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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

George Harrison Dies at the Age of 58

Aired November 30, 2001 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN HOST: Good evening, again, everyone. Well, like many of you, I read the news today, oh boy, and the news was rather sad, the death of George Harrison.

My mind, I got to tell you was all in the past today. I thought of every high school girlfriend I ever had. OK, there were only 4, Dianne, Nancy, Christina, and Marsha Poffenberger (ph) But Marsha was just one date at "Snow Days." Anyway, everyone of them would have dropped me in a heartbeat for 5 minutes with any one of the Beatles.

I also thought of all the battles with my mother back then. She insisted I have a crew cut. And a crew cut was geeky even before the Beatles, let alone after. Having won that battle, there was a nasty little dispute with the vice principal who gave me detention, because my hair touched my eyebrows. There will be no revolutionary activity at Hopkins High School, young man, he said that to me. These were the great issues of my youth, and I thought about them today.

And then I thought about my own daughter. And her concerns seem a little bit different. She worries about whether her knapsack will fit through a metal detector, and there was that look on her face when she saw national guardsman with machine guns at the airport last weekend.

I still remember with great joy and relief that polio was cured. She gets to worry about anthrax and AIDS. I thought of all of this, today, and I hummed dozens of old Beatles songs and I'll bet many of you did, too. OK, maybe not the Marsha Poffenberger part, but the rest of it. So good bye, George and thanks for the music and the innocence.

He was the quite one and he died a quiet death. In a time when nothing is quiet in the world. The youngest Beatle who Paul McCartney thought of as his little baby brother. McCartney said today, simply, he was devastated. At Abbey Road Studios the staff played songs that Harrison had written. They played them out the window for all those who came to remember him, and they came. And fans gathered all over the world, including here in New York at the place they call Strawberry Fields in Central Park. The place to remember that other Beatle who was lost to the world two decades ago.

It's been easy to forget since September 11, the everyday suffering in the world, the ordinary deaths. George Harrison suffered and died in the shadow of a much larger tragedy. Tonight we'll set aside the larger tragedy. And look at his life and his friends and family and his music, and their impact.

Usually, here we do our whip around the world with the headlines of the day from our correspondents. Tonight, the whip with some of our guests. This could get rocky but here we go. We begin in Encino, California with Graham Nash who you know of an Nash in Crosby Stills Nash and sometimes Young, George Harrison knew him as a friend. Graham, not a headline, but a thought from you tonight.

GRAHAM NASH, MUSICIAN: Well, I'm very pleased that you chose to talk to me. There are many people who knew George more intimately than me, but we did have parallel lives in many strange ways. It's a sad day, my heart goes out to Olivia and to his son, Dhani. And yet, in a way, it's a triumphant day.

BROWN: We'll talk more about that in a little bit. Thanks for joining us.

Pete Fornatale a New York disc jockey for 35 years. Pete's with us in New York, a thought please.

PETE FORNATALE, DISC JOCKEY: Aaron, it's a night of mixed emotions for me. I'm glad to be here with you and with my old friend Graham Nash, even if it's bi-coastally. But I'm sad about George. However, I don't feel bad about George's death and that's because I know how deeply he believed in the place where he is right now. And since I share that belief, I think of this more as a celebration, than a wake.

BROWN: We'll talk to you more, Pete, in a bit.

To the impact of Harrison and the Beatles on the society, in Los Angeles, tonight, Anne Taylor Fleming. Anne, a thought from you.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: I was just thinking when you were talking about your girlfriends what an impact he had in particular on young women trying to find their way out of the 50s into the sexually liberated 60s. And the Beatles were such a sweet bridge, as one looks back, into that world. Very tender, they wanted to hold our hand, not what people want do today in their lyrics. So, I too remember him with great love and nostalgia.

BROWN: Anne we'll back with you.

And a " Los Angeles Times" music critic, the legendary Robert Hillburn joins us from L.A., as well. A thought from you tonight, on the music.

