A fascinating read over at Rolling Stone, and written by Mikal Gilmore, it appears there were
three things which broke up the Beatles:

:money

:dumb ass Yoko Ono
:John Lennon's jealousy and self-doubt in the face of McCartney's emerging musical brilliance

Anyways, here is the inside story of the forces that tore apart the world's greatest band.

I've heard stories that Lennon was a bit of an a*sehole off stage.

Decent song writer but never understood all the fuss about him. Imagine no possessions ... yeah, from behind the seat of your massive piano in your massive mansion. Probably not the easiest bloke to be in a band with.

Still this debate? It was a lot more than Lennon wanting to go or jealousy, McCartney wanted things his way Lennon wanted it his way, Harrison wanted a voice and not just two songs a record, Ringo well he was the guy who had to deal with the fights. Harrison left many times and they had to get him back, if anything Harrison probably wanted out more than anyone. As far as Lennon/McCartney it was hardly a team in the later years, I mean it might have been a "recording title" slapped on songs but how much did they really collaborate is always in question. A song like "I am the Walrus" is all Lennon, a song like "Here There and Everywhere" is all McCartney yet both are listed as collaborations.

DaveT said:

I've heard stories that Lennon was a bit of an a*sehole off stage.

Decent song writer but never understood all the fuss about him. Imagine no possessions ... yeah, from behind the seat of your massive piano in your massive mansion. Probably not the easiest bloke to be in a band with.

The article suggests that prior to the last two albums, Lennon had been mostly responsible for
the songs considered Beatles masterpieces. I disagree with this, but Lennon, in my opinion, was
a better songwriter than "decent."

But, yes, he certainly was not easy to get along with, but neither was McCartney all the time.

lastdecember said:

Still this debate? It was a lot more than Lennon wanting to go or jealousy, McCartney wanted things his way Lennon wanted it his way, Harrison wanted a voice and not just two songs a record, Ringo well he was the guy who had to deal with the fights. Harrison left many times and they had to get him back, if anything Harrison probably wanted out more than anyone. As far as Lennon/McCartney it was hardly a team in the later years, I mean it might have been a "recording title" slapped on songs but how much did they really collaborate is always in question. A song like "I am the Walrus" is all Lennon, a song like "Here There and Everywhere" is all McCartney yet both are listed as collaborations.

Yes, LD, "still this debate" (even though I don't really see any debating going on). It is a topic - how
the Beatles broke up - that will never die as long as the Beatles remain the most influential recording
band of all time. We all know that the Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem was mostly just a
naming convention rather than an accurate description of the songwriting process, but the article goes
a long way to establish that yes, it was more than just Lennon's jealousy, the band's chafing at
McCartney's aspirations to be "band leader", the problems the band had with managing their money
and business interests, and how Starr left first, to return, with Harrison leaving and returning, then
Lennon bailing out to McCartney finally bowing out as well and refusing to consider reuniting while the
other three held out hopes for it.

While reading it, I felt myself becoming incensed with Yoko Ono and John Lennon meaning this nar-
rative still resonates with me . . . and I was born in 1978!

DaveT said:

I've heard stories that Lennon was a bit of an a*sehole off stage.

Decent song writer but never understood all the fuss about him. Imagine no possessions ... yeah, from behind the seat of your massive piano in your massive mansion. Probably not the easiest bloke to be in a band with.

Careful - that's a bit of the attitude Mark David Chapman had about Lennon. And we see how that ended. MDC saw Lennon as blasphemous when it came to religion. He was a new born-again Christian and became infuriated about Lennon saying The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, and saw Lennon as a hypocrite. Not saying you're like MDC. Just making a conversation note. Anyhoo...

Music is meant to provoke and inspire the listener. Lennon had ideas about his own utopic vision of the world, but no logical person would expect him to be poor and living in a van down by the river to be the visual aid. But it doesn't mean he was a hypocrite either.

The fuss about Lennon was his alternative view of the world. You have to remember that by the time Th Beatles broke up and Lennon was doing bed-ins or whatever, the U.S. had come out of two very harsh wars (Vietnam ending in 1975), a Cuban missile crisis, and the Cold War was still going strong. Children were still learning emergency routines in school should the bomb hit U.S. soil. Lennon's idea of peace was radical but well received by the hippies and draft-dodgers of the 60s and 70s. Lennon, like others who did not have a voice and platform, saw the ridiculousness battles and conflicts based on land, religion, or whatever. He wanted people to at least consider peace rather than war.

