George Harrison, the former Beatles guitarist, was openly sceptical of the punk movement when it emerged in Britain in the late 1970s, dismissing the musicianship of bands like the Sex Pistols as "just rubbish" in a 1979 Rolling Stone interview. Although punk was partly a reaction against wealthy establishment figures, and Harrison had by then spent two decades as a hugely rich rock star living in leafy Henley-on-Thames, he claimed to sympathise with the social frustrations driving the movement while rejecting its angry, confrontational tone.

Harrison, who himself wrote the anti-tax anthem "Taxman", said he understood why young people felt trapped by bleak economic prospects and a "negative" Britain, and expressed sympathy for Sex Pistols members facing a future of factory work. However, as someone shaped by the idealism of the 1960s, he argued that change should come through love rather than hatred, criticising punk's reliance on noise and anger over musical finesse or a constructive message.