Analysis: Life goes on without George

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- For many music fans, perhaps even for some Beatles fans, The Beatles were more or less synonymous with the writing team of Lennon-McCartney, but as great as their songs were, one wonders how the records would have sounded without George Harrison's guitar accompaniment.

Try to imagine "Day Tripper," for example, without the guitar intro -- a bit of music that pulled off the neat trick of being fresh and new, yet also sounding familiar on first listening. Or try, in your mind's ear so to speak, to hear "I Saw Her Standing There" without Harrison's smooth guitar fills and smart solo between the third verse and the second chorus.

It's true that John Lennon, and even Paul McCartney on occasion, did some of the lead guitar work on Beatles recordings. But it was Harrison who handled the heavy lifting from the beginning, providing just about an ideal complement to Lennon's rhythm guitar, McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's drums.

It's interesting to note that the one Beatles record specifically about the guitar -- "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- features Eric Clapton, not Harrison, on lead guitar. By that point in the development of rock and roll, the notion of one lead guitarist per band was dissolving, along with so many other pop music conventions that rock turned upside down in the 1960s.

Their individual and collective musical progress led the Beatles to a point where Harrison, Lennon and McCartney traded solos on "The End" ("Abbey Road") -- demonstrating masterful proficiency all around and, perhaps not incidentally, seeming to provide physical evidence of the competitive drive that led to the breakup.

As influential as Harrison's musicianship was -- for the band as well as for rock and roll in general -- his songwriting eventually took its own place as an important part of The Beatles' impact on Western culture.

Widely regarded as "the quiet one," Harrison actually had quite a lot to say -- largely as a result of a contemplative nature that left him open to consider the serious issues of life and death, even as he partook of the wild ride of Beatlemania.

From the start of their legendary recording career, The Beatles mainly recorded Lennon-McCartney tunes, allowing Harrison one or two cuts per album.

Some of his earliest cuts -- such as "Don't Bother Me" from the second album -- made clear that he was a man with a low tolerance for supercilious behavior. Even "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" -- a sweet love song in its way -- was about recognizing, and then sorting out, priorities.

Perhaps grudgingly, Harrison accepted the limitations placed on his ability to get cuts on Beatles albums.

"As he said himself," said Boomtown Rats leader Bon Geldof in an interview with BBC Radio, "how do you compare with the genius of John and Paul? But he did, very well."

Geldof said Harrison's standard of songwriting was "incomparably better than most other contemporaries anyway."

Harrison applied high standards as well to what is arguably the most important job on an artist's agenda -- developing and then expressing a coherent point of view. Even his guitar solos seemed to come to a point.

More than Lennon and McCartney, Harrison used his work to explore the Eastern spirituality that the band experienced in its encounter with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

"Within You, Without You" from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" expressed something of the essence of Harrison's philosophy.

"Life goes on within you and without you," he wrote.

When The Beatles became so famous they could scarcely go out for fresh air without causing a public scene, Harrison understood how small they were in the great scheme of things.

For Harrison's fans, "Within You, Without You" was one of the high points of the "Sgt. Pepper" album -- revealing a way of looking at life that offered a sense of emotional equilibrium and freedom from stress that came in pretty handy in a world struggling to cope with what often seemed like an unmanageably rapid rate of change.

His biggest commercial success was the dreamy love song, "Something," from "Abbey Road." On the surface it was a conventional love ballad, but at its core it was another expression of the value Harrison placed on peace of mind.

Harrison was 58 when he died Thursday at the private home of a friend in Los Angeles. His wife, Olivia Harrison, and their 24-year-old son, Dhani, were with him.

"He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death, and at peace, surrounded by family and friends," said the Harrison family in a prepared statement. "He often said, 'Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, and love one another.'"