ROBERT HILLBURN, MUSIC CRITIC, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Well, what I think today was Paul McCartney's comment about George being his baby brother. I think for any us from the 60's and the 70's, what the Beatles did was make us a feel like a family for a while. And today we've all lost a member of that family, so it's a bit sad. But one thing we have to help cheer us up is the music that they gave us.

BROWN: That we do. Thanks for joining us, all of you. We'll be back with all of you in a bit. A year ago George Harrison said in an interview that he couldn't believe how quickly 40 years had gone. Talk about saying what we all are thinking. the music still seems to us, at least, as fresh as yesterday and no pun intended, which says a lot about the man who died today and the guys he made music with.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The crowd of people stopped in New York's Central Park. The place called Strawberry Fields. They place they remember John Lennon each year. And they stopped and stared and sang and grieved in front of Abbey Road's recording studio in London and in lots of other places, because there were virtually no places in the world where the Beatles weren't important. And George Harrison wasn't remembered.

A child of blue collar Liverpool, quiet and shy then and always, he got his first guitar at 13. He was a school chum with an older boy, a kid named McCartney and McCartney knew another kid, a guy named John. Paul and John were part of a band called the Quarry Men. And George was allowed to play when one of the regulars didn't show.

He taught John how to play guitar. But John for all his extraordinary talent, could never played like George. Harrison was the lead guitar. Some of the most magical chords of their magical mystery tour through rock and roll.

RAY CONNELLY, MUSIC JOURNALIST: I think he was the musical cement, which embellished these great songs by Lennon and McCartney. If you think of "A Hard Days Night" and that opening chord that everybody knows, one chord -- clang -- that was George. And that made the song and so often there were so many little riffs and additions to the songs that made them so wonderful, so he was incredibly important in that sense.

BROWN: They were the Beatles, George and John and Paul, eventually Ringo. And in those insane times when they seemed to invent a new form of rock and roll, or perhaps reflect one. When they became the world's band, it was George who seemed most to feel the confining crush of celebrity.

His music, his songs were gentle, as gentle as he.

["Here Comes The Sun," by The Beatles]

"Here Comes the Sun" was a hymn to the future.

GEORGE MARTIN, BEATLES PRODUCER: He would craft his music meticulously with every little stitch in the canvas. And gradually built up his songwriting technique to a point where he became a great writer. He wasn't to begin with, but then he started writing great songs.

["Something," by The Beatles]

BROWN: And this was one of them. The sweetest love song. Recorded by other singers more than 20 times. And over time, like other great songs, elevator music but not the first time and not tonight.

CONNELLY: I've said "Something," I think, is one of the greatest song -- love songs ever written.

BROWN: As the Beatles continued to soar, Harrison became more and more interested in the spiritual side of life. He was the one who introduced the rest of the band to the teachings of Maharishi (ph) Mahesh (ph) yogi. Eventually, all but Harrison would drop out.

CONNELLY: Certainly, he took to Indian religion and assimilated it, and became a great devotee and a great believer. He really, firmly believed that the soul was the most important thing of all.

["My Sweet Lord," by George Harrison]

BROWN: Four years after beatlemania ended, Harrison had his first solo hit. Yet another one of those songs where you remember exactly where you were the first time you heard it played, "My Sweet Lord."

And a year after that, he organized the now-famous concerts to raise money for Bangladesh.

He didn't record a whole lot after that. There were a few memorable songs, sad often it seemed. And other projects too. He produced the movie "The Life of Brian" with Monty Python.

JOHN CLEESE, ACTOR: Blasphemer! You are to be stoned to death!

["While My Guitar Gently Weeps," by The Beatles]

BROWN: And lived his life quietly in a mansion outside of London with his second wife and child.

He'd been sick for a while now, his death not unexpected. But expected or not, it doesn't much matter. Another of the Beatles has died, and that was a shock for all of us, grown up now, who still hum the songs in the car, or perhaps in a quiet moment at the office. Even if the office is Parliament.