I believe that, had he lived, he would have shifted to either local government or been a civil rights leader or some sort of activist to an even greater extent in the U.S. Bono sort of took that mantle on his own eventually, but I think Lennon would have been a greater influence.

Lennon & McCartney were alphas and no doubt butted heads.

TrivialPursuit said:

DaveT said:

I've heard stories that Lennon was a bit of an a*sehole off stage.

Decent song writer but never understood all the fuss about him. Imagine no possessions ... yeah, from behind the seat of your massive piano in your massive mansion. Probably not the easiest bloke to be in a band with.

Careful - that's a bit of the attitude Mark David Chapman had about Lennon. And we see how that ended. MDC saw Lennon as blasphemous when it came to religion. He was a new born-again Christian and became infuriated about Lennon saying The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, and saw Lennon as a hypocrite. Not saying you're like MDC. Just making a conversation note. Anyhoo...

Music is meant to provoke and inspire the listener. Lennon had ideas about his own utopic vision of the world, but no logical person would expect him to be poor and living in a van down by the river to be the visual aid. But it doesn't mean he was a hypocrite either.

The fuss about Lennon was his alternative view of the world. You have to remember that by the time Th Beatles broke up and Lennon was doing bed-ins or whatever, the U.S. had come out of two very harsh wars (Vietnam ending in 1975), a Cuban missile crisis, and the Cold War was still going strong. Children were still learning emergency routines in school should the bomb hit U.S. soil. Lennon's idea of peace was radical but well received by the hippies and draft-dodgers of the 60s and 70s. Lennon, like others who did not have a voice and platform, saw the ridiculousness battles and conflicts based on land, religion, or whatever. He wanted people to at least consider peace rather than war.

I believe that, had he lived, he would have shifted to either local government or been a civil rights leader or some sort of activist to an even greater extent in the U.S. Bono sort of took that mantle on his own eventually, but I think Lennon would have been a greater influence.

Lennon & McCartney were alphas and no doubt butted heads.

Yeah i mean come on now holding Lennon to every single lyric and expect him to live life that way too, who in this world of art has lived to their lyrics??? Hmmm that would be NO ONE so basically you could just say that all writers are full of shit and their words mean nothing. Prince preached about Mayte being the one and only and she was gone in a heartbeat. So yes LENNON had this whole Peace thing and values thing and was a bad father the first time around, he had bouts of rage, might also have been an asshole to work with, hmmm that sounds like almost everyone in the arts to me.

Dasein said:

lastdecember said:

Still this debate? It was a lot more than Lennon wanting to go or jealousy, McCartney wanted things his way Lennon wanted it his way, Harrison wanted a voice and not just two songs a record, Ringo well he was the guy who had to deal with the fights. Harrison left many times and they had to get him back, if anything Harrison probably wanted out more than anyone. As far as Lennon/McCartney it was hardly a team in the later years, I mean it might have been a "recording title" slapped on songs but how much did they really collaborate is always in question. A song like "I am the Walrus" is all Lennon, a song like "Here There and Everywhere" is all McCartney yet both are listed as collaborations.

Yes, LD, "still this debate" (even though I don't really see any debating going on). It is a topic - how
the Beatles broke up - that will never die as long as the Beatles remain the most influential recording
band of all time. We all know that the Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem was mostly just a
naming convention rather than an accurate description of the songwriting process, but the article goes
a long way to establish that yes, it was more than just Lennon's jealousy, the band's chafing at
McCartney's aspirations to be "band leader", the problems the band had with managing their money
and business interests, and how Starr left first, to return, with Harrison leaving and returning, then
Lennon bailing out to McCartney finally bowing out as well and refusing to consider reuniting while the
other three held out hopes for it.

While reading it, I felt myself becoming incensed with Yoko Ono and John Lennon meaning this nar-
rative still resonates with me . . . and I was born in 1978!

So it may still not be a debate so to speak though it always seems to revert back to Yoko Ono broke them up when I think this band was ready to end it in 67,68. I would say around the time of SGT PEPPER when you had one member saying this album is not my cup of tea and another saying it was genius and anoter not really caring and another just putting what he wanted on it. They were growing tired of it, they showed this when they stopped touring that they did not want to deal with the screaming girls and crap like that, they may have respected Elvis and that era but they did not think he was a great artist at all. We can watch the Let It Be film and see a band that really does not want to be there, members fighting, one giving orders and one saying "whatever you want I'll di it" in fact Harrison calling going into the studio with them "the winter of discontent" and very unpleasant. So I cant pin this on ONE guy one gig one fight it was a collective ending, they were lucky and smart not to ever reform because closing the book with Abbey Road was a genius move that they probably did not plan but it worked.

