Why didn't John play on George's later songs?

[sunnylew]

I often hear it discussed that John played on hardly any of George's later songs, and mostly this is put down to him not wanting to use his energy on them, or as some form of disdain.

Watching Get Back, we hear John complain about there being too many chords in George's songs.

Could it be that John didn't play due to insecurity?

George was the best guitarist in the group, and knew and enjoyed far more chords than John. If George brings in a song, John is left n the position where he has to learn what George has already written in order to play the part:

So

• John can't find his own groove - and that's what he does
  John can't play the part as well as the junior partner in the group - and this will be on a recording for the world to hear

Neither is all that good for John's rather fragile ego. So he does the tough guy sneer at the song, or finds himself 'unavoidably busy' elsewhere on the day of recording. There's also always the case that George won't argue as loudly as John and Paul for his song to be recorded.

If this is what's going on, it puts the cases where John is 'thrown a bone' with a solo here or there in Get Back in a different light to the general consensus.

It's not necessarily a case of John being given some spotlight to draw him out of a drug haze and become interested.

It might be his mates generously giving him something with a bit of cool factor so that he feels less inadequate in front of the cameras. A confidence boost.

George even supplied a basic 12 bar blues song that was super easy to play so John could play slide.

We have to remember that at that time, not only was he self medicating, but the reason he was doing it can't have been unrelated to Yoko's miscarriage about 6 weeks before the Get Back sessions started.

He needed the odd win.

[Davenicks]

"Self medicating", indeed. Apparently, heroin addiction affects one's performance.

Dave in Nashville

[sunnylew]

I don't doubt it would while under the influence.

The Beatles learnt early on that anything they recorded under the influence was no good. While he may have been doped up during some of the actual Get Back sessions, I think it's a bit reductionist to assume that means he was suddenly under the influence all of the time and incapable of playing well.

In Get Back you have John speaking a little after the infamous "Two Junkies" interview in which he threw up. It's always been said he was stoned out of his mind, but he sounds quite clear in Get Back only minutes afterwards. He attributes it to going too hard the night before. Maybe a lie, maybe not. But why would he need to lie?

I don't know about you, but I showed up at work that hung over more than once in my twenties. i think that's more reasonable than he was wasted at the session.

I'm by no means recommending heroin as an artistic aid, but James Taylor released a pretty good debut album while addicted, and Miles Davis produced Bitches Brew. It didn't seem to have affect either their skill or their artistry.

When it's well known that George was a more technical guitar player, and John had a fragile ego, why does it need to be the drugs that are the key problem?

[RubberSolof]

cool topic...

[Davenicks]

We have no reliable specific information that I know of about John's heroin use or whether he was ever clinically diagnosed as an addict or as a user. I also don't know if you've ever dealt with someone with opioid addiction but heroin is at the top of the opioid scale. I do believe that a mental health professional or a medical doctor would not validate your equation of heroin use to working with a hangover. It's a whole other thing. They would probably tell you about how it changes the chemistry of the brain and that, while many high functioning heroin users are able to lead productive lives, the mental processes of the user are affected to some degree all the time.

That's what Paul, George and Ringo were dealing with. Their leader was in a mental health crisis. That is not everything, but it is not a trivial thing; to ignore it inevitably gives a distorted understanding of the Beatles history from 1968 forward. I understand that many fans cannot hold that fact in their mind at the same time as their admiration for John as an artist. This is not the fun and enjoyment that we come to music for.

BTW, James Taylor gave an interview to the Guardian a few years ago in which he confessed to giving John opiates in 1968. It's hard not to conclude just how remarkable it is that he managed to survive and succeed as an artist in spite of his heroin use and the high price of its negative effects on his life.

hxxps://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/17/j ... fe-in-song

Dave in Nashville

[sunnylew]

I do believe that a mental health professional or a medical doctor would not validate your equation of heroin use to working with a hangover.

