(Credits: Far Out / TIDAL / George Martin)
Sat 1 November 2025 16:30, UK
It was wrong to consider George Martin as the fifth Beatle. Yes, he may have been at their side through it all, but that role was more like a father than a friend.
As the older, wiser one, it was Martin’s duty to nurture the talent under his wing and protect them from the trials and tribulations of the world. Whether he did that latter part all that successfully is up for deliberation, because admittedly, this would have been an impossible task for anyone to achieve, given how manic things became. It was probably a wise choice to somewhat put the blinkers on and simply focus on the music.
Within this, perhaps unintentionally, Martin’s influence did progressively become more and more like a parent, so long as that parent allowed their kids to take hallucinogenics and push their identities to the very limit of experimentation. While you could hardly say he reined them back down to Earth, he was the one responsible for honing the ultimate Beatles brand, harnessing their ideas, and making them shine like the stars they were.
But with this said, it’s the mark of a terrible guardian to admit they have favourites. That was the area in which Martin fell down significantly, as he was more than open about his preference for John Lennon and Paul McCartney, given that they were painted as the brains of the operation. As such, channelling all his energies into the songwriting prodigies of the group obviously reaped massive rewards – but it also left the second half of the group somewhat trailing behind.
Although it more or less worked out evenly in the end, this unequal imbalance of power that he undoubtedly perpetuated clearly weighed heavily on the mind of Martin as time wore on, particularly in terms of the guilt for leaving the quiet Beatle largely to his own devices. Of course, having to scrape together some sort of a compliment to account for the legacies of Ringo Starr and George Harrison, Martin later said: “They were part of the solidity that was the Beatles. Without them, it wouldn’t have worked. They were a quartet.”
That might seem like an obvious statement, but given Martin’s next admission, he clearly felt it was a sentiment that bore repeating. “Obviously they weren’t the main creators, although poor George, whom I neglected, I do confess, did emerge as really quite a songwriting talent. But they were both… George was much more than just the guitar player, he actually did contribute a tremendous amount to the thinking behind the songs and the influence of music, the Indian things that were brought in even as early as ‘Norwegian Wood’, that was George.”
Harrison had every right to be rubbing his hands together in smug delight at those words, because it was only too right that he deserved credit for everything he did, even if it arrived a little too late. He was a vital part of the band as well as a prolific songwriting talent, and even though his surname wasn’t Lennon or McCartney, his skill was the same and even greater than the ones who did. The only consolation was that Martin eventually realised that, admittedly long after the bird had flown.
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