George Harrison knew how to write a good love song. “Something,” “I Need You,” “I’d Have You Anytime,” and “Dark Sweet Lady” are some of his best love songs. Although, it was often hard to tell if George was talking about his love for God or a woman. Either way, loving the women in his life took him one step closer to God.
George Harrison liked that fans couldn’t figure out if he was talking about his love for God or a woman
In a 1976 interview, Crawdaddy mentioned to George that they could never figure out whether he was talking about Krishna or a woman. George liked that they and other fans had a hard time figuring out the object of his love.
“That’s good– I like that,” George said. “I think individual love is just a little of universal love. The ultimate love, the universal love or love of God, is a basic goal. Each one of us must manifest our individual love, manifest the divinity which is in us.
“All individual love between one person loving another, or loving this that or the other, is all small parts or small examples of that one universal love. It’s all God, I mean, if you can handle the word ‘God.’
“Ultimately, the love can become so big that we can love the whole of creation instead of ‘I love this, but I don’t like that.’ Singing to the Lord or an individual is, in way, the same. I’ve done that consciously in some songs.”
“I’ve had a lot of interest in different ways, and one of the things I never liked was the whole bit in the late ’60s when everybody started getting into it. One thing I really disliked was this, ‘My guru’s better than your guru.’ It’s like little kids on the street– ‘My dad’s bigger than your dad.’
“The point is that there is only one God, he’s got millions of names, but there’s only, but there’s only one God. All Maharishi ever gave me was good advice, and he gave me the technique of meditation which is really wonderful.”
George believed in perfecting one human relationship to love God
In Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, George’s widow, Olivia, explained that George had an almost romantic relationship with Bob Dylan and the rest of his friends. His love for his friends brought him closer to God. It’s reflected in George and Dylan’s song, “I’d Have You Anytime.”
“They say in this life you have to perfect one human relationship in order to really love God,” Olivia said in the documentary. “You practice loving God by loving another human and by giving unconditional love. George’s most important relationships really were conducted through their music and their lyrics.
“I mean ‘I’d Have You Anytime,’ the song that George and Bob wrote together. ‘Let me in here/ I know I’ve been here/ Let me into your heart.’
“He was talking directly to Bob because he’d seen Bob and then he’d seen Bob another time and he didn’t seem as open and so that was his way of saying, ‘Let me in here, let me into your heart.’ And he was very unabashed and romantic about it in a sense. I found that he had these love relationships with his friends. He loved them.”
His love songs could be about God or a woman
George wrote many love songs, some of their subjects clearer than others. For instance, George could be talking about God or a woman in “I Need You,” “Long, Long, Long,” and “Love You To.”
The love songs where George is explicitly talking about a girl include “Dark Sweet Lady” and “Beautiful Girl,” both of which George wrote for Olivia, “For You Blue,” and “Something.”
However, even if George sings “girl” or “woman” in the lyrics, it doesn’t mean he’s only talking about his love for them. By loving a person, he was loving God.
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