Music
Paul McCartney did not play the Concert for Bangladesh when George Harrison asked. Here’s why.
In 1971, George Harrison reached out across the rift separating the former members of The Beatles by inviting Paul McCartney to play in his Concert for Bangladesh. The benefit concert was among the first of its kind and raised money for refugees. McCartney admitted that when Harrison asked him to participate, he felt irritated.
Paul McCartney shared why he wouldn’t play George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh
After The Beatles broke up, Harrison and John Lennon publicly aired their grievances with McCartney. Still, Harrison asked him to take part in the benefit concert. McCartney declined, not wanting to reunite the band so soon after breaking up.
“George invited me, and I must say [my reason for declining] was more than just visa problems,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “At the time there was the whole Apple thing. When the Beatles broke up, at first I thought, ‘Right, broken up, no more messing with any of that.’ George came up and asked if I wanted to play Bangla Desh and I thought, blimey, what’s the point? We’re just broken up and we’re joining up again? It just seemed a bit crazy.”
He admitted he felt irritated that Harrison invited him. At the time, the former Beatles were enmired in a legal battle over their contracts. He felt it was unfair for Harrison to ask him a favor when he was trapped in their partnership agreement.
“There were a lot of things that went down then, most of which I’ve forgotten now. I really felt annoyed – ‘I’m not going to do that if he won’t bloody let me out of my contract.’ Something like that,” he said. “For years there had been problems as to why the other three felt they couldn’t just rip up our partnership agreement.”
He admitted that much of his behavior at the time was out of bitterness
McCartney admitted that much of his behavior in the immediate aftermath of the band’s split drew fuel from his frustration.
“There was an awful lot of that, and a lot of what I did around about then was just out of bitterness at all that,” he said. “I thought, ‘This is crazy, no one likes me enough to just let me go, give me my little bit of the proceeds and let me split off.’ It was a little tit-for-tat, if you’re not going to do this for me, I’m not going to do that for you.”
Like Paul McCartney, John Lennon did not perform at George Harrison’s benefit concert
Lennon also refused to participate in the concert, though for different reasons. He initially agreed to do it but backed out when Harrison said Yoko Ono could not perform with him. He later rolled his eyes at the idea of a benefit concert.
“I am just going to do it privately,” he told Playboy in 1980. “I am not going to get locked into that business of saving the world onstage. The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.”
Ringo Starr was the only one of Harrison’s former bandmates to get onstage at the concert.
