It was 55 years ago…
The Beatles officially broke up on the 10th of April in 1970, via a press release that informed that the John Lennon-Paul McCartney songwriting partnership was no longer active.
In actuality, Lennon already told his bandmates he was leaving the group way ahead — in September of 1969, or just days before the release of the last album they recorded — Abbey Road.
So when the Threetles—the Beatles without John, as they would be labeled while recording for The Beatles Anthology in the ’90s — gathered to record “I Me Mine” to be added to Let It Be (the then-shelved project that saw daylight months after the split), the band was not anymore The Beatles as the world knew it.
Once the public learned about the breakup, the blame game as to who was most responsible for it began. Naturally, McCartney was seen as the culprit because it was his quitting that made the headlines. He also later sued the rest to make the disbandment formally signed.
I don’t agree that it was McCartney whom we should point our fingers to. In fact, there’s really no point in blaming someone. It’s not like the world became less beautiful because of it. As Lennon noted, it was just a group that split up, though we knew he was underplaying the enormity of his band ending their phenomenal run for good.
For the sake of answering that nagging question that asked what actually caused the dissolution, I believe it was the intense romantic relationship between Lennon and Yoko Ono — one that broke a marriage (that of Lennon and his first wife Cynthia Powell), needless to say shattered a kid (Julian, who was McCartney’s Jude in “Hey Jude”), and shook up the band dynamic. Yoko became a constant presence in the studio, as can be seen in the “Let It Be” footages where the camera was on as they rehearsed new songs, including when George Harrison introduced his fateful composition “I Me Mine” with John and Yoko waltzing to it.
The more Lennon was into his affair with Ono, the deeper the rift among bandmates went. McCartney had to wrest control; otherwise, some important things wouldn’t have been accomplished. It was his idea to “get back” to their roots, which culminated in their rooftop performance. It was his egging that produced Abbey Road, where even Harrison — the guy who least enjoyed being a Beatle, largely due to the way he was treated amid the dominance of Lennon and McCartney — delivered his best two-song combo for a Beatles album.
Yeah, both the classics “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun” appeared on the final year they performed and crafted songs in the studio as a foursome, conscious that “in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
As captured by camera, Harrison had a row with McCartney and briefly left the “Let It Be” session.
Ringo Starr packed up prior to it, or just a year before while the group was at work pulling together a double album. The drummer boy was fed up feeling the burdening tension within the group. You couldn’t blame a man who made the most out of his luck after being tapped as replacement for pre-debut album drummer Pete Best, and keeping himself non-confrontational as possible, and steady when asked to do his duty. It must have felt good for him when he was convinced to return and welcomed back with flowers.
For all the talk on the break-up, I think most people less appreciate the fact that it was actually a blessing in disguise for history to have the group bottled their recording days in a prolific, superbly creative seven-year span instead of having a world where The Beatles never disbanded at all. Who knows — had they not broken up, the Threetles would go on even after Lennon’s murder in 1980.
But such a scenario would lessen the impact of their 1960s run. We value those years partly because we witnessed four enormously talented young men working as hard to ensure their fans and the world an unmatched discography. That, despite their differences and sometimes selfish decisions, they gave their all when it comes to the band’s music.
The Beatles’ break-up gave way to the ’70s. The acts that followed in their wake walked through a competition without The GOAT — a la Michael Jordan in the context of basketball — to overshadow them all.
The Beatles’ synergy that wrote and interpreted some of the greatest songs may have carried on with less intensity had they continued into the decades after their heyday. If you put together all the first albums they made as solo artists, such a package will arguably fare less to albums like Revolver or The White Album.
The four guys from Liverpool individually peaked while they were in The Beatles: Lennon in the early years up to the start of their venture into psychedelia, McCartney during the latter half of the band’s recording run, and Harrison right before they imploded as a group.
As for Starr, some of his groundbreaking drumming was heard once the group experimented in the studio, like the mic-ing done differently, or outside of the rule book, so he would sound more impactful.
The breakup had to happen 55 years ago so those wonder years — their magical, mystic brilliance — would be dissected non-stop, and the enticing what-ifs forever thrilling the world in a loop — one that serves as a pretty backdrop to beautiful melodies and words that have kept the world mesmerized and healed the downtrodden.