Memories of 'The Quiet One'

And now there are only two.

George Harrison was a distinguished guitarist, songwriter and humanitarian. Above all, however, he was a Beatle--and that's how we will remember him.

In the title of his first solo album, Harrison, who died Thursday (see obituary in section A), warned us that all things must pass, but somehow we never imagined it would pertain to the members of the Beatles.

Rock's greatest group arrived in America in 1964 not only with wonderful music, but also with a free, uplifting spirit that made everything seem possible and everyone feel as if they would live forever.

The group's albums took the raw energy and excitement of '50s rock and turned it into an art form, expressing the hopes, doubts and social attitudes of a generation. In the process, they inspired thousands of other musicians to join bands, forming a chain that stretches all the way to Nirvana and U2 today.

We don't mourn just for Harrison, but also for the Beatles--and our own mortality.

For the '60s generation, the evening of Feb. 9, 1964 was a defining moment--the first time we saw the Beatles. It was like Elvis all over again, only there were four of them.

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" had just gone to No. 1 on the singles chart, and they sang it and four other songs on Ed Sullivan's television show. Seventy-three million people tuned in--the most ever for a TV show at the time--and half of them surely were teenagers.

Just months after the assassination of President Kennedy, the Beatles' cheerful, optimistic music and manner were the ideal tonic. Overnight, they were part of our lives.

But our lives are a little emptier after Thursday.

Harrison, of course, isn't the first member of the Beatles to leave us. John Lennon was taken two decades ago by a madman's bullets, but that was a moment of insanity that could be explained away--a tragedy as unlikely as the plane crashes that killed Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens, or the self-destructiveness that ended the lives of Presley and Janis Joplin.

It's not as easy to dismiss Harrison's death, of cancer, as a freakish moment. Coming just three years after Linda McCartney, Paul's wife of nearly 30 years, died of breast cancer, his passing is the most sobering reminder to anyone who sang along to "Penny Lane" or "Hey Jude" that, indeed, all things must pass.