The Beatles guitar solos George Harrison and Paul McCartney made up on the spot

When The Beatles rose to fame, many things appealed to people. Their sweet-sounding harmonies were one, the infectious melody embodied within their songs was another, and their lyrics that inspired sing-alongs also played a huge part in their success. While the guitarists in the band were very talented, they were never a band famed for their guitar-playing ability.

When people talk about the greatest guitarists in the world, they very rarely mention any members of The Beatles, and it’s easy to see why. The Beatles were more championed for their vocals and melody than their guitar playing, meaning that when people were looking for guitarists they could refer to as the best, they usually looked outside the band.

The Beatles facilitated this opinion, as some of their songs, which were more reliant on guitar, were either not played by a member of the band or heavily inspired by another musician. For instance, George Harrison’s classic, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, was famously recorded by Eric Clapton. This was because Clapton was the right man for the job, but also to ensure the rest of the band played to the best of their ability during the recording.

“What happened when Eric was there on that day,” recalled Harrison, “the others would have to control themselves a bit more. John and Paul mainly because they had to, you know, act more handsomely.”

While Clapton was brought in to ensure the recording process went as smoothly as possible, his guitar playing was precisely what the song needed. His talent on the six-string meant that the solos on this guitar-oriented song were both melodic and skilful. He knew he had done well because Harrison loved listening to the piece: “I knew George was happy because he listened to it over and over in the control room.”

Another guitar-heavy song by The Beatles is ‘Taxman’; however, once again, rather than being an example of the band’s individuality as guitarists, it was more of an homage to Jimi Hendrix. Paul McCartney persuaded Harrison to let him try out the guitar solo because he was a big fan of Hendrix at the time and wanted to try to write a solo similar to the one he was writing.

“George let me have a go for the solo because I had an idea – it was the early Jimi Hendrix days and I was trying to persuade George to do something like that, feedback-y and crazy,” McCartney said when discussing the song. “And I was showing him what I wanted, and he said, ‘Well, you do it.’”

You can hear how good The Beatles are on guitar on every one of their songs, as the riffs they use are filled with melody and incredibly catchy. However, given that they didn’t solo much, and when they did, the solos weren’t that flamboyant, they were never famed for their guitar playing ability. If you really want to hear what their skill as guitarists is, then you should listen to their early music. While discussing working out the guitar part for ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, Harrison revealed that the guitar solos in their early music were all completely improvised. While he didn’t mention specific songs, he admitted that most of the solos they came up with on their first few albums were done off the cuff.

“Listening to some of the CDs, there are some really good things, like ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’, where I think it was Paul and me, playing in harmony – quite a complicated little line that goes right through the middle eight,” Harrison concluded. “We had to work those out, you know. In the early days, the solos were made up on the spot, or we’d been playing them onstage a lot.”