The Beatles Lyric Where George Harrison Tested Out His Cosmic Philosophy

We now know George Harrison as one of the first songwriters to include complex philosophies and ideas in his compositions. His interest in Eastern religions and thinkers, combined with his own natural inclination to question everything, manifested itself in his lyrics.

If you’re looking for the first signs of this tendency in his writing, “Think for Yourself” on The Beatles‘ 1965 album Rubber Soul is your best bet. That Harrison showed frustration at the person he was addressing while subtly espousing these notions shows that he was still working it all out as he went.

A “Think” Piece

George Harrison wrote just a single song during The Beatles’ first two-plus years of recording (late 1962 through the end of 1964), which encompassed four British albums and several singles. That lone song was “Don’t Bother Me,” which sneaked onto the 1963 UK album With the Beatles and didn’t really make much of an impact.

Why was Harrison slow to develop as a writer? Well, he was the youngest Beatle, and his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney already had the songwriting chores pretty much on lockdown when the group first started to include original material. By 1965, however, his confidence in his abilities, combined with natural maturation, led him to a sudden surge in that department.

The two songs (“I Need You” and “You Like Me Too Much”) he wrote for The Beatles LP Help! mostly stuck to the common topics of love and relationships. So did “If I Needed Someone,” which appeared on Rubber Soul at the end of ’65. “Think for Yourself,” the other song he wrote for the album, struck out in a slightly different direction.

For the most part, “Think for Yourself,” which is set apart musically by Paul McCartney’s fuzz bass, features Harrison upbraiding either a lover or a friend for their past behavior. That in itself was a bit of a departure for the group, as Lennon-McCartney songs to that point expressed at most mild exasperation in their songs, whereas Harrison was somewhat harsher here.

There are also a handful of lines that hint at some of the deeper spiritual and philosophical conundrums that Harrison would tackle on future Beatles records. That’s why, while “Think for Yourself” is far from the most memorable song he would write with the group, it was in many ways one of his most important, in that it served as a stepping stone to his songwriting future.

Behind the Lyrics to “Think for Yourself”

I’ve got a word or two / To say about the things that you do, Harrison begins in “Think for Yourself,” and that turns out to be a bit of an understatement. He writes from the perspective of someone who no longer deals with this person (I left you far behind / The ruins of the life that you had in mind), but wants to educate them anyway so their future interactions might improve.

He’s not too confident that he’s going to be able to pull that off: And though you still can’t see / I know your mind’s made up / You’re going to cause more misery. It’s the song’s third verse where Harrison shifts into a somewhat philosophical mode.

Although your mind’s opaque, he sings, Try thinking for yourself if just for your own sake. It’s a reiteration of the idea behind the chorus (Think for yourself / ‘Cause I won’t be there for you). He then offers a note of hope that this person, if they can open up their mind to the possibilities, can turn a corner: The future still looks good / And you’ve got time to rectify / All the things that you should.

Those lines sound more like the benign deep thinker who would deliver deep treatises such as “Within You Without You” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in years to come. Harrison might have been advising someone to “Think for Yourself” on this nifty track, but he was on the verge of giving his audience a ton to ponder.

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