It's Only A Harrisong

 

Yes. He'd been awfully poor up to then, actually ... some of the stuff he'd written was dead boring. The impression sometimes given is that we put him down ... I don't think we ever did that, but possibly we didn't encourage him enough.

George Martin 1971

Yikes. Okay, let's not get into the "I am unaware of what I did, even though I just did it" denial spree George Martin wistfully tells the interviewer at Melody Maker in 1971. (1) We'll ignore that. What we want to address firstly, is why would one include songs on albums they considered "dead boring" when the goal of those albums is to $ELL $ELL $ELL units. And you definitely don't open up albums with dead boring songs, so something like Taxman should be put ... last. Not first on an album marketed for huge sales and capital gain.

Melody Maker : Was he given an allocation of two songs per album?

MARTIN: Not really. He'd write, with difficulty, and he'd bring them and we'd say, "Okay we'll put them on the album then." But it was that way ... we wouldn't say, "What've you got then, George?" We'd say, "Oh, you've got some more have you?" I must say that looking back it was a bit hard on him, but it was natural because the others were so talented. It was always slightly condescending, and it was a similar thing with Ringo. He'd come along with "Octopus's Garden" or something ... he always wanted to do something, because he was left out in the cold. It wasn't until recently that George has really come through, I suppose that "Something" was his breakthrough.

It's a lovely notion, the blossoming composer, nurtured by care and discipline, guided by other professionals to one day shine on his own. Beautifully scripted. It's the stuff of imagination.

The reason I'm writing this blog, entitled "It's Only a Harrisong" is because I've been saying what will follow for well over ten years. And I get the feeling that one day, people will actually catch on to what's being said, and someone's going to say "I said that years ago."

No. You didn't. I've been saying it for almost 15 years, waiting for everyone else to catch up. And yes that sounds slightly snotty, but it's staring everyone right in the face. It stares at you like a producer saying one of a band's composers wrote "dead boring" songs, yet puts 2 or 3 of them on albums marketed to make as much money as possible. For everyone involved. Particularly NORTHERN SONGS, and EMI. And you don't go putting "dead boring" songs first on an album. You definitely don't do that. So which songs George Martin spoke of written by George Harrison that were boring and dead, we'll never know truly. The actions do not support the words.

The other problem with the inclusion of George Harrison songs on Beatles ® products is this :

He owned his own publishing company whilst doing so. And he'd been the owner of this publishing company since September 1964. A little while after the establishment of Northern Songs had bypassed asking George Harrison (or Ringo Starr) if they'd like to earn some publishing royalties on the songs they were performing in the studio, and night after night on the road. Or as a "thanks for helping us achieve our dreams" thank you to Harrison at least for sticking with Lennon and McCartney for so long achieving it. Because there was a time that George Harrison was the only "Beatle soon to be" that was earning money playing gigs, and Lennon and McCartney were doing ... nothing. Now, forgive me if it takes some time to back that statement up, I read it years ago. Any updates to this portion will be noted and amended. But there was a time Lennon and McCartney, somewhere around 1959 weren't doing a damn thing. But George Harrison was playing in another band, doing gigs, and someone pulled out at the last minute, and voila - Harrison gets Lennon and McCartney off their asses and gigging again. We'll verify these details later.

This publishing company, Mornyork, became Harrisongs in December 1964. And with the formation of Harrisongs in 1964, George Harrison retained 100% of the copyright ownership. And he earned 80% of the royalties derived from any compositions published by it, with 20% going to NEMS. In 1970, he cut NEMS out of that deal, and retained 100% of the royalties.

But this is a guy who waits four years to use that publishing company. He also doesn't write a damn thing with it, or for The Beatles until he's offered 1.6% in Northern Songs by 1965.

1. Do I want to write songs and own them outright, and yield most of the profits? 

2. Or do I want to write songs, not own them at all, and my shares in this public company are so small that I can be bought out by anyone with enough money. And there's plenty of people on the open market with enough money.

 

George Harrison, in all his wisdom takes option 2. It doesn't seem that smart to be honest. Or maybe it is.

He's seen his bandmates sign a contract without looking at it. They thought they were going to own Northern Songs themselves, but found out it was only going to be shared (at best.) They didn't own their songs, and had literally given them away (along with his composition "Don't Bother Me") So he gets his own publishing company where no one owns it but him, and he gets most of the profits. Does this sound like a person who saw something happen, and said "that ain't happening to me!" You also have to look at the 1950's and 1960's and try and name the artists who had their own publishing companies, or record labels. Um, there weren't many. I mean, I can name a few, but it literally makes George Harrison's Harrisongs; unprecedented. I think of Dave Clark of the Dave Clark Five. He was a proper businessman. He'd lease their recordings out to record companies. He owned their master recordings. When the business was done pushing the product, he'd get it back. That's why the Dave Clark Five had their own private jet by 1967. Because Dave Clark knew what he was doing. Sam Cooke knew what he was doing. Unfortunately he was gunned down before truly putting it into practice. I also believe Chuck Berry was fairly savvy about publishing and owning things. So George Harrison, being a member of the most popular band Liverpool ever pushed out of the Mersey, stands to make a ton of cash putting a Harrisong on a Beatlemania era product.

But he doesn't. After that Northern Songs "sorry, we didn't mean you or Ringo" deal, George Harrison doesn't write another composition to be included on a Beatles album until he becomes a full fledged lower rung Northern Songs employee. And then he pushes out 2-3 dead boring songs to be included.

One should ask a Paul McCartney, or a Ringo Starr what they thought of George Harrison owning Harrisongs. Which was a far better publishing company for the artist hands down, but opting to be a Northern Songs lower tier, might be bought out by a department store owner at any time composer instead. It's a very strange move. Maybe it was the attitude of George Martin that said to Harrison "my songs might not make it onto these albums if I own the copyright and most of the profits. They might get rejected immediately. Maybe it's better to play as a team member, and just .... wait." Maybe it was the dismissiveness of Lennon and McCartney of Harrison composing anything?

A lot of the girls were mad on him, so we always wanted to give him at least one track. Then George started to catch on: 'Why should you write my songs?' And he started writing his own. From when George first started, he would deliver one song per album. It was an option to include George in the songwriting team. John and I had really talked about it. I remember walking up past Woolton Church with John one morning and going over the question: 'Without wanting to be too mean to George, should three of us write or would it be better to keep it simple?' We decided we'd just keep to two of us. He wrote Don't Bother Me. That was the first one and he improved from that and became very good, writing a classic like Something.

Paul McCartney Anthology

Yeah. Maybe it was that attitude. That might say to me, um, if I act like an upstart here and try and get something of mine on here, where NEMS only receives 20% of the profits, and don't own the copyrights at all, that none of what I write gets on any albums. And my wages will solely come from gigs, and performance royalties at best. And who knows how long this Beatlemania thing is going to last? Two years? Six months? How long did I like Elvis Presley for until I thought he wasn't cool anymore? Maybe Northern Songs is my best bet.

So when in 1968 he sells those shares in Northern Songs, and brings out Harrisongs he also ...

Completely changes his modus operandi.

He stops writing Indian or avant garde, non-pop songs. He actually starts writing "popular tunes." It does not sound like blossoming to me, when this composer brought "Isn't It A Pity" to The Beatles back in 1966. And it was rejected by Lennon. Harrison was still hawking this song in 1969, it's just the Beatles disaster epic "Let It Be" cut out the sequence where he discusses how badly burned he was by that rejection. By 1968 he figures, well, if The Beatles don't want them, I'll sell them to others.

By 1970, after "Something" had a few months to produce a reaction and start getting covered by other artists (it's the second most covered song in the Beatles catalog), unlike Lennon and McCartney, Harrison owns that song, and gets all of its royalties. He'd cut NEMS out of the Harrisongs partnership. Lennon and McCartney watch their songs go bye bye, Harrison says "I own it all." So losing those songs he wrote under the Northern Songs banner was just merely sacrifice. Producing Indian, or avant garde compositions was biding time in a business sense. He pursued his passions, and said Art was more important than profit. His producer didn't care either way. His bandmates sometimes showed enthusiasm for his compositions, and other times not. Either way, whenever Harrison wrote a song for Northern Songs, Lennon and McCartney got more money from it than its composer. It was less work they had to do coming up with material to fill two sides.

It's just important to note:

After the formation of Northern Songs, George Harrison formed his own publishing company.

He did not write any material for The Beatles from the time of that formation, until he was offered partnership in Northern Songs. Was their time to produce material? Yes. Did he? No.

The question must be asked:

Why does an artist who owns his own publishing company where he owns complete copyright ownership, and the lion's share of the profits, decide to write songs for a publisher that gives him no ownership and much less profit. Is it for tax purposes? Is it because he feels none of his songs will be on albums if he shows that he reads contracts, knows a thing or two about artist's rights, and stands to be one of the first artists to own their own material and profits derived from?

It should make you think, in the many years I've been saying it:

If it's difficult enough with the attitude of both producer and bandmates about including your songs on product ® when your stakes in the company are only 1.6%, how difficult is it going to be to include your songs on albums where you own the copyright AND most of the profits from what you write. 

THINKFORYOURSELFIT'SONLYANORTHERN SONG

I've said this online for nearly 15 years. The George Harrison Forum witnessed it. YouTube has been filled with comments about it. Facebook gets notified of it anytime something about George Harrison and songwriting is posted. I've said it many times, but it's always the same thing. I'm just posting a blog about it now, so it goes on some kind of "record of things said."

Trust me. I've been the only one saying it for years.