The Best of George Harrison - Song Selection

Song Selection

To fill one side of the LP, Capitol selected Harrison-penned songs that had been released by the Beatles between 1965 and 1970. A risk-free approach prevailed, commentators have noted, both with the unimaginative album title and with the "predictable" selection of songs. Nowhere was Indian music represented, for instance, a musical genre with which Harrison was synonymous via his long association with Ravi Shankar, and which various authors, and Shankar himself, credit Harrison with introducing to Western popular music. In this way, Harrison's "landmark" Indian compositions "Within You, Without You" and "The Inner Light" were overlooked while "Taxman" received its second album release in six months (having been issued on Rock 'n' Roll Music). "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something" were also among the tracks selected, even though they had all appeared on the 1973 Beatles compilation 1967–1970.

Side two was made up of Harrison's biggest solo hits: "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life" from All Things Must Pass (1970), "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" from Living in the Material World (1973), the title track from Dark Horse (1974), and "You" from Extra Texture (1975). The sixth solo song was the non-album single "Bangla Desh", released in 1971.

Aside from the financial benefits of repackaging Beatles-era songs, part of the reason for Capitol reducing Harrison's mostly successful solo years thus far to six album tracks was due to the "lackluster" commercial fate of the Lennon and Starr compilations. Another factor was Harrison's tendency to limit his single releases to a minimum: he had been reluctant to issue any single from All Things Must Pass originally, and the scheduled second single from Material World, "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" − a "certain #1", author Simon Leng has suggested − was cancelled altogether. Yet the big-hits requirement was not applied to the Beatles selections, only one of which, "Something", had even been issued as the A-side of a single.

In November 1976, while promoting his new album, Thirty Three & 1/3, Harrison reported that Capitol had ignored his suggested track list and alternative title for the collection. " was really a lot of good songs they could have used of me separately. Solo songs," he complained. "They did that with Ringo's Blast From Your Past and John's Shaved Fish. It was just John's. It wasn't digging into Beatles records." Notable omissions from The Best of George Harrison were "Isn't It a Pity" − one half of the double A-side single with "My Sweet Lord", and a number 1 hit in Canada in its own right − and "Ding Dong, Ding Dong", which charted relatively low in the top 40 in the main markets of America and Britain but was a top ten hit in Europe. In comparison, Shaved Fish had contained "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", "Mother" and "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", singles which, on the US Billboard Hot 100, respectively: did not chart at all; peaked at number 43; and reached number 57. On Blast from Your Past, the non-album B-side "Early 1970" was included, as were "I'm the Greatest" (an album track never released as a single) and "Beaucoups of Blues", which peaked at number 87 in the United States. On those terms, Harrison had "Deep Blue", a much-admired 1971 B-side; "Ding Dong", which climbed to number 36 on Billboard; and acclaimed album tracks in "All Things Must Pass", "Awaiting on You All" and "Beware of Darkness". Music writers have remarked also on the "short weight" nature of Starr's album, at just 30 minutes in length, whereas Capitol felt the need to pad out the Harrison compilation to achieve a running time of 45 minutes.