Tom Petty knew his friend George Harrison very well. He’s seen the best and worst of the former Beatle as a friend and bandmate since the late 1980s. Petty admitted George had a cynical side. However, that doesn’t mean George was a depresser. In fact, for Petty, it was quite the opposite. George could be funny when he was pessimistic.
Tom Petty said George Harrison got ‘aggressive’ when he wanted to befriend someone
According to Petty, George became aggressive when he knew he wanted to be friends with someone.
“We became really good friends, really, for decades,” Petty told NPR. “I don’t like to talk about it too much, because the Beatles are so special that people might see it as bragging or something.
“But he actually became my friend, beyond being a Beatle to me. It was like having an older brother who had a lot of experience in the music business, someone I could relate to. turn with my problems and my questions.
“George was probably everything you thought he was, and more. Very funny man; he could just kill me with his humor. He was a great guy and I miss him terribly.
“Surprisingly, we got along very well right away. He was the kind of person who, when he discovered a good thing or the potential of a friend, he was really aggressive about it. And he had a way of weeding out anything that was extracurricular or distracting from what was really going on. He could make you comfortable with him very quickly.
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Petty said George could be funny even when he was cynical
George could be very cynical when he wanted to. It stems from growing up poor in Liverpool in the 1940s and being burnt out by the Beatles. However, he knew how to keep things humorous.
NME wrote that George was a man “who seemed to have just about the right balance between enthusiasm and cynicism, recognized his own flaws and seemed to have emerged from the wreckage of the greatest band of all time happier and more balanced than anyone else.” . was involved in it. »
“The media and fans called him ‘the silent one.’ I find it funny,” Dr John told the New York Times. “If he was silent, it wasn’t when he was with me. I saw him surrounded by other musicians. He was anything but silent,” he said. “He had a cynical, dry sense of humor. Especially about the recording industry.
“He cut right to the chase with his mind on music industry executives. He had the same philosophy as Doc Pomus (the songwriter): “I’d rather be a poor poet than a rich agent.”
Petty reportedly agreed with both statements. George was not the ‘silent Beatle’ because he was ‘never silent’. The musician also experienced George’s dry and cynical humor.
In a special edition of Rolling Stone called ‘Remembering George’, Petty said: ‘George really said everything that crossed his mind. I used to say, ‘You really can’t have a thought in your brain without it escaping from your mouth.’
“And he was painfully honest. It was an endearing trait, but sometimes you hoped he wouldn’t be as honest as he was going to be.
“Let’s be honest. There was Cranky George, and he could be very cynical at times. He would always be the first to get too cynical, but he was quite funny when he was really cynical. But he was very funny, like, ‘Les Beatles, they weren’t all they were made out to be’ [laughs].”
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The former Beatle was cynical, but he didn’t let anger and bitterness eat him alive
George had reason to be cynical. When the Beatles broke up, he was left to fend for himself. He only recorded Everything must pass in reaction to leaving the group. After that, record companies and fans wanted more than George wanted to give.
He hated that they were looking at him through a microscope; he could do nothing freely, even when dying. However, although George was cynical about fame, the press, record labels and fan expectations, he never let anger and pessimism rule his life.
“I’ll tell you, the media wasn’t very nice the last year of his life,” Petty said. “He was probably the most harassed of his entire life when he was trying to deal with this. Especially in Europe, he never had a moment of peace. He would be followed by helicopters when he left the house.
“I guess it comes with the territory. It’s part of the price you pay. He has paid this price so many times – well, overpaid. But he would be the first to say that there is nothing to gain from bitterness or anger, from hatred. I don’t know how many times he would remind me that bitterness or pessimism will only slow you down in finding the solution. And he lived that way.
Instead, George chose to be passionate about music, his friends and his family. “His enthusiasm was very contagious during a recording session, during a writing session,” Petty continued. “He just had unbridled enthusiasm. One of the things I’ll miss the most is when he was walking by and always had a guitar or a ukulele in his hands most of the night.
There was a lot of mystery surrounding George, but he let his friends see a glimpse of who he was from time to time.
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