Legendary musician Sir Paul McCartney has often been assigned the blame for breaking up the Beatles five decades ago, back in 1970. Many believed this following the press release for his solo album in April 1970, where McCartney unveiled that he was on a “break” from the band. He also states that he could not “foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again.” However, with the release of his upcoming book getting ever closer, McCartney has come forward to explain who really “instigated” the end of the Beatles – John Lennon.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, McCartney revealed that the band’s split was due to John Lennon.
“I didn’t instigate the split. That was our Johnny,” he told interviewer John Wilson. “I am not the person who instigated the split.
“Oh no, no, no. John walked into a room one day and said ‘I am leaving the Beatles’. And he said, ‘It’s quite thrilling, it’s rather like a divorce.’ And then we were left to pick up the pieces.”
When asked if the band would have continued if Lennon remained, McCartney answered: “It could have.”
Difficult
“The point of it really was that John was making a new life with Yoko and he wanted… to lie in bed for a week in Amsterdam for peace. You couldn’t argue with that. It was the most difficult period of my life.”
“This was my band, this was my job, this was my life,” he added. “I wanted it to continue. I thought we were doing some pretty good stuff – Abbey Road, Let It Be, not bad – and I thought we could continue.”
The Beatles icon also went on to clear the air regarding the band’s muddy legal and business issues towards the end, which saw McCartney sue the rest of the band in the High Court to dissolve their contractual relationship as a way of keeping the music they released away from Allen Klein, the band’s new manager.
“I had to fight and the only way I could fight was in suing the other Beatles, because they were going with Klein,” McCartney said.
“And they thanked me for it years later. But I didn’t instigate the split.”
He has also previously stated that projects such as The Beatles Anthology and Get Back, would not have been possible without the legal action.
Currently, the singer-songwriter is occupying himself by doing things such as growing organic hemp on his farm estate in Peasmarsh in East Sussex.
Appearing on the River Café Table 4 podcast, McCartney unveiled: “We’re actually just getting into growing hemp, the funny thing with Government regulations is you’ve got to keep it where people can’t see it, because you get all the kids coming in and robbing it.”
His full interview with BBC Radio 4 on the series, This Cultural Life, will air on 23rd October.
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