ALL THINGS MUST PASS
It’s Always The Quiet Ones…
Even in the anarchic annals of rock music, The Beatles’ split in 1970 was a messy affair. Paul McCartney was the first to issue a proper press release stating that he was “no longer working with the band”, yet the Fab Four would still collaborate under The Beatles brand to complete the Let It Be sessions. All four were working on solo records: John, Ringo and George would all contribute to each others’, while Paul cut his self-titled solo album on home recording equipment at his St John’s Wood home after writing much of it on retreat in Scotland.
Fabs fans barely knew where to look: in autumn 1969, Lennon had declared, “The trouble is we’ve got too much material. Now that George is writing a lot, we could put out a double album every month”. Yet with antagonism rising, this was clearly not going to happen. McCartney would later argue that a wholly shared Beatles “wasn’t the right balance” and was “too democratic for its own good”.
When the serious rancour became clear, it was assumed that Lennon versus McCartney would be the narrative. But it turned out that it was George Harrison who actually had the most to say…