TONY BLAIR, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: The personalities of the band were the background of our lives. I think people will be very sad at his death. I think it is worth pointing out that he was not just a great musician and artist, but he did an immense amount of charity, as well. And so he will be very, very sadly missed by people right around the world.

BROWN: Missed certainly by his friend of more than 40 years.

PAUL MCCARTNEY, MUSICIAN: We just had so many beautiful times together, that that's what I'm going to remember him by. A lovely guy, who's full of humor, as I say, even when I saw him last time, and he was obviously very unwell. He was still cracking jokes, like he always was. And he will be sorely missed. He's a beautiful man, and the world will miss him.

["A Day in The Life of," by The Beatles]

BROWN: Around the world today, aging boomers and hip-hop kids sang songs of that other time, that innocent time when rock was young and so were we. And so were they. George Harrison was 58.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We remember George Harrison in lots of different ways today, lots of different voices, a fair amount of music. All of that is coming up. Before that, some of the concert at Shea Stadium. What a night it was! The 15th of August, 1965.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY, CONCERT AT SHEA STADIUM")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, honored by their country, decorated by their queen, and loved here in America, here are the Beatles! Here they come!

MCCARTNEY (singing): We're all alone and there's nobody else. I'm down. Down to ground. I'm really down. How can you laugh when you know I'm down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: When John Lennon died on that Monday night a long time ago now, we were all shocked. He was young and it was murder, and that night there were no words that we remembered, just lots of tears. George Harrison's death today was different. He was older, we were prepared. People had a lot to say. Here's some of it. Famous people and not so famous people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George is a wonderful man, and a fine musician. But most importantly, I think he was a very loving person. Full of humor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought he was a great guy. He was very gentle. Very, very gentle man. An unassuming guy. And a wonderful writer and guitarist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The thing about George's songs is that they're just such shining little, shining nuggets. These are songs that are just so unique and so perfect in their expression of a human situation or a human consciousness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will remember him as an incredibly caring and compassionate person first. I mean, you know, a really loving person, first and foremost.

BONO, MUSICIAN: I think there's a sort of unknowable quality and a mysterious quality about his music, which made him very attractive character, and gave the Beatles an extra dimension, really. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As an individual, George Harrison used the power of his position. He actually was the first person to see the power that music could hold, and the glamour of music and how it could bring people's awareness to politics.

MCCARTNEY: A fantastic guy. Lovely man. Great sense of humor. I was lucky enough to see him a couple weeks ago, and he was still laughing and joking. Very brave man. And third, I'm just privileged to have known him, and I love him like he's my brother.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: All day long today, from the moment here in New York that the news broke that George Harrison had died, people started gathering in Central Park in a part of the park called Strawberry Fields. It was a perfect day for this here in New York. It was warm, but it was gray all day. A nice day to gather and grieve together, and sing.

CROWD (singing): And all I have to do is sing. Something in the smile she showed me. I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe her now.

BROWN: And tonight in the park, they're still there. We're starting to look older, and they're still singing.

CROWD (singing): Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friends. I have always thought that it's a crime, so I will ask you once again to see it my way (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we can work it out.

BROWN: Strawberry Fields, Central Park, New York City on this Friday night. We'll take more about the music when NEWSNIGHT continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CROWD (singing): ... life goes on. Obladi, oblada, life goes on, life goes on. In a couple years, they have built a home, sweet home. With a couple kids running in the yard...

BROWN: Central Park in New York. A gathering. Hard to imagine such a thing would take place for anyone else other than one of the Beatles. George Harrison once said, "I'm really not a career person, I'm a gardener, basically." Like it or not, George was a musician, a pretty good musician in the eyes of many, and an underrated one as well.

Joining us now to talk about his music, long-time New York disc jockey Pete Fornatale; Marshal Crenshaw, musician, big fan; and in Los Angeles, Robert Hillburn tonight, music critic for the "Los Angeles Times." Welcome to all of you.