My point isn't that heroin is the same as a hangover. What I'm trying to say is, we don't know what he did the night before. It could well have been a hangover.

We also don't know what level of heroin use he was into at that time. It could well have been very minimal. Maybe not. We don't actually know.

I'm trying to make the case that John's demeanour doesn't need to have been primarily nurtured by drug use. There are multiple other normal factors that could contribute.

My reference to other musicians is just a way of pointing out that people don't necessarily play music poorly because they're addicted to opiates.

I wasn't really trying to speak about drugs at all in my original post. Just trying to point out that maybe John's ego got in the way once George started to bring his songs in with the tricky chords.

[cdgm]

I don’t think John had a fragile ego in regards to his abilities, lack thereof, or George’s complicated chords. From the White Album on they were pretty much working as solo artists and used each other as sideman. How many White Album songs are just Paul ? I don’t think John was ever shamed by his lack of technical ability as he always referred to himself as an artist and songwriter who learned guitar playing banjo chords. And if he was so shy about his inability to play, what’s he doing playing with Clapton, Keith Richards, and Mitch Mitchell in front of other musicians as an audience ? And George was back on the Imagine album in a large way, so John wasn’t feeble about his abilities around George. John never acted as a sideman for anybody. Hell, he was barely interested in his own songs. The closest he came to being a sideman late/post Beatles was arranging songs for Ringo. And George’s songs just weren’t as good as John and Paul’s. John liked rockers. George’s stuff was mid tempo lackluster stuff. I can’t imagine that there’s anything on All Things Must Pass that John would be remotely interested in. And I always felt these guys get put under a microscope and over analyzed.

[Lord Reith]

I imagine it was because he didn't like them very much. He already had to learn a lot of Paul songs he didn't like because there was no way out of it, and having to learn a bunch of George songs as well was asking too much. He probably just thought they weren't as good as his and Paul's songs.

[Spaniard in da Works]

I think he might have been more comfortable with Paul's songs. He had an innate understanding of where Paul was going from all their writing sessions as youngsters that he did not have with George, who preferred writing on his own.

Actually, I think the only George songs where John had a notable instrumental part were "Don't Bother Me" (and he's in my opinion the MVP in that song) and "You Like Me Too Much". In mos others he only did vocals and percussion, and in the ones where he recorded an instrumental part, it was later wiped.

[Davenicks]

I do believe that a mental health professional or a medical doctor would not validate your equation of heroin use to working with a hangover.

My point isn't that heroin is the same as a hangover. What I'm trying to say is, we don't know what he did the night before. It could well have been a hangover.

We also don't know what level of heroin use he was into at that time. It could well have been very minimal. Maybe not. We don't actually know.

I'm trying to make the case that John's demeanour doesn't need to have been primarily nurtured by drug use. There are multiple other normal factors that could contribute.

My reference to other musicians is just a way of pointing out that people don't necessarily play music poorly because they're addicted to opiates.

I wasn't really trying to speak about drugs at all in my original post. Just trying to point out that maybe John's ego got in the way once George started to bring his songs in with the tricky chords.

My point is that it didn't necessarily matter what he did the night before. Opioids don't work that way. Whether it was primary or otherwise isn't my point; it's that it would have affecting his thinking in a way that would have had some influence on how he did almost everything.

I think it's more likely that his opioid use exacerbated his growing inclination to become more inward focused and less social in psychological terms. After he expended his energy on himself and Yoko and maintaining his ability to function, he didn't have a lot left. I also think the speculation about John not having the confidence or ability to play well on George's songs is belied by his guitar work on Get Back. He plays all the lead guitar, relegating George to a very basic rhythm part. Seems pretty proud of himself for doing it, too. Beginning with the White Album, John was playing more intricate guitar parts than he had since 1964 or so and that continued on up through Double Fantasy. Perhaps playing his guitar was therapeutic for him. The points made about John being less comfortable working on George's songs than Paul's songs because of their shared experience writing together does ring true.

Dave in Nashville