I've read a lot of Beatles books and I've understood that the group pretty much broke up when Brian Epstein died. Just a slow demise. I think Allen Kline was more a factor in the breakup than Yoko. The others also got fed up with Paul's bossiness. I think that's probably why Wings never had a steady lineup.

lastdecember said:

We can watch the Let It Be film and see a band that really does not want to be there, members fighting, one giving orders and one saying "whatever you want I'll di it" in fact Harrison calling going into the studio with them "the winter of discontent" and very unpleasant.

George Martin quit too. That's why Phil Spector was used to remix the songs, which Paul did not like. He's probably behind the "Let It Be... Naked" album.

MickyDolenz said:

lastdecember said:

We can watch the Let It Be film and see a band that really does not want to be there, members fighting, one giving orders and one saying "whatever you want I'll di it" in fact Harrison calling going into the studio with them "the winter of discontent" and very unpleasant.

George Martin quit too. That's why Phil Spector was used to remix the songs, which Paul did not like. He's probably behind the "Let It Be... Naked" album.

Paul hated all that spector added to the mix. Martin was fed up because it was nothing but fights and wives and opinions and he is a producer and did not need that crap. When Paul called him to do a back to basics album Martin asked "is everyone in, even John?" so there was a lot of friction, and Abbey Road is far from a collaboration

lastdecember said:

Dasein said:

Yes, LD, "still this debate" (even though I don't really see any debating going on). It is a topic - how
the Beatles broke up - that will never die as long as the Beatles remain the most influential recording
band of all time. We all know that the Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem was mostly just a
naming convention rather than an accurate description of the songwriting process, but the article goes
a long way to establish that yes, it was more than just Lennon's jealousy, the band's chafing at
McCartney's aspirations to be "band leader", the problems the band had with managing their money
and business interests, and how Starr left first, to return, with Harrison leaving and returning, then
Lennon bailing out to McCartney finally bowing out as well and refusing to consider reuniting while the
other three held out hopes for it.

While reading it, I felt myself becoming incensed with Yoko Ono and John Lennon meaning this nar-
rative still resonates with me . . . and I was born in 1978!

So it may still not be a debate so to speak though it always seems to revert back to Yoko Ono broke them up when I think this band was ready to end it in 67,68. I would say around the time of SGT PEPPER when you had one member saying this album is not my cup of tea and another saying it was genius and anoter not really caring and another just putting what he wanted on it. They were growing tired of it, they showed this when they stopped touring that they did not want to deal with the screaming girls and crap like that, they may have respected Elvis and that era but they did not think he was a great artist at all. We can watch the Let It Be film and see a band that really does not want to be there, members fighting, one giving orders and one saying "whatever you want I'll di it" in fact Harrison calling going into the studio with them "the winter of discontent" and very unpleasant. So I cant pin this on ONE guy one gig one fight it was a collective ending, they were lucky and smart not to ever reform because closing the book with Abbey Road was a genius move that they probably did not plan but it worked.

I have never offered an opinion in this thread which is "revert{ing} back to Yoko Ono {breaking}
them up" especially when I presented three reasons why Gilmore believes they did, one of which
does include Ono.

And, the article disagrees with you: yes, at some point, the members in the band wanted to leave
and that the guys resented what they thought was McCartney's machinations to assume more art-
istic and financial control of the band. But, when McCartney refused to entertain the hopes of reuni-
ting after 1970 while Lennon, Starr, and Harrison all wanted to do that, it suggests that there was
three-fourths of the band not "ready to end it." Taken from the article:


"The end of the Beatles, however, had only entered a new and strange phase that would go on for
years. McCartney wanted out of Apple altogether – he didn't want Allen Klein to have anything to say
about his music or to share in his profits – but when he called Harrison, seeking consent to be
released from his arrangement, George said, "You'll stay on the fucking label. Hare Krishna."
McCartney wrote Lennon long letters, begging to leave the Beatles' organization, but Lennon fired
back one- or two-line noncommittal replies. McCartney threatened to sue, and Klein laughed at him.
On December 31st, 1970, McCartney sued to dissolve the Beatles. (Klein later admitted that he was
caught completely off guard.) The other three Beatles were unified in their response to the court:
There was no need to end the group – things weren't that bad, they could still make music together."

