There aren't many people whose passing can make the entire planet feel sad. But George is one. I first met him when I was eight. My sister has taken me to a hotel where the Beatles were staying and we snuck in.
Paul was friendly. Ringo was kidding about. George was grumpy, which was perfect because that's how you expected him to be. You could tell he was wondering, "Why won't these kids get out of here?"
He was always the reluctant Beatle. Though he looked amazing, with that beautiful smile and those canine teeth, he thought all the screaming adoration was nonsense.
Once, when the Boomtown Rats were starting out and we were going through that, he came backstage and I asked him, "Do you miss it?" and he said, "Absolutely not".
Like the others, he knew the Beatles were a big deal, but none of them really understood why. He was, however, very proud of the band. He thought the music was fantastic.
Nor is it fair to say he was overshadowed by Lennon and McCartney. The Beatles were John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Beatles without George is unimaginable.
Sure, you had two geniuses. But the defining musical characteristic of the Beatles was taste. There isn't a single note that's misplaced, redundant or missing. It's perfect and his contribution was equally perfect. Uniquely in music, everything he ever recorded was a hook line. If you want to assess his legacy it's this: people can sing every note he ever played.
His songs, too, were excellent. Songwriting was always much more of an effort for him than for John and Paul. But he did it. And everything he wrote was on a par with anything the others were doing. Also, George's cultural impact was through more than just music. His interest in Eastern religion introduced the Western world to new ways of thinking, a phenomenal achievement for a boy in his 20s.
Conceivably, without George, the hippy movement would not have embraced Eastern mysticism nor opened up to world music. I suppose eventually it would have happened. But, as with everything the Beatles did, they were the Zeitgeist.
For all that, when he left the Beatles it was a release. It's commonly accepted, among musicians at least, that All Things Must Pass is the best of all post-Beatles albums. It wasn't like John and Paul's solo efforts, which in many ways were simply extensions of the Beatles. George's album was a complete shift. It was like a rebirth.
Although he was known as the "quiet one", he had tremendous energy and, in private, was very approachable. He has a wonderful dry humour.
Money was another constant concern. Following his messy experience with the Concert for Bangladesh, when he heard about Live Aid, he phoned to warn me about the pitfalls of dealing with the lawyers and taxmen.
But like all the Beatles he was also an idealist. The Concert for Bangladesh wasn't great, but it was the first time pop music had been shown to be able to do something and it resonated with me.
George's real love, though, was music. He would play with anyone. There's a stack of stuff in his house that has never been released.
The last time I saw George was last year. I was with a friend and we gave him a lift home in a clapped out old banger. I squeezed into the back and he got in the front and was just happily yapping away about music. Here was a rock legend in a smelly, old banger, but he was as happy as could be.