(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / George Harrison)
Thu 22 January 2026 17:30, UK
“You know, they say in this life, you have to perfect one human relationship in order to really love God. You practice loving God by loving another human, and by giving unconditional love,” Olivia Harrison once said, a belief that her husband, George Harrison, lived by too, and really, if there was one relationship in his life that summarised his view on it all, it was arguably the one he shared with Bob Dylan.
Throughout his career, Harrison had a lot of incredibly close and collaborative relationships. There were his Beatles bandmates, his complex connection with his best friend, turned rival, turned friend again, Eric Clapton, there was the closeness he shared with Brian Epstein, his band’s manager, and then there were his new bandmates in the Traveling Wilburys. Obviously, on top of that, there were romantic connections, including Olivia and his ex-wife, Pattie Boyd, but there was always something special and tender about one association of his, and that’s the one he shared with Dylan.
It wasn’t just that Dylan was once a hero, though. Sure, The Beatles idolised the American icon, and in the early 1960s, he seemed to show them the way, as after meeting the new folk leader, the band turned more in that direction, broadening their idea of rock and roll. But while John Lennon especially wound up having a tricky connection with artist, Harrison fell into his own relationship with him, one where Dylan always seemed to back him up.
“George got stuck with being the Beatle that had to fight to get songs on records because of Lennon and [Paul] McCartney,” Dylan said in 2007, reflecting on what he saw back in the ‘60s. Out of them all, his belief in Harrison was the strongest, stating, “If George had had his own group and was writing his own songs back then, he’d have been probably just as big as anybody”.
So during the band’s breakdown, Dylan stepped in; if there was one person who made sure the Harrison solo career happened, it was arguably him, as the artist didn’t just encourage him, but wrote with him, guided him, and introduced him to people.
Harrison’s friendship with Dylan, and their late 1960s jam sessions, were really the spark of All Things Must Pass, not only providing him with inspiration, but making him see that he could, and would, be fine without The Beatles, reassuring him that he could be great on his own.
During one of those early jams, a song in the shape of ‘I’d Have You Anytime’ was formed. Written back in 1968 when the pair first spent some real quality time together as friends, jamming at Dylan’s Woodstock home, the track is a beautiful love tune on the surface, but really, it’s their love song for one another.
“‘Let me in here, I know I’ve been here, let me into your heart’. He was talking directly to Bob,” Olivia Harrison said, and from conversations she’d had with her husband, it always seemed to her that this was Harrison asking his friend to open up to him, or cherishing the closeness they found.
“He was very unabashed and romantic about it, in a sense,” his wife added, and that’s just how Harrison was. “He had these love relationships with his friends. He loved them,” she added, with Dylan being a key player in his heart.
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