Robert, you remember the first Beatle song you heard?

ROBERT HILLBURN, MUSIC CRITIC, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Well, sure. It was on -- I guess it was "I Want to Hold Your Hand." But I remember watching "The Ed Sullivan Show," and I think everyone was so enamored with Paul and John at the beginning that I really kind of overlooked George. I loved the song "All My Loving," and I just loved the guitar break in it, but I always kept thinking that Paul played that guitar break for some strange reason, and I saw a tape the other day of it, and it's George, you know.

But the remarkable thing to me watching the footage you just had is them on stage at Shea Stadium. How those guys went from the energy and innocence of the '60s into turning rock'n'roll, almost by the themselves, into an art form.

BROWN: Yeah. We're talking when we came back from break, Marshall, I said I couldn't imagine there would be a gathering in Central Park for any other member of any other group. I mean, it has to be the Beatles. Anyone else, can you imagine people spontaneously coming out for?

MARSHALL CRENSHAW, MUSICIAN: You know, no. And unfortunately, the only other time I remember anything like this was in 1980, you know. And now, it's two of them gone.

BROWN: And Pete, something that Robert said. Harrison spent that portion of his career, the Beatles portion of his career, trapped in between, in some sense, two extraordinary giants in McCartney and Lennon.

PETE FORNATALE, D.J., WFUV RADIO: Try and imagine that, try and imagine being caught in the crossfire of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He was the youngest, so he was easier to browbeat. His songwriting talents developed, but after theirs. So, they were packing album after album with their songs, and he was lucky to put one or two on as things moved along. And that's why I think after the break-up of the group, George Harrison is the one that exploded as a songwriter. His first album as a soloist was "All Things Must Pass," a three-record set. He must have been stockpiling those things.

BROWN: Dying to write. Robert, was he a better musician after the Beatles, a better songwriter after the Beatles than he was while he was a Beatle?

HILLBURN: I think initially, sure, for maybe an album or two. But after that, I think either he lost interest in music or he kind of ran out of things to say. I don't think fame attracted him, and I'm not sure he was the kind of competitive person like Lennon and McCartney. I mean, Lennon solo albums I would think were superior to George's, and Paul's possibly were superior.

But your earlier question about would anyone else come to Strawberry Fields -- I think if Bob Dylan died, we would see Strawberry Fields full. But the remarkable thing about that is, Bob Dylan was lured into rock'n'roll by the Beatles. I mean, he would have been a folk singer, if he hadn't been for what he saw that the Beatles were doing, and the excitement when he toured he Europe.

BROWN: So -- by the way, are you writing tomorrow on this?

HILLBURN: Yeah, there's a story, a kind of appreciation, a remembrance of George in tomorrow's paper.

BROWN: And what's your lead in the paper tomorrow? What are you saying in that?

HILLBURN: The first sentence is, "And now there are two." We now have only the two of them. And, you know, it is part of a family.

And I never wanted to see a Beatles reunion. You know, I thought we've seen so many tasteless, cheap reunions over the years, but the Beatles kept saying they weren't going to do it and weren't going to do it. But I found myself at the time of the concert in New York, you know, that Paul put together -- even though John wasn't there, but I kind of wanted to see them finally on stage again, just, you know, to stand and cheer and kind of remember that. And now, we're never going to have the chance ever to see them.

BROWN: Marshall, you want to weigh in on that idea? Would you like to have seen them play again?

CRENSHAW: Yeah, you know. And I think maybe they would have. I think -- especially by now, you know. It seems like by now a lot of the bitterness would have gone away, and if there were still four of them around, they might have done something together, you know. I mean, they really were good friends. They had a bitter break-up and everything, but it's been a long time since then. But I mean, it's -- it's been such a moot point for so long now.

BROWN: Pete, we were talking before about the Bangladesh concert, and we were watching a clip, and I said, I still think it's one of the great pieces of tape, watching that. It was a great event.

