George Harrison, the quiet but spiritually driven lead guitarist of The Beatles, wasn’t just a master of melody — he also had an intuitive sense for something almost mystical in music. Though Harrison often spoke modestly about his own skills, he once used a striking image to describe another guitarist’s performance, suggesting it felt almost divine.
Harrison’s own approach to music was famously introspective. He once told Crawdaddy magazine that his songwriting didn’t feel like a conscious act, but something that “was being written through me,” a description that reflected his deeper belief in creativity as a spiritual experience.
Among musicians, Harrison had a deep respect for those who seemed to channel something beyond mere technique. One such moment came when he watched Eric Clapton perform at the Rainbow Theatre. In Harrison’s eyes, Clapton didn’t just play — he embodied the music in a way that suggested something greater than earthly skill. He described the performance as if Clapton were an instrument of something higher.
“The magic was coming out of Eric’s soul,” Harrison said, reflecting on the intensity and purity of the moment. He added that seeing Clapton play with his eyes closed and his whole being immersed in the music made him look like an angel.
That wasn’t the only time Harrison connected music with something spiritual. His own guitar contributions to The Beatles — from the ethereal backwards guitar on “I’m Only Sleeping” to the gentle melodic lines throughout their catalog — were shaped by a belief in music as a vessel for deeper expression. His work was meticulously crafted, often requiring long hours of focused experimentation.
Harrison’s admiration for Clapton was rooted not in competition but in reverence. He recognized in Clapton a rare ability to internalize influences — from blues legends like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters — and transform them into an intensely personal voice on the instrument. That level of connection between artist and music is what made Harrison liken Clapton’s playing to something heavenly.
Beyond rock and roll crowds or technical mastery, Harrison saw music as a bridge between earthly craft and something transcendent. Whether in his work with Ravi Shankar or in quiet moments of solo performance, he was always attentive to that spiritual resonance — the sense that, in the right hands, a guitar could reach beyond this world.
In Harrison’s philosophy, music wasn’t just sound. It was something you felt, something that could elevate the moment and connect us to sources of inspiration we can’t fully explain. And when Clapton played that night, Harrison saw that connection clearly — a moment of pure, unfiltered expression that, to him, looked and sounded almost angelic.
