochal single “She Loves You ” – this harmonic sophistication was Harrison’s idea, but the kind of musical detail that was increasingly ignored in the media frenzy that began to report on the Beatles as a social phenomenon rather than a music group.”

— Simon Leng, While My Guitar Gently Weeps : The Music of George Harrison  pg. 13

“Lennon and Harrison’s pieces are guitar-led, and are collaborative efforts. McCartney’s, being the product of a more versatile musical mind, were largely based on piano foundations. And characteristically, Harrison’s role on Lennon’s songs is considerable – he developed the thrilling major-scale lead parts for “And Your Bird Can Sing ,” and can clearly be heard ‘finding the notes’ on the early take released on Anthology 2 . Then there were the backward guitar solos he painstakingly created for “I’m Only Sleeping,” a tune that arrived at Abbey Road with just acoustic guitar chords. Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions reports that the idea and execution of the parts for Lennon’s drowsy classic were entirely George’s. In an extraordinary act of dedication, Harrison worked for six hours first settling on a string of notes, then writing the sequence in reverse order and playing that part. And he double-tracked it. He also created a guitar coda tonally and rhythmically based on Indian forms. “I’m Only Sleeping” is a classic example of the massive influence Harrison had on arranging the band’s songs in this period.

Another key song on the album for George was “She Said She Said ,” created in the first Abbey Road session during which a Beatle offered a general ‘f**k you’ and stalked out. Perhaps surprisingly, this was Paul McCartney , who by his own account was dismayed that his input on the recording was minimal. The problem was that between them Lennon and Harrison had routined the tune, with Harrison helping Lennon fuse the ‘when I was a boy’ segment to the main verse to complete the song. It had started out a completely different piece, as Harrison later commented: ‘I was at his house one day and he was struggling with some tunes. He had loads of bits, maybe three songs that were unfinished, and I made suggestions and helped him to work them together so that they became one finished song.’

And in the studio the lead guitarist’s arranging skills were prominent in developing the song, which is driven and characterized by his powerful, distorted Gibson SG riffs. Harrison’s licks give a response to each line of Lennon’s vocal, providing a slightly different melodic twist while simultaneously offering rhythmic support with picked chords. In effect, George’s lead becomes a second voice – entirely apposite for a piece that is about the relationship between tellers and listeners. After all, “She Said She Said ” is a song about voices.”

— Simon Leng, While My Guitar Gently Weeps : The Music of George Harrison  pg. 21

“The best of the group’s collective abilities was found on “Tomorrow Never Knows ,” a work that gathered the skills and inspiration of the whole band. Supporting Lennon’s wonderous vocal are whirls of tape loops, telepathic bass-drum synergy from McCartney and Starr, and another precise backward guitar solo from Harrison. He also provided the first use of the classic Indian drone instrument, the tamboura, to the track – it introduces the song with a power it was not designed for in the Indian setting, but does underpin the philosophical substrata to the lyric.”

— Simon Leng, While My Guitar Gently Weeps : The Music of George Harrison  pg. 22

GW: When you came back from India, did you intentionally copy on guitar any of the techniques you learned there?
Harrison: When I got back from this incredible journey to India, we were about to do “Sgt. Pepper ‘s,” which I don’t remember much at all. I was into my own little world, and my ears were just all filled up with all this Indian music. So I wasn’t really into sitting there, thrashing through [sings nasally], “I’m Fixing A Hole …” Not that song, anyway. But if you listen to “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ,” you’ll hear me try and play the melody on guitar with John’s voice, which is what the instrumentalist does in Hindustani vocal music.

– Guitar World, 1992

Duke_of_Kirkcaldy said

bewareofchairs said 
 
“Lennon and Harrison’s pieces are guitar-led, and are collaborative efforts. McCartney’s, being the product of a more versatile musical mind, were largely based on piano foundations. And characteristically, Harrison’s role on Lennon’s songs is considerable – he developed the thrilling major-scale lead parts for “And Your Bird Can Sing ,” and can clearly be heard ‘finding the notes’ on the early take released on Anthology 2 . Then there were the backward guitar solos he painstakingly created for “I’m Only Sleeping,” a tune that arrived at Abbey Road with just acoustic guitar chords. Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions reports that the idea and execution of the parts for Lennon’s drowsy classic were entirely George’s. In an extraordinary act of dedication, Harrison worked for six hours first settling on a string of notes, then writing the sequence in reverse order and playing that part. And he double-tracked it. He also created a guitar coda tonally and rhythmically based on Indian forms. “I’m Only Sleeping” is a classic example of the massive influence Harrison had on arranging the band’s songs in this period.

Another key song on the album for George was “She Said She Said ,” created in the first Abbey Road session during which a Beatle offered a general ‘f**k you’ and stalked out. Perhaps surprisingly, this was Paul McCartney , who by his own account was dismayed that his input on the recording was minimal. The problem was that between them Lennon and Harrison had routined the tune, with Harrison helping Lennon fuse the ‘when I was a boy’ segment to the main verse to complete the song. It had started out a completely different piece, as Harrison later commented: ‘I was at his house one day and he was struggling with some tunes. He had loads of bits, maybe three songs that were unfinished, and I made suggestions and helped him to work them together so that they became one finished song.’

And in the studio the lead guitarist’s arranging skills were prominent in developing the song, which is driven and characterized by his powerful, distorted Gibson SG riffs. Harrison’s licks give a response to each line of Lennon’s vocal, providing a slightly different melodic twist while simultaneously offering rhythmic support with picked chords. In effect, George’s lead becomes a second voice – entirely apposite for a piece that is about the relationship between tellers and listeners. After all, “She Said She Said ” is a song about voices.”

— Simon Leng, While My Guitar Gently Weeps : The Music of George Harrison  pg. 21

“The best of the group’s collective abilities was found on “Tomorrow Never Knows ,” a work that gathered the skills and inspiration of the whole band. Supporting Lennon’s wonderous vocal are whirls of tape loops, telepathic bass-drum synergy from McCartney and Starr, and another precise backward guitar solo from Harrison. He also provided the first use of the classic Indian drone instrument, the tamboura, to the track – it introduces the song with a power it was not designed for in the Indian setting, but does underpin the philosophical substrata to the lyric.”

— Simon Leng, While My Guitar Gently Weeps : The Music of George Harrison  pg. 22

GW: When you came back from India, did you intentionally copy on guitar any of the techniques you learned there?
Harrison: When I got back from this incredible journey to India, we were about to do “Sgt. Pepper ‘s,” which I don’t remember much at all. I was into my own little world, and my ears were just all filled up with all this Indian music. So I wasn’t really into sitting there, thrashing through [sings nasally], “I’m Fixing A Hole …” Not that song, anyway. But if you listen to “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ,” you’ll hear me try and play the melody on guitar with John’s voice, which is what the instrumentalist does in Hindustani vocal music.

– Guitar World, 1992

Comments like these sort of reinforce my sentiment that Revolver was their most genuinely collaborative and creative album.  Paul started asserting himself more on Sgt. Pepper , and by the White Album , they were mostly doing their own things and/or playing backing band to whomever’s song they were recording.

I would agree with that. I must admit, even though I’ve always liked Revolver , I didn’t think it was as great as a lot of other Beatles fans, but reading more about it has really made me appreciate how special it was.

Things like this also make me sad that John didn’t collaborate with George more throughout his career and never acknowledged how helpful he was (at least publicly).