The story of George Harrison’s place in the Beatles has been told as a story of quiet endurance — the youngest member, the least celebrated songwriter, the man who spent a decade being given two songs per album while Lennon and McCartney occupied the remaining twelve slots with the comfortable authority of men who had never been asked to question their own dominance. What gets told less often is the specific friction that existed between Harrison and Lennon — not the warm creative rivalry that the mythology prefers, but something sharper and more territorial, the friction of a man who recognized talent in someone he had decided was subordinate and found that recognition inconvenient.
Lennon’s habit of minimizing Harrison’s contributions is documented across multiple sources — in interviews, in the accounts of people who were in the studio during the recording sessions, in Harrison’s own memoir I, Me, Mine, which was written partly as a corrective to a narrative that had consistently undervalued him. What is less discussed are the specific moments when Lennon attempted to claim credit for Harrison’s work — directly or by omission — and was contradicted by the evidence.
1. Something (1969) Lennon introduced Something at concerts in 1969 as a Lennon-McCartney composition. It is not. It is entirely Harrison’s — written by Harrison, presented by Harrison to the band, recorded with Harrison’s specific vision for the arrangement. The misattribution was not always accidental. Lennon moved through the world with the assumption that things that were good were, in some general sense, connected to him. Harrison corrected the record, quietly and repeatedly, for the rest of his life.
2. While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968) Lennon later claimed in interviews that he had contributed significantly to the writing of this song — a claim that McCartney, significantly, did not support, and that the recording history does not fully substantiate. Harrison brought the song to the band fully formed. The other Beatles were initially unenthusiastic, which is why Harrison invited Eric Clapton to play the lead guitar — a deliberate move to introduce a presence whose authority could not be casually dismissed. The song exists because Harrison insisted on it against indifference from the people who later claimed proximity to its creation.
3. Here Comes the Sun (1969) Written entirely by Harrison, in Eric Clapton’s garden, on a morning when he had chosen not to attend a particularly tense Apple Corps business meeting. Lennon contributed nothing to the song and made no public claim to have done so — but the broader pattern of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting credit system meant that for years Here Comes the Sun was catalogued and marketed in ways that subordinated Harrison’s authorship to the partnership brand. Harrison had to spend years actively asserting ownership of his own most beloved composition.
4. All Things Must Pass (1970) Harrison had written this song and presented it to the Beatles for consideration during the Let It Be sessions in January 1969. It was rejected — not cruelly, but dismissively, in the casual way that things are rejected by people who have not understood what they are looking at. Harrison recorded it himself the same year the Beatles broke up and released it as the opening statement of the album that became the most celebrated solo work any Beatle produced. Lennon, asked about All Things Must Pass in later interviews, said it was a great album. He did not acknowledge the specific irony of a song the Beatles had rejected becoming the defining statement of Harrison’s solo career.
5. My Sweet Lord (1970) The first number one single by a former Beatle, and the song that prompted a plagiarism lawsuit that Harrison lost — the court finding that it bore too close a resemblance to the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine. What is relevant here is not the lawsuit but Lennon’s response to the song’s success. He made comments suggesting the plagiarism was characteristic of Harrison’s compositional method — implying a derivative quality that the evidence of Harrison’s catalog does not support. Harrison, who had spent twenty years in Lennon’s orbit being made to feel smaller than he was, responded with the patience of a man who had decided that the music was the argument and the music was winning.
Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001. His last coherent words, spoken to the people around him, were about love and gratitude. He did not mention Lennon. He didn’t need to. The songs had already said everything that needed saying.