George Harrison and John Lennon bonded together —on LSD

On the morning of Dec. 9, 1980, Beatles guitarist George Harrison was asleep at his country estate in England when his wife Olivia took a call from Harrison’s sister, Louise, in New York. 

She had heard a news report that Harrison’s fellow Beatle, John Lennon, had been shot and later died in the emergency room at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan.

Despite learning that his bandmate has just been assassinated, Harrison simply turned over and went back to sleep. 

He wasn’t the only Beatle acting oddly in the face of tragedy.

When Paul McCartney was quizzed by a television reporter about Lennon’s murder, he described it as “a drag.”

But, as Philip Norman writes in “George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle” (Scribner), Harrison’s reaction wasn’t out of character — if anything, it displayed his “tactless gene” at its worst.

Critically, argues Norman, it was the also culmination of years spent in the shadow of Lennon and McCartney, The Beatles’ principal songwriters.

Soon after Harrison finally woke up, he issued a more reasoned statement about Lennon’s passing. “I am shocked and stunned. To rob life is the ultimate robbery in life.”

Harrison’s response to Lennon’s death came at a time when the pair were on the outs.

Throughout the Beatles years, their relationship had rarely been straightforward, largely because of Lennon and McCartney refused to allow Harrison the song-writing freedom he demanded.

Indeed, the only time that Harrison and Lennon became close was when they experimented with LSD.

The drug, Norman writes, had an immediate impact on Harrison.

“I took one look at the trees and the grass and the sky and thought, ‘Yeah, man, that’s it,’” Harrison said of the trip.

But when the Beatles quit drugs, the animosity between Harrison and Lennon returned, especially as Lennon’s new partner, Yoko Ono, began to consume much of the affection Lennon still had for Harrison.

Despite late ’60s masterpieces like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Something,” the sense of creative superiority that Lennon and McCartney had over Harrison continued.

Harrison coped with the slights with grace and humor, describing himself as the “economy-class Beatle” although, as Norman writes, “by sheer dogged persistence, he made it into the First Class cabin with songs equalling the best, if never the vast quantity, of Lennon and McCartney’s.”

The strained relations between Lennon and Harrison dated back to their early days playing clubs in Germany, where Lennon assumed the mantle of band leader.

That’s not to say there wasn’t, at times, genuine camaraderie.

When the band shared a room on the German tour, Lennon, McCartney and then drummer Pete Best, even watched as Harrison lost his virginity to a local woman. 

“After I’d finished they applauded and cheered. At least they kept quiet while I was doing it,” he says. 

But the template for the relationship, with Harrison cast as subordinate, was set.

Indeed, it was a bust-up with Lennon in January 1969 that saw Harrison ultimately leave The Beatles.

During the recording for the band’s final album, “Let It Be,” an altercation between the two became physical, according to producer George Martin, who witnessed the fracas.

It was one of only two times Beatles’ members had ever come to blows.

But it was the final straw for Harrison.

“He merely said, ‘Okay, see you around the clubs,’ then left the building and drove home,” writes Norman. 

With Harrison out of The Beatles, Lennon suggested recruiting Eric Clapton as a ready-made replacement, believing he was “just as good and not so much of a headache.” 

Ten days later, after peace talks at Ringo Starr’s house, Harrison rejoined The Beatles — but the end was in sight.

With tensions simmering, Paul McCartney’s decision to leave the band in April 1970 brought an end to their glorious union and while Harrison and Lennon remained friends, their relationship — as always — stayed challenging. 

When Harrison released his acclaimed triple album “All Things Must Pass” in 1970, for example, Lennon told Playboy magazine it was “alright,” even though it “went on too long.” 

Then, in 1971, after Harrison played on Lennon’s solo album Imagine, the pair fell out again.

In August that year, four months after The Beatles had finally split, Harrison organized “The Concert for Bangladesh” at Madison Square Garden featuring the likes of Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton. 

John Lennon was going to play, too — but “pulled out on discovering the invitation didn’t include Yoko,” writes Norman. 

The rift continued.

When Harrison published his autobiography, “I Me Mine,” in 1980, Lennon was shocked by how little he was featured, telling Playboy how he was offended that Harrison mentioned “every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met” but never him.

Soon after the Playboy interview, however, Lennon would be dead, killed by Mark David Chapman on Dec. 8, 1980.

History nearly repeated itself in December 1999 when another Beatles obsessive, Michael Abram, broke into Harrison’s home and stabbed him some 40 times. 

Although he survived, Harrison would be dead within two years, as the lung cancer he was battling spread, fatally, to his brain.

He was 58. 

For author Norman, his death unlocked memories of Lennon’s assassination, although, as he argues, the two tragedies differ in more than their circumstances.

“That horrifically sudden obliteration of John seemed to have half the human race in tears at what felt like the loss of a wayward but still cherished old friend,” he writes.

“With George, struck down by a quieter assassin, millions can mourn the musician, but there’s much less to go on in mourning the man. 

“For no more private person can ever have trodden a stage more mercilessly public.”