FORNATALE: Most terrific concert event of my life, and we just celebrated the 30th anniversary of it. It was August 1, 1971. Very quickly, two concerts were organized -- and afternoon show and an evening show -- by George and Ravi Shankar. He invited his friends, and of course that's an A-list. Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr and Leon Russell. And there were rumors that day about a Beatles reunion. That's what most of the afternoon crowd was thinking about.

And instead, midway through the show, this denim-clad figure comes off from the side of the stage, with bushy hair, and it's Bob Dylan. And that was a thrill, because he hadn't been performing for a while, and it was just one of those magic moments.

BROWN: Let me give Robert the last word here. I'm curious sort of where you are in this tonight. You said at the beginning sad, but the music. The music -- will our grandchildren be listening to the music?

HILLBURN: Yes, sure. You know, I've heard a lot of people this weekend say -- or, you know, today say, "this is the end of an era." And it is psychologically. Psychologically, we've lost another Beatle. But musically, it's not. The Beatles music is still with us. The album "Anthology" last year sold seven million copies, which is more than any other album this year, and you can find the inspiration that the Beatles gave us in the works of bands today. You take U2. U2 is a band I think that would have been on the same stages as the Beatles if they had been there in the '60s, and I think that they carry on that flame well. And a lot of other bands that have been inspired by the Beatles, that still speak to the word and speak to us in ways that are original and touching.

BROWN: Gentlemen, it's nice to have you with us. Robert Hillburn, it's finally nice to meet you. Even electronically, I've been reading you for years. Thank you for coming in with us tonight as well, gentlemen, thanks a lot.

When we come back, we'll talk with George Harrison's sister, we'll talk with musician, songwriter and singer Graham Nash. We have much to do. And we'll go to break with that 1972 concert for Bangladesh. Here we go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRISON (singing): Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right. Little darling...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AARON BROWN, ANCHOR: We said earlier that Paul McCartney today remembered George Harrison as his "little baby brother." But there is someone who can literally say that George was her little brother. George's only sister, Lou Harrison, joins us tonight. It's nice to see you. And first of all, our condolences.

LOUISE HARRISON, SISTER: Yes. Thank you very much. I've -- I guess I haven't put the phone down all day from people calling and giving their love and support and, you know, saying how much they will miss him.

BROWN: When did you last see your brother?

HARRISON: Oh, it was just a couple of weeks ago in Staten Island.

BROWN: And he was quite sick then?

HARRISON: Yes, he was quite sick. But you know, as usual, he was cheerful and we had a very nice little time. It was only about an hour and a half before he had to leave to go to California. But we did have a chance to, you know, have a really nice visit.

BROWN: These are -- these are neither -- neither easy questions to ask or answer. Did he believe then that he would recover or not?

HARRISON: I didn't talk about that. You know, we just basically chatted about other stuff. We didn't address the question of, you know, how sick or not sick he was. We just chatted about, you know, stuff. BROWN: What was it -- let's go back a long time now. What was it like to be the older sister of one of the Beatles? To all of a sudden have this extraordinary thing happen to your kid brother?

HARRISON: Well, it's always been a very, very wonderful and positive experience, because to begin with my mum and dad used to answer thousands of letters from Beatles fans from all over the world.

And very soon after they became known in the United States, I started getting thousands of letters from all over the world. And my mum urged me to start answering them too.

After we lost our mum back about -- I don't know, '69, I think it was, or '70 -- then I sort of took over as the mum to the Beatle family of people worldwide. And I guess most Beatle people -- people all over the world know me as Lou and I'm either their mum or in the case of the little kids they all call me Nana Lou in the same way that my grandchildren do. So I've been very fortunate.

BROWN: I think -- I guess you have. I think I remember reading somewhere today that you were backstage at the Ed Sullivan concert -- or Ed Sullivan appearance -- and I think everybody who's at least my age remembers. What was that like that night?

HARRISON: It was wonderful. It was very, very exciting and very chaotic. From the moment that they arrived in New York it was chaotic.

