The George Harrison song used to bash Donald Trump

Artists are always free to use their platform in whatever way they want to. As much as people like to keep their music at the forefront, some have figured that they may as well find a way to use their voice for good, whether that’s enacting change in the world or standing by a good cause. George Harrison may have never been afraid to speak his mind, but even from the grave, his music was being used to put politicians in their place.

Then again, none of The Beatles were afraid of taking on noble causes if they wanted to. It may have driven some people up the wall to see John Lennon making peaceful protests with Yoko Ono back in the day, but if the crux of the message was to make a peaceful world and give hope to humanity, why would anyone in their right mind try to stomp that out?

Whereas Lennon could be extremely blunt about his political beliefs, Harrison was equally as passionate about how he wanted to help the world. He was the one who put together one of the first major charity gigs in the Concert for Bangladesh, and while such events could come off as preachy and self-serving, he always made sure to use his songs to hold himself accountable as well as the rest of the world.

While the cardinal rule for most artists is not to bring up politics or religion, some of Harrison’s greatest songs deal with those subjects. It’s easy for him to come off as holier-than-thou and more than a little bit trite in his later years on tunes like ‘Save the World’, but even to his final hours, he was trying to get people to listen to him, reminding everyone that God is the only way to find meaning in life on the final track of Brainwashed.

If Harrison stood for everything righteous about public figures, his estate saw none of the same qualities in Donald Trump when he was running in 2016. Compared to how many of The Beatles viewed the world, Trump had seemed to be taking every wrong step in their eyes, and while Paul McCartney did get a few jabs in on the song ‘Despite Repeated Warnings’, Harrison’s estate did get one subtle diss in towards the current President when he used ‘Here Comes the Sun’ as his walkout music.

Harrison’s estate had never granted him permission to use the song, and when they heard the guitarist’s music being used as the backdrop to Trump’s cronies, they hit back with another Harrison classic, saying, “If it had been ‘Beware of Darkness’, then we MAY have approved it!” For anyone even mildly aware of the underrated gem from All Things Must Pass, though, it says a lot more than simply bashing someone.

Harrison was never the kind of person to wag fingers at someone whom he didn’t like. His music was far more subtle than that, and listening to ‘Beware of Darkness’, it’s all about him warning his fellow man about the dangers that can happen when they put their faith into something thagt is questionable, and considering the amount of people that have followed Trump blindly into certain ditches, it’s not like the song doesn’t hold some water in this conversation.

Because regardless of what era any Beatle found themselves in, they were always going to speak their minds and rally against any kind of injustice in the world. There are no doubt some people who will admit that the Harrison estate has no idea what they’re talking about and that they should stick to the music, but if anyone thinks that the Fab Four was known for rolling over and shutting up during their tenure, they have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the band operated.