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RE your discussion of Lennon and McCartney’s editorial influence on each other’s songs and their need for each other: The quintessential example. Both made a Christmas record. Paul comes up with Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time. Nice but light weight. John comes up with Happy Xmas (War is Over), which, on balance, is deep but kind of melancholy and depressing. What might they have come up with if either collaborating or still generally working together?
The George quote at the top of the show…when was that?
PS. Another great conversation.
So something happened between April and August 1970. My guess is a series of Klein power plays in the spring and early summer that pushed Paul over the edge. He sort of refers to it in the 1971 Life Magazine interview:
“All these things continuously happening making me feel like I’m a junior with the record company, like Klein is the boss and I’m nothing. Well, I’m a senior. I figure my opinion is as good as anyone’s, especially when it’s my thing. And it’s emotional. You feel like you don’t have any freedom. I figured I’d have to stand up for myself eventually or get pushed under.”
Over the summer he took the decision to take the other Beatles to court. The rest, as they say, is history.
This is an odd conversation.. it feels like individuals rehashing and replaying an old relationship that ended a long time ago and are not willing to let it go. I wonder how healthy it is to make constant speculations about what if’s. Many of the curious questions posed by the hosts have pretty obvious answers but they seem to be more interested in wallowing in the illusion of what may have been possible if only X, Y, and Z.
The Beatles broke up for various reasons but part of it is the myth they constructed and have maintained all these years. It’s why Mark Lewisohn is legally barred from revealing the Sept 1969 tapes etc.
Myths, religion, spirituality, Governments and life all indulge and create myths. It is part of the human experience. But when we start utilizing a Sisyphus stone then we’re not really seeking enlightenment only self inflicted and infinite punishment.
When did John Lennon say “The Rolling Stones will break up over Brian Jones’s dead body”? I’m thinking that it’s something he might have said in the January ’69 sessions, captured on a Nagra roll (or not long after The Rock And Roll Circus, at any rate): David Dalton quoted this in a couple of his books about The Stones (it might even be in the original Get Back book). It’s an interesting comment and tracking down an audio clip to hear the quote in full context would be good.
At any rate, a more correct quote for John to say might have been “The Beatles will break up over Brian Epstein’s dead body” uttered by John in Almeria (or somewhere) in 1966!
I’m so jealous of Gary! I too often have follow up questions after a podcast but he actually gets to ask his lol. He did ask some excellent ones and your speculations make a lot of sense.
It’s logical that both John and Paul would retroactively invest John’s divorce comment with more finality than it really had since John wanted the credit for the break up and Paul didn’t. Paul really was in an untenable situation. Staying would have placed his career and income in the hands of someone he couldn’t trust. His current “wedding bells” explanation for the break up is appealing to us fans by making it seem like an organic and inevitable end point. But you did a nice job showing how things were in fact a lot more complicated. Several layers of irony as Paul was the Beatle who least wanted a split. And not listening to the “bossy” Beatle may have sown the seeds of the group’s demise.
John Lennon quit the Beatles, which had stopped functioning as a band after finishing Abbey Road a month earlier, on September 20 1969, during a meeting with McCartney, Ringo and Allen Klein to sign the new, lucrative contract with EMI/Capitol Klein had worked out (George Harrison was in Liverpool visiting his parents). The contract was signed, with Abbey Road’s release less than a week away, but Klein and Paul persuaded John to, reluctantly, stay quiet about the breakup. (As for the contract,
McCartney said to Klein, “Well, if you’re screwing me, I can’t see it.” Linda McCartney made photos of the occasion. SEE Also Peter Doggett’s excellent book, You Never Give Me Your Money). John sort of kept mum, sort of didn’t, depending on which interview he gave in subsequent months. Articles in Rolling Stone and elsewhere covered the brewing discord, and the denials. Meanwhile, John issued Live Peace Toronto in Fall 1969 and in January 1970 his second hit solo single emerged, “Instant Karma.” George toured Europe, out of the headlines, with Delaney, Bonnie and Friends. Ringo prepared Sentimental Journey for March 1970 release. No one used the 1969 breakup for career purposes–until Paul had his solo LP, almost half of it instrumental, ready for release.