MickyDolenz said:

lastdecember said:

We can watch the Let It Be film and see a band that really does not want to be there, members fighting, one giving orders and one saying "whatever you want I'll di it" in fact Harrison calling going into the studio with them "the winter of discontent" and very unpleasant.

George Martin quit too. That's why Phil Spector was used to remix the songs, which Paul did not like. He's probably behind the "Let It Be... Naked" album.

That's not what happened according to the article: Lennon and Klein asked Spector to produce
the album instead of Martin. So, Martin's lack of involvement with Let it Be wasn't due to quitting.

MickyDolenz said:

I've read a lot of Beatles books and I've understood that the group pretty much broke up when Brian Epstein died. Just a slow demise. I think Allen Kline was more a factor in the breakup than Yoko. The others also got fed up with Paul's bossiness. I think that's probably why Wings never had a steady lineup.

Allen Klein is included in the "money" reason listed in the original post. Lennon wanted him to over-
see the Beatles/Apple finances while McCartney wanted his in-laws to do it.

McCartney ended up being quite percipient as his in-laws helped make him the richest man in show
business and I believe Klein did some prison time for tax evasion or fraud.

Dasein said:

That's not what happened according to the article: Lennon and Klein asked Spector to produce the album instead of Martin. So, Martin's lack of involvement with Let it Be wasn't due to quitting.

Didn't read the article. I've read books about the group, which are more detailed than an article. Spector had nothing to do with the sessions. George Martin produced the original tracks. Let It Be was recorded before Abbey Road. Spector was hired to fix the recordings that had been shelved, so he overdubbed strings and female background singers, which were later removed on Let It Be Naked. Phil basically did a remix like Shep Pettibone. Paul was not informed that Phil was hired to do this. I have a book about the actual sessions.

^

But, how do you know how detailed the article is if you didn't read it?! Just because a book may
have 100 pages while an article has only 3 doesn't mean the book must be more detailed. The fact
of the matter here is that to claim Martin didn't produce Let it Be because he quit the band is not
true, which is what I disputed about your post originally.

Otherwise, most of what you said is already known.

Dasein said:

claim Martin didn't produce Let it Be because he quit the band is not true, which is what I disputed about your post originally

I didn't say Martin didn't produce Let It Be. I said he quit, nothing else. You added that. I didn't even say when he quit. Martin worked at the sessions, but declined to take credit on the Spector version. I don't need to read an article about something I already know about. That's like someone posting a link to an article about Tito Jackson breaking the string on Papa Joe's guitar or Adam & Eve getting kicked out of the Garden Of Eden. I already know that, don't have to read it again.

lastdecember said:

Yeah i mean come on now holding Lennon to every single lyric and expect him to live life that way too, who in this world of art has lived to their lyrics??? Hmmm that would be NO ONE so basically you could just say that all writers are full of shit and their words mean nothing. Prince preached about Mayte being the one and only and she was gone in a heartbeat. So yes LENNON had this whole Peace thing and values thing and was a bad father the first time around, he had bouts of rage, might also have been an asshole to work with, hmmm that sounds like almost everyone in the arts to me.

The problem is that folks sometimes hold artists up to a perfection standard, and blindly believe anything and everything they do or say or pontificate about. It's the Oprah effect in some ways.

If anything though, it shows how flawed we all are, whether we have a big bank account or a popular name, or not. I'm certainly not the person I was a decade ago, or twenty years ago when I moved to my city. Lennon had consistent ideas but some things changed, too. You gave a great example of Prince and Mayte. (I still think Prince believed Mayte was his one and only but his handling of Amir is what really did them in.)

Artists are fickle types. But listeners can be even more fickle. In the end, Lennon was a great songwriter, and a great lyricist, and with The Beatles revolutionized music in so many ways. For that, he deserves some great level of admiration. But he still pooped.

Guess what, they grew up and were on the verge of early mid-life crises

MickyDolenz said:

Dasein said:

claim Martin didn't produce Let it Be because he quit the band is not true, which is what I disputed about your post originally

I didn't say Martin didn't produce Let It Be. I said he quit, nothing else. You added that. I didn't even say when he quit. Martin worked at the sessions, but declined to take credit on the Spector version. I don't need to read an article about something I already know about.

Homie, don't try to play me for a fool. You said:

Bla bla bla. Who said Martin was a member of the Beatles? Last December got what I was talking about.

