Daily annoyance for this long-suffering Beatles fan:

1) Coming across a fanboy who interprets the lyrics from Here Today as an attack on John. Quoth the fanboy: "Didn't understand a thing - Paul is saying John was daft". Head. Desk. (The verse in question goes - "What about the time we met? Well, I suppose that you could say that we were playing hard to get. Didn't understand a thing, but we could always sing." You don't have to be a literature major to notice the "we" in that sentence. And you have to be really, really dumb not to feel the searing grief and love in that particular song.)

2) Reading Philipp Norman's obituary for George Harrison. And here I thought Robert Christgau is the winner for the most tasteless obituary for a former Beatle. (Because of the "why is it always Kennedy and John Lennon, why never Nixon or Paul McCartney!" statement.) But Philipp N. tries to compete. How he ever became known as a Beatles expert is beyond me, because he's never made a secret of being interested in only one of the four, John. (Which is why of all of Norman's Beatle-related writings I prefer his John biography - it doesn't pretend to be about anyone else, and paradoxically he's far more fair and even-minded towards the others in that one than he is in Shout!.) And whoever gave him the job of writing George's obituary hopefully was fired, because it's incredibly spiteful. Which was a bit of a surprise - I was aware that until the John bio Norman was anti-Paul - Shout! is dripping with contempt and bile in that regard, which makes his disingenious "how could people ever assume I hate Paul?" in the afterword to "Lennon: The Life" quaintly amusing - but I hadn't known he also had it in for George to that degree, though I knew he wasn't exactly a fan. But really, imagine: George just died from lung cancer, you open the paper, and you read stuff like this: "I first saw Harrison backstage at a Beatles concert in Newcastle upon Tyne at the height of Beatlemania, back in 1965. Lennon, McCartney and Ringo Starr were immediately friendly and forthcoming, McCartney even handing his violin bass guitar to me to try. Only Harrison stayed in the background, his pale face cupped in a black polo-neck. I thought at the time that he looked a bit of a miserable git, but I did not dream how right I was. Harrison's misanthropy was as well hidden as McCartney's two-facedness and Lennon's general disgust with the whole Beatlemania experience." Which sets the tone.
He's not keen on George's solo music ("He began to alienate concert audiences by his self-importance and heavy-handed attempts at lecturing and preaching"), and while you could argue that fine, this is all Norman's personal impression and opinion of George as a man and a musician, though calling a man who organized the first big charity concert and who specialized in discovering and producing other artists a misanthrope really demands a new definition of the word), he then goes beneath the belt even when forced to write something positive about George's second marriage: His greatest asset proved to be his marriage to Olivia, not a rock star’s cipher wife but a woman of character and compassion who became deeply involved in charity work to help orphans in Romania. The marriage, clearly, was not all roses. A few years back a Los Angeles prostitute known only as Tiffany identified Harrison as one of her clients, alleging that while a sexual service was performed for him he was playing his ukulele and singing a George Formby song. Because that's really what you need to include in a Sunday Times obituary most likely read by the "woman of character and compassion" and her son. (Note: in a George biography, I can see the point of mentioning marital infidelities. But not in an obituary published as soon as the man breathed his last breath, and definitely not in such detail. No wonder Olivia has such a low opinion on Beatle biographers.)

So does he have any use for the deceased at all, during Beatles times or later? It's not like our Philipp N. has any preferences there, no. "He was as essential to the Fab Four formula as John Lennon's rebellious smile or Paul McCartney's great cow eyes. Beatles fans who screamed for George were a curious but dedicated minority, like those who pick the green ones in packets of wine gums." (Inability to resist taking another swipe at the cow-eyed one at the same time is noted, Norman.) How about the Concert for Bangladesh and that stunning debut triple album, All Things Must Pass? "One tribute last week called him "a great humanitarian"; if that was putting it rather strong, the Concert for Bangladesh undoubtedly gave rock its first inkling of social conscience, paving the way for Live Aid and similar events in the 1980s. Passing time, however, revealed the awful truth. All Things Must Pass consisted of songs that Harrison had written while still in the Beatles and for which there had never been room on their albums. Without Lennon and McCartney to stimulate as well as frustrate him, he would never produce such quality material again."

