In a striking statement, George Harrison stood firm: he’d only play if John Lennon was there. He saw Lennon as The Beatles’ big brother, making it plain he clicked better with John than Paul McCartney.
“I’d join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn’t join a band with Paul McCartney, but that’s nothing personal. It’s just from a musical point of view,” Harrison told The Mirror. Despite their differences, Harrison, Lennon, and McCartney collaborated to create many hits.
As kids, Lennon and McCartney faced hard times. Paul’s mom died when he turned 14. Three years later, John lost his mother in a crash. This shared pain brought them close.
Writer Ian Leslie, who studied their work, said, “When they met, they were teenagers, both of them very emotionally intense and both of them had had difficult childhoods in different ways, but in one particular way. They both lost their mothers at a young age,” he told The Mirror. He also said that music was a vital outlet for Lennon and McCartney, and it let them channel pain, loneliness, and joy into their songwriting.
The band split in 1970 after McCartney walked away. John wrote the biting “How Do You Sleep?,” and Paul shot back with “Too Many People.”
Back then, men kept quiet about their feelings, Leslie added. Neither star ever tried therapy or counseling to work through their issues.
Harrison’s words hint at deep splits in the group’s musical vision. “John has gone through his scene, but it feels to me like he’s come around, and we’re all at the point,” he said of Lennon’s direction.
