As the most popular rock band in history, The Beatles are subject to plenty of scrutiny. To this day, people argue over whether the band was overrated or not. Frankly, such arguments are pointless since, whatever your opinion, the band wrote and recorded the right music at the right time in history, thus facilitating a cultural revolution like no other before or since. Indeed, Ringo Starr was not a virtuoso on the level of Ginger Baker, and George Harrison fell short of Eric Clapton’s innate virtuosity.
With the exception of Paul McCartney, who showed an impressive aptitude for several different instruments, The Beatles weren’t instrumental marvels. However, as a collective force, they were unstoppable, with an iconic aesthetic, amiable wit, harmonious vocals and a knack for progressive songwriting. Most bands would be lucky to have just one great songwriter; The Beatles had three class acts, and even Ringo Starr got stuck in from time to time.
In the art world, being unique is much more important than being virtuosic. Harrison was no Jimi Hendrix on lead, but his approach to the guitar as a songwriting contributor was hugely influential. Though Harrison primarily handled lead duties with The Beatles, he branched out to learn the sitar and showed a beautiful command of the acoustic rhythm guitar in his post-Beatles solo canon, especially in All Things Must Pass.
Over the years, countless eminent musicians have waxed lyrical regarding Harrison’s overlooked talent as a guitarist, including Cat Stevens, Brian May and Keith Richards. “The thing is, you’ve got your Jimi Hendrix, you’ve got your Eric Clapton, and then you’ve got guys who can play with bands,” Richards said. “George was a band and a team player.” The Rolling Stones guitarist continued enthusiastically, calling the former Beatle “a fucking craftsman” with regard to his songwriting capabilities.
Likewise, May idolised Harrison above all others in the late 1960s as he made his first moves in the industry. The Queen guitarist admired Harrison’s songwriting scope above all else and feels his instrumental talent has been harshly overlooked. “I love George, I love his playing,” he told The Express in 2022. “I hold George in such reverence and I think he’s so underrated by the guitar community. Everyone raves about people who play fast, but if you look at the catalogue of stuff he’s produced, it’s colossal.”
Despite the popularity of The Beatles, Harrison is something of a guitarist’s guitarist. Some of the nuances in Harrison’s playing style have captured the attention of fellow guitarists but have gone over the heads of those less technically minded. Speaking to Guitar World in 1992, Harrison suggested that his crucial identity mainly appeared after he began learning the sitar under the mentorship of Ravi Shankar.
Not only did the sitar’s demanding fretboard alter Harrison’s physical approach to the guitar, but the droning harmonies of Indian classical music profoundly affected his subconscious. “Whatever you listen to has to come out in some ways or other,” Harrison mused. “I think Indian music influenced the inflexion of how I played, and certain things I play certainly have a feel similar to the Indian style.”
After discussing his unique approach to lead solos, which “were melodic runs, or counter melodies,” contrary to more conventional rock solos, Harrison noted one of his proudest moments on Revolver. In the song ‘I Want to Tell You’, Harrison brought some compositional nuances into play, including a strange, dissonant chord at the end of each line. The interviewer noted that it was the first time a musician had braved such an idea and that it has since become common in rock music.
Harrison identified the memorable punctuating chord as “an E7th with an F on the top,” which he played on the piano. “I’m really proud of that because I literally invented that chord,” he beamed. “The song was about the frustration we all feel about trying to communicate certain things with just words. I realised the chords I knew at the time just didn’t capture that feeling. So after I got the guitar riff, I experimented until I came up with this dissonant chord that really echoed that sense of frustration.”
Today, Revolver is frequently ranked as The Beatles’ overall masterpiece, thanks to its psychedelic edge, which was prescient of the coming wave. From the propulsive and conceptually resonant ‘Taxman’ to the avant-garde marvel ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, the record has inspired incalculable masses of subsequent artists and continues to do so to this day. Although Harrison’s idea of the dissonant chord has appeared in plenty of music over the past five decades, his specific invention has only resurfaced a couple of times.
Harrison noted that Lennon used the chord in ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ just after the line “It’s driving me mad”. “To my knowledge, there’s only been one other song where somebody copped that chord: ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ by The Pretenders”.