Actually I agree that if you'd do a best of Harrison list, his written during Beatles times but released in the early 70s songs would come out on top. But he wrote some good songs afterwards, too, and I loved what he did with the Travelling Wilburies. Still, it's the overall context that makes this musical judgment of Philipp Norman's just one more attack. As for the view of George as non-stop bitter man, that's not one you get when reading Michael Palin's diaries, who knew George as a generous patron, nor is it verified by something that Norman himself mentions though curiously without seeing how that contradicts his earlier assessment - his lack of vengefulness and complete acceptance of the Eric Clapton and Pattie situation. Norman is also very selective with his quotes when presenting George as unrelentingly hostile towards Paul post-break up. (Something that also gives him the opportunity to call Paul a hypocrite for the "he was my baby brother and I loved him" statement.) Yes, he took some shots over the years, and they could be nasty. ("Music for 14 years olds" and "Paul ruined me as a guitarist" come to mind, and of course the playing lead guitar in "How do you sleep?" . But he also was there in times of distress (after the pot bust in Japan plus nine days in prison disaster, and when one of the surviving Beatles had to testify at a hearing involving the Star Club tapes, George went because this was directly after Linda McCartney's death and Paul was in no condition to), and they shared times of joy as well; just as Paul went to some of George's concerts, George went to some of Paul's. He was the only one of the other three to acknowledge in public that Paul had been right about Allen Klein (and the original lawsuit) even though all of the other three sued Klein in the 70s. Though his own contract with Northern Songs ended in 1967 and his later songs were not published there anymore, he nonetheless went on the mat for John and Paul at the very height of his resentment against them, in the spring of 1969. (They were both on their honeymoon and thus abroad when Dick James let it slip that he had sold Northern Songs, i.e. the entire Lennon/McCartney catalogue plus any songs John and Paul would write until 1973, which was when their own contract would run out, and George, again despite the fact this was the very moment in the Beatles saga where his hostility against them brimmed over in public arguments, went to James to try and stop this, replying to James' attempts that did didn't matter with "it matters a great deal to John and Paul!")

And in his 2001 chat he shoots attempts to bait him down with these lovely replies:

a_t_m98 asks: Mr. Harrison.. what is the opening chord you used for "A Hard Days Night"?
george_harrison_live: It is F with a G on top (on the 12-string)
george_harrison_live: But you'll have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper story.
spongeweed70508 asks: Does Paul still piss you off (tell us the truth)
george_harrison_live: Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass -- You know his faults -- Then let his foibles pass.
george_harrison_live: Old Victorian Proverb.
george_harrison_live: I'm sure there's enough about me that pisses him off, but I think we have now grown old enough to realize
george_harrison_live: that we're both pretty damn cute!

That was a Yahoo chat; he then did an MSN one where the moderator actually asked him "is it true that you got into the Beatles because you could play the whole of Twenty Flight Rock?" (Head. Desk.) To which George, unfazed, replied: "Actually, that was Paul, but I can play it, too."

In the Anthology which was made in the mid-90s, you can see both the occasional tense moment and shared laughter, plus George remembers how to play a song Paul started to write as a teenager and didn't even finish ("Thinking of Linking"), which btw also proves remarkable musical memory (presumably he last played that little unfinished ditty in the 50s!). It always struck me as a very sibling-esque relationship, with the very thing that annoyed George (being regarded as the little brother) also the thing that kept them returning to each other (because the "brother" part was as true as the "little"). Because of George's long illness, as opposed to John's sudden death, they had plenty of time to say goodbye; in fact George died in a house that used to belong to Paul, and they saw each other two weeks before George's death, when, according to the doctor, "Paul sat down next to him and, taking hold of George's hands, started rubbing them gently", and stayed the entire day, with George in a good mood, talking about Hamburg, losing his virginity, all the old times. So for Norman to claim George died bitterly feuding with Paul simply isn't true.

Not that Philipp Norman is that firm with the facts in this obituary anyway. After chastizing George for his immediate reaction to John's death (" like McCartney he was unable to comment on it at the time with more than inappropriate 1960s flipness"), he then goes on to write grudgingly "Of the surviving Beatles he was the only one to record a tribute song, All Those Years Ago, sung at the anomalously cheerful tempo of a Scouts' campfire chorus". Err, Philipp N., first of all, can't see the similarity between All Those Years Ago and "a Scout's campfire chorus", and secondly, how was George the only Beatle to record a John tribute song? Whom do you think Paul's "Here Today" is about, some other guy whom Paul wrote songs with and who died? (As for Ringo, he plays on George's song and on Paul's entire Tug of War album from which Here Today hails.)

You know, I reallly, really hope they won't let Philipp Norman write the Paul and Ringo obituaries as well. But given the practice of newspapers to order obituaries years ahead of time, I'm afraid they might have already.

...you know what helps to get over annoyance with stupid fanboys (be they journalists or not) ? Other than ranting which is what I just did now. :) Re-read old Beatles press conferences in which they pwn stupid journalists.

13th August 1965 in New York City

Q: Is matrimony in the immediate future for the two unmarried members of the group?
Paul: Uh, matrimony is not in the immediate future.
George: Paul won't have me.
Q: I noticed the two married men are sitting together, and the two single boys are sitting together.
John: That's 'cause we're queer.
Ringo: But don't tell anybody, will you? It's a secret.


29th August 1965 in Los Angeles:

Q: This is a double-barreled question directed at both George and Paul, who are the two remaining...
George: We're not getting married, no. He still refuses to say yes.
Q: You're both the only bachelors, and you're not gonna give us any indication of what your matrimonial plans might be?
George: Well, soon we're gonna just get an answering service for that question.
Paul: We're both queer anyway, you know. How often do we have to tell you? Write that one in your magazines!

(Yes, the "we're gay" thing is repetitive, but so is the "are you getting married?" question.) Also fun to sweep annoyance away: cover versions by other legends. Paul always said the biggest compliment the Beatles ever received by a fellow musician was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band being released on a Friday and Jimi Hendrix, on tour in London, opening with the title song the same Sunday. Here's Jimi Hendrix covering the Beatles (observe that warning at the start!), and below Paul telling his Jimi story, guest-starring Eric Clapton: