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(Credits: Far Out \/ Bradford Timeline)<\/p>\n
Sat 4 April 2026 7:02, UK <\/p>\n
George Harrison\u2019s<\/a> discontent with the music industry did not begin in the 1970s, when he unexpectedly found himself being sued for subconscious plagiarism, a lawsuit that temporarily pushed him to step back from the business.<\/p>\n He may have had the label of the \u2018Quiet Beatle\u2019, but Harrison was opinionated when he wanted to be. However, rather than go on an angry rant or engage in a slanging match with his bandmates, Harrison often used humour to say how he truly felt.<\/p>\n A prime example of this occurred during the making of Sgt Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Harrison began to feel frustrated with his limited role within The Beatles\u2019 dynamic. Typically, considering he went on to remortgage his house to finance Monty Python\u2019s Life of Brian<\/a>, Harrison opted for a tongue-in-cheek approach.<\/p>\n Amid the swirling tensions, creative differences, and excessive drug use within the band, Harrison had become disenfranchised with his diminished role. If his bandmates didn\u2019t pick up on this before, they certainly did after hearing \u2018Only A Northern Song\u2019.<\/p>\n In the track, Harrison expresses his discontent with the business side of the music industry, particularly the lack of creative control and financial reward he felt as a songwriter. The title is a play on words, referring to the fact that Northern Songs published the song, but also suggesting that it was \u201conly\u201d a song produced for contractual obligations rather than artistic expression.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just his position in the band which had caused Harrison to lash out; the broader politics of the music industry had become too tiresome for him. The guitarist felt disillusioned and unmotivated to write songs because, as part of the deal, he was essentially a junior songwriter in the eyes of The Beatles\u2019 publishing house, meaning he wouldn\u2019t see his fair share of royalties.<\/p>\n John Lennon and Paul McCartney<\/a> both had a 15% stake in Northern Songs, whereas Ringo Starr and Harrison only owned 0.8% of the company, which created an uneasy dynamic in their camp. As a result, Harrison set up his own company in 1964 and would eventually start releasing his material through Harrisongs after his contract with Northern expired in 1968.<\/p>\n As part of the Beatles Anthology, he opened up about the track and the circumstances which inspired the lazy effort. \u201c\u2018Only A Northern Song\u2019 was a joke relating to Liverpool, the Holy City in the North of England. In addition, the song was copyrighted Northern Songs Ltd, which I don\u2019t own, so: \u2018It doesn\u2019t really matter what chords I play\u2026 as it\u2019s only a Northern Song\u2019,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n The industry\u2019s business side<\/a> had swallowed up Harrison, and he\u2019d lost his appetite for creativity. This issue clouded his mind, and the guitarist was overcome with anger at parasites leeching off the back of his hard work.<\/p>\n Years later, Harrison discussed the incident with Billboard, stating: \u201cI realised Dick James had conned me out of the copyrights for my own songs by offering to become my publisher. As an 18 or 19-year-old kid, I thought, \u2018Great, somebody\u2019s gonna publish my songs!\u2019 But he never said, \u2018And incidentally, when you sign this document here, you\u2019re assigning me the ownership of the songs,\u2019 which is what it is\u201d.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cIt was just a blatant theft. By the time I realised what had happened, when they were going public and making all this money out of this catalogue, I wrote \u2018Only A Northern Song\u2019 as what we call a \u2018piss-take,\u2019 just to have a joke about it.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, The Beatles would decide against placing \u2018Only A Northern Song\u2019 on Sgt. Pepper\u2019s, but it did later find a home on Yellow Submarine. Everything about it is lacklustre, whether this be the lazy lyrics or low-energy vibe, but that\u2019s precisely how Harrison felt when he wrote it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s far from Harrison\u2019s best moment as a songwriter, but it does act as a snapshot into his mind at a crucial moment in Beatles history. It also foreshadows the growing frustration surrounding the political side of the music industry, which would eventually see him reach breaking point.<\/p>\n Once he was sued over \u2018My Sweet Lord\u2019, by a publishing company rather than another artist, ironically, Harrison\u2019s resolve had been tested too far<\/a>. As much as he loved writing and recording songs, which is why his hiatus was short-lived, Harrison needed to escape men in suits who had transformed his passion into a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n