By the end of the 1960s, George Harrison was fed up with Paul McCartney and John Lennon for overlooking his contributions to The Beatles. Tensions among the group members were high, and they fought often. In their early days as a group, they still argued, but over far more trivial matters. McCartney said that he and Harrison bickered the most frequently.
Paul McCartney and George Harrison met on the bus
McCartney and Harrison met as students at the Liverpool Institute. McCartney was in a grade above Harrison, but they lived near each other and rode the same bus to school. They bonded over a love of music.
“Paul came round to my house one evening to look at the guitar manual I had, which I could never work out,” Harrison said, per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “It was still in the cupboard. We learned a couple of chords from it and managed to play ‘Don’t You Rock Me Daddy O’ with two chords. We just used to play on our own, not in any group, just listening to each other and pinching anything from any other lad who could do better.”
After McCartney’s family moved further away, he continued to meet up with Harrison. Later, he championed for Harrison to join The Quarrymen, Lennon’s band.
They bickered the most frequently in the band’s early days
In 1960, The Beatles traveled to Hamburg to play a residency in the city. Though bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe was often the target of the band’s jokes, many of the arguments were between McCartney and Harrison. The fights were primarily over trivial matters, like who would drive the group home from a show.
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“This sort of bickering was usually between me and George as we were about the same age,” McCartney said. “John was older and the natural leader. George and I were very b****y, arguing about who would drive. I’d rush to get the keys and get in the driving seat first. George would get in and say, ‘Heh, I thought I was driving. You drove last night.’ I would say, ‘Well, you’re not, are you?’”
Paul McCartney said it was hard for him to view George Harrison as a grown up
McCartney and Harrison’s relationship became less friendly in the final years of The Beatles. McCartney admitted he had difficulty thinking of Harrison as an adult because they’d met when they were so young.
“I tended to talk down to him because he was a year younger,” McCartney said, per the book George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson. “I know now that that was a failing I had all through The Beatles years. If you’ve known a guy when he’s 13 and you’re 14, it’s hard to think of him as a grown up.”
They fought in The Beatles years, but McCartney maintains fond memories of Harrison. He still feels that Harrison has a presence in his life.
“George was very into horticulture, a really good gardener,” McCartney told NPR in 2020. “So he gave me a tree as a present: It’s a big fir tree, and it’s by my gate. As I was leaving my house this morning, I get out of the car, close the gate and look up at the tree and say, ‘Hi, George.’ There he is, growing strongly. And you know, that takes me back to the time when I hitchhiked with him! They’re an ever-present presence, if that’s a way to say.”
