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1970-71 Different Roads

Excerpt from the chapter "1970-71 Different Roads" contained on The Beatles after The Beatles - Part One: The Narrative

Of all dates in The Beatles’ history, 7 November 1969 goes strangely unremarked. On that day, Life magazine published an interview in which McCartney spoke about The Beatles’ situation, and he painted a bleak picture for the future of the group. The newspaper tracked Paul down to his Scottish farm on 24 October, after rumours had spread of his alleged death, and interviewed him: “The Beatle thing is over,” McCartney said. “It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals – all different."

Paul did not mince his words, but nevertheless Life focussed its attention on the issue of Paul’s alleged death and his “revelation” about the fact that The Beatles had eff ectively ended was shunted to the background.

Next it was Lennon’s turn. He spoke to New Musical Express: and his statement was even clearer. In an article in the 13 December edition entitled “Beatles are on the brink of splitting”, he is quoted as saying “The Beatles split up? It just depends how much we all want to record together. I don’t know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it. I really do.”

This time, John seemed more open compared to a couple of months before. When interviewed by Barry Miles on 23 and 24 September in a long conversation, he only hinted here and there at some aspects of The Beatles’ situation, without saying a word about his decision to leave, taken just the previous week.

One aspect was the songwriting partnership with McCartney. “We [me and Paul] don’t really write together anymore. We haven’t written together for two years,” Lennon said. “It’s a long time since we sat down and written together for many reasons, because we used to write together mainly on tour. Then there was a valid reason for it. It got false – ‘Come round to our house and we’ll write some songs’ – it doesn’t work anymore."

When the conversation turned into the direction of The Beatles’ music, John was clear in saying there had never been any conscious direction and he also highlighted the different contributions of the four to Abbey Road:As far as we’re concerned, this album is more Beatley than the double album,” he admitted. “‘Cos that was just saying, ‘This is my song, we’ll do it this way. That’s your
song, you do it that way.’”

On the other hand, the material couldn’t be confined into The Beatles’ territory anymore: “There’s an awful lot of songs,” he said. “It’s pretty hard, trying to fit three guys’ music onto one album … [In Toronto] I’ve had a taste of not going out as a Beatle. Nothing’s expected of John and Yoko: anything’s expected of John and Yoko or the Plastic Ono. They could be anybody or perform anything. So, with that sort of freedom there’s no hang-ups … I don’t write for the Beatles; I write for myself."

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