George had been just shortly before they came to do the Ed Sullivan show had been to southern Illinois, where I live now, to visit me in the September of that year. And he had intended coming back when they came to do the show.

But as he found out there weren't going to be really allowed to go anywhere. It was going to be too many crowds. So he -- you know, he said to me, "Why don't you come to New York instead?" And initially we were going to meet at the airport and then the night before, he called me and said, "you know, I've just learned that every helicopter in New York has been rented for the day to cover our getting there."

So he said, "it might be a little bit difficult for us to hook up at the airport. So why don't you go directly to the hotel?" So that's what I did. And when I got there I checked in and the people at the desk said go on up to 1400 and whatever the room was. So I went up. I checked into my own room and went up.

And of course there was a huge mob of security people and media people at the corridor. And I went to try to slide my way past them and of course I get a big fist put in my chest and a great big -- I think he was a Brinks security man -- said to me, "where do you think you're going?"

And I said, "Well, I'm just going to see my brother." And of course the whole crowd just roared with laughter and they said, "Do you know how many times that's been tried today?" BROWN: I imagine. I imagine.

HARRISON: At that time -- go ahead. Am I talking too much?

BROWN: Well, now, how am I suppose to answer that? I mean, do you think I'm going to say yes? Come on. Let me -- let me just thank you again, and from all of us here. You've been -- I know you had a long ride to get to where the studio is tonight to talk with us and we appreciate -- a lot -- your willingness to do it. And it's nice to meet you. Thank you.

HARRISON: It's nice to meet you, too. I watch you constantly, so I know what you look like.

BROWN: Well, in that regard you didn't talk nearly enough. If I knew you were going to say that, I would have let you go on for a long time. Thank you.

HARRISON: All right. Goodbye.

BROWN: Lou Harrison. Who's in -- who would have guessed, by the way, that George Harrison's sister lives in southern Illinois?

HARRISON: Can I say cheerio like I used to say to all of my fans back in the old days?

BROWN: I think you just did.

HARRISON: OK. Cheerio.

BROWN: Thank you very much.

HARRISON: Bye bye.

BROWN: Bye bye.

This is a live TV program. Some of the phrases people used today to remember George Harrison: a lovely man, a gentlemen, a great guy, an incredible human being. That last one was from his friend Graham Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash, who says the big regret for him is not knowing the other songs that were in George's mind that we'll never get to hear. Graham Nash joins us now from Encino, California. Wow. You've a tough act to follow now.

Good evening. Glad to have you with us. You said at the beginning that you thought you had parallel lives. And tell me how you -- tell me what you meant.

GRAHAM NASH, MUSICIAN: Well, we both came from very humble beginnings in the north of England. We both survived World War II. We both found that -- as did many rock 'n' rollers that came from England -- that music was our salvation.

All we really had to do, you know, was to kick a ball around the street and play with your friends. And then all of sudden Lonnie Donegan (ph) comes along, who -- who is a master of skiffle -- and it was cheap guitar and everybody could do it and we could all learn three chords.

And that's what I did and that's what George did. It's what John did and Paul and everybody else that you know that came out of what was called the British Invasion. Music saved our lives. It really did.

BROWN: Is that why -- I mean, you think of it that way? It gave you -- it was the way out of whatever life would have otherwise been?

NASH: The gold watch.

BROWN: Yeah, yeah.

NASH: Yeah. Because, you know, what you were supposed to do was do what your dad did and do what his dad did. And if it was good enough your your grandfather, my God it's good enough for you, son. But our parents did not allow us to do that. So music was our escape. When we went down to -- to London, my goodness, it was like visiting a completely foreign planet. Very few people had been out of Manchester at that point, of the kind of people that we were.

BROWN: Yes.

NASH: So music really saved our lives.

BROWN: I read today where he said once -- not that long ago -- that he didn't much think of himself as a Beatle, that Beatle was a suit he wore. Talk about celebrity a little and how you think that might have affected him, how he handled it differently than the others.

