George Harrison Didn’t Think Getting Older Was a Reason to Stop Being a Rock Star
George Harrison didn’t think getting older was a reason to pack up and stop being a rock star. The former Beatle planned on going for decades, but, unfortunately, he didn’t get to.
George Harrison didn’t think getting older meant you had to stop being a rock star
During a 1987 interview with Entertainment Tonight, George explained that when he was a child, all he wanted to do was be in a band and play rock ‘n’ roll. Every kid wanted to do that when they were younger, but rock ‘n’ roll is for all ages.
“It’s a natural thing when you’re a kid, you want to get a guitar and be in a band,” George said. “I think rock ‘n’ roll will always go hand in hand with youth. But at the same time, and I recall John Lennon saying, ‘Don’t trust anybody over 30.’ We all get there and I don’t think it’s a reason to pack up just because you hit 40.”
Entertainment Tonight asked the former Beatle how much longer he’ll rock ‘n’ roll. “I don’t know,” he said. “Spose until I fall over.” He said if Chuck Berry could rock into his 60s, so could he.
George got along better with other rock stars once they were older
George believed that the older you get, the wiser you become. He said he got along better with other rock stars once they were all older. They’d all filled their egos back then but had settled down.
During a 1987 interview on The Today Show, a reporter talked about George’s recent Prince’s Trust performance. She pointed out that George and the friends who joined him on stage, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Elton John, and Jeff Lynne, seemed to have a real support system and friendship.
“They’re really nice,” George replied. “I think the older we all get, the nicer we become; they become; I’m sure maybe I’ve gotten nicer too, I don’t know. But they are, they’re really good.
“I mean, they’ve all been through so much. I think their egos have all been satisfied or knocked down and up and down to such an extent that they sort of value friendship. They’re good, good guys.”
George’s wife, Olivia, said he ‘lit the room’ when he died
Unfortunately, George didn’t get to rock ‘n’ roll into his 60s. He died of cancer in 2001 at age 58. During the last summer of George’s life, he and his wife, Olivia, vacationed together and looked back on their 30 years of marriage.
“We had this whole 30 years together, and then at the end, you’re able to just decant that time,” Olivia explained in Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World. “We spent that summer together, and we had so much fun.
“It’s amazing… At the end of your life, here’s the conversation: ‘I hope I wasn’t a bad husband.’ ‘Well, I hope I was an OK wife,’ you know? Uh, ‘How did we do? How did we do?’ And then you think, ‘Oh, I’m so glad. I’m so glad that we just kept walking this path together. And all those other things that came and went, we just swatted away and batted away in between us, you know?'”
When it finally came time for George to leave the material world, Olivia said he just lit the room. “There was a profound experience that happened when he left his body,” she explained. “It was visible. Let’s just say you wouldn’t need to light the room if you were trying to film it. You know, he just lit the room.”