[Edited 11/26/17 14:55pm]

Maybe "quit" is not the right word. But he didn't really want to work with them after the Let It Be sessions.

MickyDolenz said:

Bla bla bla. Who said Martin was a member of the Beatles? Last December got what I was talking about.

[Edited 11/26/17 14:55pm]

Um, you did when you said George Martin quit the band; the implication being he was a member
or a part of the collective for you can't quit something you're not a part of in the first place. Your
backpedaling here makes you look kinda silly, Micky. Why is it that people just can't say "Oops -
I was wrong!"?

And, appealing to lastdecember is not going to save you, bro, because if he did "get" what you are
talking about, and agrees with you, then he's mistaken as well.

MickyDolenz said:

Maybe "quit" is not the right word. But he didn't really want to work with them after the Let It Be sessions.

"Quit" is definitely not the right word.

Anyways, I always thought Martin was fine with working on Abbey Road but only if Lennon was on
board with his overall involvement. Ultimately, Lennon acquiesced.

Dasein said:

Um, you did when you said George Martin quit the band; the implication being he was a member
or a part of the collective for you can't quit something you're not a part of in the first place. Your
backpedaling here makes you look kinda silly, Micky. Why is it that people just can't say "Oops -
I was wrong!"?

And, appealing to lastdecember is not going to save you, bro, because if he did "get" what you are
talking about, and agrees with you, then he's mistaken as well.

"Quit" doesn't mean he was a part of the group. It can mean he can quit as a producer. I'd guess anyone who knows about the Beatles would know George Martin was not a member of the group. It's like The Monkees were behind Don Kirshner getting fired from working with the group. People who know about them are not going to think Don was in The Monkees.

^

Sure, I agree with that: quitting here doesn't necessarily mean that you meant Martin was an
official Beatle. But, that is not my original point which was that Martin never vacated his role as
arranger/producer with the Beatles for the Let it Be sessions. Instead, Spector's involvement
with this album was due to being asked to replace Martin.

If you has said: "Martin was fired too. That's why Phil Spector . . . " then that would be a bit
closer to the truth than saying Martin quit.

MickyDolenz said:

Bla bla bla. Who said Martin was a member of the Beatles? Last December got what I was talking about.

[Edited 11/26/17 14:55pm]

Honestly George Martin was a HUGE part of this group, now I love the Beatles, mostly from 65 on but George Martin was probably the most important reason for those records being as good as they were, and if he was not going to be their producer who knows what the records would sound like.

TrivialPursuit said:

DaveT said:

I've heard stories that Lennon was a bit of an a*sehole off stage.

Decent song writer but never understood all the fuss about him. Imagine no possessions ... yeah, from behind the seat of your massive piano in your massive mansion. Probably not the easiest bloke to be in a band with.

Careful - that's a bit of the attitude Mark David Chapman had about Lennon. And we see how that ended. MDC saw Lennon as blasphemous when it came to religion. He was a new born-again Christian and became infuriated about Lennon saying The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, and saw Lennon as a hypocrite. Not saying you're like MDC. Just making a conversation note. Anyhoo...

Music is meant to provoke and inspire the listener. Lennon had ideas about his own utopic vision of the world, but no logical person would expect him to be poor and living in a van down by the river to be the visual aid. But it doesn't mean he was a hypocrite either.

The fuss about Lennon was his alternative view of the world. You have to remember that by the time Th Beatles broke up and Lennon was doing bed-ins or whatever, the U.S. had come out of two very harsh wars (Vietnam ending in 1975), a Cuban missile crisis, and the Cold War was still going strong. Children were still learning emergency routines in school should the bomb hit U.S. soil. Lennon's idea of peace was radical but well received by the hippies and draft-dodgers of the 60s and 70s. Lennon, like others who did not have a voice and platform, saw the ridiculousness battles and conflicts based on land, religion, or whatever. He wanted people to at least consider peace rather than war.

I believe that, had he lived, he would have shifted to either local government or been a civil rights leader or some sort of activist to an even greater extent in the U.S. Bono sort of took that mantle on his own eventually, but I think Lennon would have been a greater influence.

Lennon & McCartney were alphas and no doubt butted heads.

I agree with u on this.

They were just all around getting tired of each other. I wathed their most recent concert documentary....even I was exhausted. They really did all they can.

paisleypark4 said:

They were just all around getting tired of each other.

That's part of it too. Paul, George, & John had been around each other just about constantly since the late 1950s when they were in The Quarrymen. Paul & George knew each other before that because they went to the same school.