NASH: Well, like I said earlier, there were people that knew George much more intimately than I did. But in observing and -- and being with him on many, many occasions -- but mostly observing him, I was astounded at the grace and the dignity with which he handled what you just referred to as his Beatle suit.

It was chaotic. It was madness. Everybody wanted to know what every Beatle wore, what they said, what they smoked, what they ate, who they slept with. They wanted to know every single thing.

And George always was able to maintain this distance from it. His reality was not in how much money that he made or famous he was. His reality was that he was communicating with his music and that of his friends and his -- and his compadres.

And it was not that important to him to be a Beatle. I think his internal process of what was happening to him was -- was played out as we all get this deck of cards to play in our lives. And George's deck was in terms of whether he was more famous or richer than anybody else, it never came into -- as far as I can see -- it never came into his being.

BROWN: Did -- did all the other guys, the people who weren't Beatles but who were making music at the time, were they going "Boy, I'd like some of that. That looks like fun?" NASH: It -- it wasn't so much as that. When, you know, I've known them in my own way since -- let me see -- 1959 or 1960. And we were playing the talent show together in Manchester. It was kind of like the Ted Mack Amateur Hour where a promotor gets a bunch of local talent and when you win you go on to the next city. And they were doing a Buddy Holly song, strangely enough, called "Think It Over."

That was the very first time that I ever saw them. They weren't even the Beatles then. But it was very obvious that they had something together where people would say, my God, you know?

I mean, I used to work at a nightclub that they came and played once. And they walked through the door -- all four of them -- and I swear to God every girl wet her knickers. And they hadn't even played a note. There was something about them that was undeniable.

BROWN: Graham Nash, it's delightful to talk to you. You did well following Lou Harrison, by the way. That wasn't an easy thing to do. Thanks for joining us.

NASH: No, it's not. Very much my pleasure, Aaron. Thank you very much.

BROWN: Thank you. Graham Nash in Encino, California. We'll be right back. We'll take you to break with George Harrison and the Traveling Wilburys. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Central Park, New York City. On a gray but warm Friday night, people have been gathering all day long with their candles and their guitars and their memories.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

(CROWD SINGING)

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BROWN: This has been going on all day long. It's such a sweet scene down at Central Park. We're running a little behind. We need to take a quick break. We have much more ahead. Stay with NEWSNIGHT on a Friday night in New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: In some ways maybe it's a little silly to talk about the impact the Beatles had on our lives. Not the music, but on our lives. Maybe it's one of those things you just had to live through to appreciate. They were fun and rebellious, and to a girl of a certain age, they were really really cute.

Anne Taylor Fleming was a girl of a certain age. She watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964. She joins us again tonight from Los Angeles. And Joel Stein of "Time" magazine is with us in New York. He wasn't even born then, just to make the rest of us feel bad. Anne, we'll start with you. Girl of a certain age. What was it that made young girls swoon and faint and all of that?

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING, ESSAYIST: Well, there was something -- you've used the word quite a lot tonight, Aaron, yourself. There was a sweetness and just a sort of beginning sexuality.

But it wasn't threatening. Because I remember watching like Elvis Presley. I think he was on a couple years before that on the "Ed Sullivan Show." That was tougher and raunchier and it was sort of more a harbinger of the really tough-guy American sexuality that was coming.

There was something very sweet and safe about the Beatles at the same time. You know, they wanted -- as I said, they wanted to hold your hand. They were a kind of sweet bridge out of the sort of repressed '50s childhoods that most of us had into a different world, but a very sweet, hand-holding bridge.

BROWN: And...

FLEMING: So...

BROWN: I'm sorry. And for a guy, was it rebellion but not especially dangerous rebellion?

FLEMING: I think that's right. And I don't think they were very threatening to guys.

I mean, I don't think it came on, you know, mano a mano, macho a macho like an Elvis Presley. And then all the guys I knew liked the Beatles as much as we did. I mean, they might not have yelled.

