(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 8 October 2025 19:15, UK
If you were to assume that George Harrison‘s long fostered moniker of being ‘The Quiet Beatle’ was anything but a clever construct to keep a marketing ploy moving forward and hide an acerbic and scything wit, then you’d be dead wrong.
Harrison might well have been reserved in the face of the public, but when given the room to speak, his words were never anything but loud. He was a silver-tongued songwriter on the airwaves, and given the chance to talk about his favourite musicians, he was usually ready to throw in a compliment or two. But he also had a darker side when it came to his counterparts.
Harrison would, over time, be quite a tough customer when it came to what he did and didn’t like. It didn’t matter if you were his friend, like The Beatles were, if he didn’t like your music, he would tell you. One such musician who suffered at the hands of Harrison was none other than Elton John.
George Harrison and Elton John were friends who bonded over their shared understanding of fame. However, musically, they saw the world through a different lens, and Harrison once admitted he “never thought much” to the ‘Yellow Brick Road’ hitmaker’s sound.
The late Beatle cared deeply about John as a person from the perspective of a friend, and he played a role in helping Elton get clean. The piano man has talked extensively about his past drug addiction and how it nearly tore apart his life. Thankfully, the singer found the determination to get himself on the straight and narrow, which is why he’s happily married with children today.
Elton John sitting at his piano in the 1970s. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Harrison witnessed him first-hand in this sorrowful state and felt compelled to dish out some home truths to his friend, who had a lasting effect on Elton. “It’s very hard to put into words. He was very forthright, and he actually administered quite a few tellings-off to me about my drug problem,” Elton recalled to Rolling Stone.
He added: “I think he was the kind of sage of the Beatles. He was the youngest member. But as people said, he was very spiritual and very serious about his religious beliefs. It wasn’t just a five-minute-wonder thing with him. He found something worth more than fame, more than fortune, more than anything. I think that helped him the last few months of his life. Because he was pretty stoic.”
As much as Harrison respected Elton, if you went to his home, you wouldn’t find him spinning ‘Rocket Man’. In a 1976 interview with India Today, the former Beatles guitarist declared his love of Indian music, which he’d been introduced to by his friend Ravi Shankar, which excited him in ways Elton John couldn’t.
Harrison explained: “Personally, I think Indian music is where it’s at. If I had to choose one record in the whole world, I’d select Bismillah Khan, and that’s it.”
When asked about the state of contemporary pop, Harrison replied: “There isn’t too much going on that I seem to like. When the Beatles started off, our influences were Tamla-Motown and Chuck Berry, and that’s the music I still like. My favourites are Smokey Robinson (I’ve written two songs about him) and Stevie Wonder. Otherwise, George Benson and, of course, anything Dylan does is worth a listen.”
He added: “Well, Elton John’s music is something I’ve never thought much of.” It’s a pretty tough assessment for one of the country’s most prolific and successful songwriters. But Harrison had his reasons: “It all sounds the same, though I think he’s written a good song once (many years ago, of course). His music is made to a formula: throw in lyrics, throw in four chords, shake well, and there it is, the new Elton John super-hit!”
While Elton John isn’t known for his experimentalism, it’s a sign of his extraordinary talent that he could make simplicity so striking without adding complexity for the sake of doing so. Whereas Harrison was an artist who thrived on reinvention; therefore, his opinion on Elton’s musicianship isn’t completely surprising.
Related Topics