This is the complete, fully unabridged transcript of George Harrison’s interview with WABC-FM reporter Howard Smith, recorded on 1 May 1970 at Apple’s offices, 1700 Broadway, New York City.

Full interview transcript

Q: “You’ve been in New York since what, Tuesday?”
GH: “Yeah, Tuesday afternoon.”

Q: “How much longer are you going to be here?”
GH: “Just till next Monday.”

Q: “And then you go back to London?”
GH: “Yeah, right. Well, home, which is just outside of London.”

Q: “What have you been doing?”
GH: “Well, a bit of business, really. I came to see our new office, 1700 Broadway. And just a few little things to do with business. Also to see a few friends, and to pick up my visa. It’s the first time I had a visa for 18 months, so I had to use it, you know.”

Q: “Are you going to be doing any recording while you’re in town?”
GH: “No. I can’t work, you know. Not that sort of work. I’d need a different visa, and all that sort of thing. Anyway, there’s not enough time to record. But I am going to be recording in about three weeks. I’m gonna start an album of my own, as Ringo and Paul… This is gonna be the George album. And I start that in three to four weeks time, and I hope to do it with Phil Spector.”

Q: “Where, in London?”
GH: “Yeah.”

Q: “Have you written the material, or…?”
GH: “Yeah. I’ve had songs for a long time, and lots of new songs. I’ve got about… enough songs for about three or four albums, actually. But if I do one, that’ll be good enough for me.”

Q: “I didn’t know you were that prolific as a writer because there’s so few of your songs on Beatles albums.”
GH: “Yeah, well, I wrote some songs. In fact, some songs which I feel are quite nice, which I’ll use on this album, I wrote about four years ago. But it was more difficult for me then to, you know, get in there to do it. It was the way the Beatles took off with Paul and John’s songs, and it made it very difficult for me get in. And also, I suppose at that time I didn’t have as much confidence when it came down to pushing my own material as I have now. So it took a while.”

Q: “How was it decided how many songs you would have on a Beatles album? Is it, like, just whoever pushed and shoved the hardest?”
GH: “Yeah. It’s always… it was whoever would be the heaviest would get the most songs done. So consequently, I couldn’t be bothered pushing, like, that much. You know, even on Abbey Road for instance, we’d record about eight tracks before I got round to doing one of mine.”

Q: “You think the Beatles will get together again, then?”
GH: “Well, I don’t… I couldn’t tell, you know, if they do or not. I’ll certainly try my best to do something with them again, you know. I mean, it’s only a matter of accepting that the situation is a compromise.”

Q: “But everything looks so gloomy right now.”
GH: “It’s not, really. You know, it’s no more gloomy than it’s been for the last ten years. It really isn’t any worse. It’s just that now over the last year – what with John, and lately with Paul – everything that they’ve thought or said has come out, you know, to the public.”

Q: “There seems like there’s so much animosity between Paul and…”
GH: “Yeah. But it’s more of a personal thing, you know. That’s down to the management situation, you know, with Apple. Because Paul, really, it was his idea to do Apple, and once it started going Paul was very active in there. And then it got really chaotic and we had to do something about it.”

Q: “So you don’t think there’s any great anger between Paul and John?”
GH: “No, I think there may be what you’d term a little bitchiness. But, you know, that’s all it is. It’s just being bitchy to each other, you know. Childish. Childish.”

GH: “Well, I get on well with Ringo and John, and I try my best to get on well with Paul. There’s nothing much more we can… it’s just a matter of time, you know, just for everybody to work out their own problems and once they’ve done that I’m sure we’ll get back round the cycle again. But if not, you know, it’s still alright. Whatever happens, you know, it’s gonna be okay. In fact, it’s never looked better from my point of view.”

Location

Apple Corps offices, 1700 Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, USA