Also, I don't remember making too big a fool of myself over them. But there was just a -- sweetness and a nonvulgarity. And the irony was that they kept that all the way through. Even as the decade darkened, their music darkened and took on shades, they never got vulgar. They never got trashy. And for women that was a very sweet kind of sexuality that they were offering.

BROWN: I can tell you that one of the four girls that I mentioned at the beginning of the program did make a fool of herself once. But I won't tell you which one.

FLEMING: I made a partial fool of myself.

BROWN: Oh, OK.

FLEMING: Partial.

BROWN: Joel, do you ever think "Man, I really missed that one. That would have been fun to live through?

JOEL STEIN, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Yeah, I mean, I feel that way with a lot of stuff. But you get to listen to it now, and that's enough for me. BROWN: That's enough. So you'll see old Ed Sullivan and it's no big deal. Do you think it affected your life, the Beatles? Changed your life?

STEIN: Oh, totally. I mean, it changed a lot.

BROWN: Totally?

STEIN: Well...

BROWN: You are playing a role.

STEIN: Without the Beatles I would be still listening to bad rockabilly, right? No, they did change rock and roll. And, you know, I grew up listening to Beatles records and classic rock and -- and I still do.

BROWN: Would there -- seriously...

STEIN: And without them, would I have Julian Lennon and Valotte (ph)?

BROWN: No, you wouldn't. Were there kids when you were growing up and you were listening to the Beatles going, why are you listening to that old stuff?

STEIN: No. You know, I grew up in the '80s when the music wasn't good. So we all like grew bad mullet haircuts and wore bad classic t-shirts and like listened to Pink Floyd and Yes and the worst of the music that the Beatles kind of spawned.

BROWN: And Anne, we talked about what it was like back then. Do you think they changed us as we've grown up? Are we different because people of our age lived through the Beatles?

FLEMING: I don't know, Aaron. That might be a little complicated. I do think though, what was so arresting to me was in the -- one of the first big concerts after September 11. I can't remember who might -- who sang "Imagine," which was, you know that -- the glorious Beatles song. I think they left us with a sort of optimistic vision.

The irony to me sometimes -- and I was thinking about this today -- is that they weren't American. You know, it was as if they came from England to show us a side of ourselves that wasn't us, that was sweeter. Maybe they held a mirror to us that we -- in which we saw a better self, and that that's what we carry.

I mean, those are the lyrics that stay with us, and that -- that sense of possibility. I mean, apparently the last thing that George was talking about -- Harrison -- was about a world of love. And that might seem silly and corny and outdated and it might seem unbelievably relevant, which I think it does to a lot of people right now.

BROWN: We've got about 30 seconds left. Anne, what song will you hum to yourself tonight? What Beatles song will you hum to yourself tonight?

FLEMING: You know, I was thinking that. "I Should Have Known Better" is the one. That still makes me (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

BROWN: And Joel?

STEIN: I'll be thinking about those -- those knickers that they were talking about. I didn't know about that.

BROWN: Why am I not surprised?

Thank you. I think we'd do better with your grandmothers.

STEIN: Well, that's up to you.

BROWN: Thank you. Joel Stein, Anne Taylor Fleming. Thanks for joining us tonight. Talking about George Harrison and the Beatles and that long-ago time for some of us. We'll be right back.

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LIVE: CROWD SINGING "YESTERDAY"

BROWN: Strawberry Fields. Finally from us tonight, a last goodbye. John Lennon was taken from us. George Harrison died. He died in one of those ways any of us might die and so part of the sadness we feel today has less to do with him, I suspect, and more to do with the awareness of our own mortality.

But this is not a night to end on sad thoughts. George and the Beatles were not about sad. So we will miss him, we're glad he passed peacefully, and we are blessed that he left behind his music and theirs.

Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

MUSIC PLAYING: "LOVE ME DO"

MONTAGE OF BEATLES

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