George Harrison had dropped from sight not long after celebrating his 58th birthday. But there were plenty of fresh footprints to mark his passing.

He surfaced briefly to contribute some minor guitar phrasing to albums by Bill Wyman and the Rhythm Kings, Jim Capaldi and the reformed Electric Light Orchestra, piloted by his good friend Jeff Lynne.

There were also the rumours that George – still traumatised by the effects of the attack by Michael Abram and absolutely terrified by the news in October 2001 that the relatives of Abram were pushing to have the by now institutionalised attacker released and that the legal system was strongly considering it – had put his beloved Friar Park home up for sale and was spending all of his time out of the country, either at his home in Maui or his villa in Tuscany.

Not that George was in a big hurry. Financially he did not have a care. The success of the various offshoots of the Anthology documentary – two more Anthology albums and the bestselling book – had swelled his already ample coffers even more. Beyond the money, George, through all the chaos of the past couple of years, had come to find peace in dealing with his legacy as a Beatle. Now he was more forthcoming with stories if people asked. He would occasionally sit by himself and play the old songs and find renewed joy in them.

‘The music was always there in the background,’ he once reminisced, ‘reflecting our feelings, our desires and all the things we’d experienced. It goes in leaps and bounds. It’s interesting.’

George had even managed to stir up some good old-fashioned controversy when, in 2000, while doing interviews for the thirty-year anniversary release of All Things Must Pass, he gave a critical lambasting to the current hot band (and Beatle-influenced) Oasis, calling them, among other things, ‘trite’. The band had responded in kind and George, whether he liked it or not, was back in the headlines in a feud that had carried on well into 2001.

There were still the moments of moodiness and it was not too surprising, according to reports, that George was suffering some post-traumatic stress as the result of his near-death experience and his reportedly declining health. George was having his good and bad days. In his mind, nothing was clearly defined. Which is why, looking forward to the year 2002, the reality was that George Harrison was at the crossroads, professionally and personally, and even he did not seem sure which way to turn.

The on-again, off-again talk of a new album by the end of 2001 had not materialised in the wake of his ongoing health issues. And while the speculation was that something, however minor, would be forthcoming from George in the new year, the truth was that, as he neared sixty, the clamour and the industry buzz of years gone by was dissipating, which may be part and parcel of how historians will view his life in music.

George Harrison had never been a risk taker. A solid if often unspectacular songwriter and a superb, subtle guitar player, George had never been one to rock the creative boat or to take inordinate chances with his music. Granted, there have been moments of brilliance over the years. One can always point to All Things Must Pass and Cloud Nine as moments where his reach happily overextended his tendency to be cautious. But more than one music historian has bemoaned the fact that George Harrison was a classic case of raw talent cutting itself off at the knees, and why is anybody’s guess.

The theory of too much too soon seems to hold sway here. George was fulfilled materially and egowise well before the age of thirty. He most certainly never had to work a day in his life by the time the Beatles disbanded, and he seemed, sometimes during what admittedly had been a spotty solo career, to simply be going through the motions. What a hungrier George Harrison might have been able to do will remain a mystery.

Admittedly, George had a lot of baggage to carry into his later years. Being a former member of the Beatles was something he could never shake, despite the fact that the truly classic moments from that band belonged to Lennon and McCartney, and perhaps it was a hurdle he could never overcome. Not that fighting the ghost of the Beatles was just George’s problem. While a case can be made for McCartney’s most commercial moments with Wings, the reality is that only John Lennon produced a consistent body of timeless work in his post-Beatles life, something George had never managed to approach on a consistent basis. And maybe felt he never could.

Because George Harrison was quite simply a creature of emotions and insecurities. That he wore those elements of his personality on his sleeve was a plus, allowing him to plunge headlong into life’s adventures and misadventures without a second thought, in direct contradiction to his creative conservativeness. There was immaturity in George, a cocksureness that was more the foible of youth than of a man who had experienced much in nearly six decades. It tended to excess, overindulgence and a constant dancing in defiance of authority, much as a child might defy a parent. And that, perhaps more than what he accomplished musically, is what people have come to love and admire about him, the quiet but persistent rebelliousness acted out on a world stage.

Which is why it is a good bet that George Harrison did not go Garbo-like into the good night. Yes, he was harder to find in public, his increased paranoia the unfortunate by-product of recent events in his life and the barely suppressed desire to live a quiet, relatively normal life after years in the public eye. He would turn up at the odd session for a friend and the occasional charity bash. There was never a thought of touring again. More likely George would be that omniscient presence on the rock music scene, alighting rarely for a live blow with a friend or a one-off unannounced show at a local pub.

George Harrison was most likely a presence turning ever inward in the ensuing years, moving to an even higher spiritual plane, savouring the role of husband and father and revelling in the normalcy of getting his hands dirty in his garden. It is a safe bet that his final years were passed quietly as a lifelong quest for peace, spirituality and accomplishment.

George seemed to sense this during a 1997 television news interview when, after the inevitable gab about his plans for another album and the anecdote or two about the Beatles, the conversation suddenly took a philosophical turn. It was in that moment that George Harrison, as only he could do, quite succinctly put his entire life in perspective.

‘For every human is a quest to find the answer to “Why are we here? Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?” That, to me, became the only important thing in my life. Everything else is secondary.’