Among the many guitars Paul McCartney has played over the decades, one of the most meaningful is also one of the smallest. It is a ukulele, and it came from his old friend and bandmate George Harrison. After George died, Paul turned that private gift into a public tribute that audiences around the world have shared.
George and his ukuleles
George Harrison is remembered as the quiet Beatle, the lead guitarist who brought the sitar into rock music and wrote classics like “Here Comes the Sun.” But one of his great loves was a much humbler instrument. He first came across the ukulele as a child through George Formby, the English singer and comedian who performed with one in films and on records.
As an adult, George collected ukuleles and loved getting friends to play along. Paul McCartney described what evenings at George’s house were often like. After dinner, he said, the ukuleles would come out:
“The ukuleles would come out.”
It was at one of those informal gatherings that George gave Paul one of his ukuleles.
The song Frank Sinatra loved
“Something” is George Harrison’s best-known Beatles song. He wrote it for the 1969 album Abbey Road, and it was released as a single that fall, the first time one of his songs was featured on the A-side of a Beatles single. It went on to become one of the most covered love songs in pop history, recorded by artists from Frank Sinatra to Ray Charles.
For years, George had lived in the shadow of the Lennon and McCartney songwriting partnership. “Something” proved to the world how much he had to offer.
Losing George
George Harrison died of cancer on November 29, 2001, at the age of 58. Not long afterward, his close friend Eric Clapton called George’s widow, Olivia, to say he wanted to do something in George’s honor. The idea grew into a tribute concert, organized with Olivia and their son Dhani, with Clapton and Jeff Lynne guiding the music.
The Concert for George
On November 29, 2002, exactly one year after George’s death, the Concert for George filled London’s Royal Albert Hall. The lineup was made up of the people who had known and loved him best: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Billy Preston, Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka, Jools Holland, Joe Brown and Dhani Harrison, among others.
Paul’s part of the night included “For You Blue,” “All Things Must Pass” and, with Clapton and Ringo, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” But the moment many fans remember most was “Something.”
Paul walked out alone with the ukulele George had given him and began the song softly, just his voice and those little strings. Then Eric Clapton and the full band came in, and the song grew into the version millions knew from the record, with Paul and Eric sharing it as a duet.
Clapton later said rehearsals had not always been easy for Paul, who was among people who may have felt closer to George in his final years than he was. But Clapton believed something important about his old friend’s bandmate:
“I believe Paul missed George as much as — if not more than — anybody.”
The night ended with another ukulele. Joe Brown, an old friend of George’s, closed the show with “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a song George had introduced him to on the ukulele years earlier.
A gift that keeps playing
The Concert for George film won the 2004 Grammy for Best Long Form Music Video, and its proceeds went to the Material World Charitable Foundation that George founded in the 1970s.
For Paul, the ukulele became part of how he honors George on the road. In his own concerts in the years since, he has often started “Something” on a ukulele before his band joins in, turning a small instrument passed between two friends after dinner into a moment shared with thousands of fans every night.