The Beatles came and went in a flash of only a few years, and when they did, George Harrison hypothesized that their decade-defining spirit transferred into an entirely different but equally iconic group after the Fab Four split in the late 1960s. And indeed, what a monumental spirit that would have been, considering the band’s overwhelming effect on global culture, music, and ethos.
As for the iconic group that Harrison believed inherited this Beatles spirit? They always believed they were one and the same with the Liverpudlian quartet. The only difference, one member argued, was that the Fab Four chose the dark side.
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The Iconic Group That George Harrison Believed Inherited The Beatles Spirit
In terms of cultural significance, it’s hard to find a pop culture phenomenon more widely influential than the Beatles. From the moment they burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, they helped shape the music we listened to, how we dressed, what we believed, and how we talked. They were incredible tastemakers of the day, wooing audiences with their catchy music and witty rapport. But when they left nearly as suddenly as they arrived, first in their decision to stop touring and finally in their official breakup, that energy surely had to go somewhere, right?
If you asked George Harrison, that spirit floated over into the blossoming comedy troupe Monty Python. “He was a huge Monty Python fan,” comedian Terry Gilliam said of Harrison in Joshua Greene’s Here Comes the Sun. “We started the year the Beatles quit. He was absolutely convinced whatever that spirit was that animated the Beatles just drifted across to Python.”
Harrison often spoke about his love and admiration for Monty Python. Speaking to Melody Maker magazine, Harrison recalled the first time he caught the comedy troupe on BBC 2. “Derek Taylor and I were so thrilled by seeing this wacky show that we sent them a telegram saying, ‘Love the show. Keep doing it.’ I couldn’t understand how normal television could continue after that.”
“After the Beatles, Monty Python was my favorite thing,” Harrison told Rolling Stone. “It bridged the years when there was nothing really doing. And they were the only ones who could see that everything was a big joke.”
Monty Python Thought The Beatles Were Just Like Them
Joshua Greene said George Harrison’s love of Monty Python centered around their “scathing send-ups of Britain’s upper class and their ribald slashes at people who took themselves too seriously, especially religious types. He invested huge sums to fund the group’s projects to the point of mortgaging Friar Park [Harrison’s Henley-on-Thames mansion] to finance their 1979 hit film Life of Brian.”
George Harrison might have viewed Monty Python as a new, different incarnation of the Beatles. But comedy troupe founder Eric Idle didn’t think his iconic group and the Fab Four were all that different. “They were just as funny as we were,” Idle said in a 2024 appearance on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. “They were all Liverpool comedians, really. But they, you know, they went the wrong way. They went on the dark side.”
Photo by Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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