(Credits: Far Out / David Hume Kennerly / Alamy)
Tue 20 January 2026 18:00, UK
It wasn’t obvious to the music press that, of all The Beatles, George Harrison would be the one to strike up a solid friendship with the original folksmith, Bob Dylan.
Reportedly, it was John Lennon that Dylan was more eager to meet. During the peaks of Beatlemania, Lennon’s supposed intellectual edge in the group piqued the young Dylan’s interest when they first met in New York City in 1964. Two years later, after Dylan’s plugged-in heresy, his and Lennon’s relationship had lapsed into one of subtle competition, likely having inspired each other with Lennon’s pursuit of acoustic numbers like ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ and ‘Girl’, and Dylan’s chase for folk rock defiance of fan expectations.
Little feeling was allegedly held for Paul McCartney, deemed the sappy pop penner of the group, but somewhere in the room, an affinity was sparked between Dylan and Harrison. The quiet Beatle was a serious fan. When psychedelia hit the counterculture, Dylan turned his back on the lysergic excesses of the day, favouring the rootsy detours into country and open about his dismissal of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band opus. Harrison didn’t care, indifferent about the album himself and taking Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde with him to India’s Rishikesh retreat, the only Western LP he brought with him.
The first song they’d ever write together was penned shortly after. Producing Apple Records signee Jackie Lomax in Los Angeles, Harrison joined the Dylans in his Woodstock home with wife Pattie Boyd to celebrate Thanksgiving. However, Harrison found Dylan subdued and distant, recovering from a motorcycle accident and suffering a frustrating bout of writer’s block. After three days of stilted conversation, Harrison suggested getting the guitars out.
“He sang me that song and he was, like, very nervous and shy, and he said, ‘What do you think about this song?’” Harrison recalled in a 1977 interview. “And I’d felt very strongly about Bob… I felt somehow very close to him, or something, you know, because he was so great, so heavy, and so observant about everything. And yet to find him later, very nervous and with no confidence….”
The song wound up being ‘I’d Have You Anytime’. Opening 1970’s All Things Must Pass, the pair’s cut would serve as a bonding experience, Harrison lyrically encouraging Dylan to loosen up while the troubled songsmith offers a sentiment of welcome in his life.
The two wouldn’t collaborate from then on, except for coaxing Dylan out of his semi-reclusive rut to perform at the Concert for Bangladesh benefit show. The next time Harrison had entertained working with the songsmith again wouldn’t be til 1987, when Harrison was working on his comeback album of sorts, Cloud Nine.
Boasting Elton John on piano, old pal Eric Clapton on guitar, and the ever dependable Ringo Starr on drums, an acerbic little number called ‘Devil’s Radio’ taking aim at the rumour mill whirring away behind all of the former Beatles was just missing Dylan’s signature vocals, according to Harrison.
It didn’t happen, ‘Devil’s Radio’ cut with Harrison behind the mic and released as a promo after topping the Hot 100 with his cover of James Ray’s ‘Got My Mind Set on You’. Studio time would be had soon enough, though. Pressured for an extra single during the Cloud Sessions, Harrison and co-producer Jeff Lynne managed to corral Tom Petty, and the famous Roy Orbison to Dylan’s Santa Monica home studio, cutting the ‘Handle With Care’ song and birthing The Traveling Wilburys supergroup.
Related Topics
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.