559 - Het einde van de Beatles voorspeld
Aan alles komt een eind, ook in de popmuziek. Dat gold eveneens voor het bestaan van de Beatles. In april 1970 bracht Paul McCartney enigszins onverwacht een album op de markt – vol met liedjes die hij zonder enige inspraak van zijn ‘partner’, John Lennon, geschreven had en in z’n eentje had opgenomen. Geen Lennon & McCartney songs dus. Het album heette simpelweg ‘McCartney’. Duidelijk genoeg.
‘Paul is quitting the Beatles’
Op 18 april 1970 kon je in de Britse popkrant Record Mirror lezen: “Derek Taylor, the man in the middle of the McCartney affair, tells the inside story. What did happen? What was it all about? On Tuesday last week, Eastman and Eastman, Paul’s representatives (Linda’s father and brother), New York based lawyers with a good name in the music business, announced that Paul had his own company now, McCartney Productions with two primary projects: (1) an album, ‘McCartney’, out on Apple through Capitol the work solely of Paul and Linda, and (2) a full length feature film based on Rupert the lovely bear who has been part of everyone’s growing up.
Daar bleef het niet bij. “Next, Don Short of the Daily Mirror got wind of the statement planned for Friday in the form of questions and answers, the hard-news substance of which said that Paul was working without the Beatles at the moment and was happy to be that way.
That was merely, Paul was to say, because he had a better time at home with his family.
The questionnaire said that Paul did not know whether the break with the Beatles was temporary or permanent, he could not however, see a time when he would be writing with John, and there were no Beatles’ plans for recording or performing.
Don Short, taking roughly a 9-4 gamble on getting away with it, wrote a story for Friday’s Mirror ‘Paul is Quitting the Beatles’”.
De kogel was door de kerk.
The day the Beatles died
Vijf maanden eerder, op 27 november 1969, publiceerde Ray Connolly (geb. 1940) in de Evening Standard een artikel met de veelzeggende kop: ‘The day the Beatles died’. Waarschijnlijk een woordspeling op de dood van Buddy Holly, 3 februari 1959. Die dag werd bekend als ‘The day the music died’.
De popjournalist had redelijk in de gaten wat er aan de hand was. Het lijkt me aardig om de inhoud eens ter hand te nemen.
Connolly praatte over de geruchten dat Paul McCartney al in 1966 zou zijn overleden. Dat vond hij niet van belang. Er waren andere factoren die duidelijk maakten dat de Beatles in realiteit niet meer bestonden. Het einde, vond hij, had plaatsgevonden toen het viertal uit Liverpool besloten had om niet meer op toernee te gaan en er geen optredens meer waren.
“Paul McCartney may not have died in 1966 as the rumours were telling us a couple of weeks ago, but, in a way, the Beatles did. The day they finished touring, the myth that had been so delicately nurtured began to decompose”.
De echte Beatles waren niet meer dan een herinnering. “The Beatles are now little more than a fond memory: ironically a memory of what now appears to have been a lie in the first place. No one could have been so lovable, so dolly.
We created a quartet of four velvet cuddly toys with dandruff that showered when they sang falsetto, and we grew disillusioned when they grew rich and strong enough to allow their own personalities”.
Wie waren de Beatles nog in november 1969?
Een retorische vraag, volgens hem. “True we still write and talk about the Beatles, and we still buy Beatle records – but the title has become a mere label of nostalgia.
The Beatles today are four married men, all approaching 30, who are bound together economically, who, because of practice, have developed a facility for playing and recording popular music of an exceptional standard. And who share one enormous, dazzling and sometimes grotesque, common memory”.
Nostalgie
Van het grootse verleden was volgens Connolly niet veel meer over.
“They were the Beatles. No one else in the world can possibly know what it was like during the lunacy of Beatlemania. No matter what their differences are now, and there are many, that memory can never be erased. They weren’t just a pop group: together they made up the four most popular and famous people in the world. And it’s that which they have had to live with and live up to these last three years. And now they’ve clearly had enough.
Today the four men who made up that once cuddly quartet, could hardly be further apart socially. They aren’t enemies – and most of the time they don’t even dislike each other – but nor are they the close knit unit we always imagined them to be”.
Netjes getrouwd
Paul, John, George en Ringo, het revolutionaire was ervan af. Alle leden van de groep waren netjes getrouwd.
“ Each has married into widely different social sets – Ringo to his fan girl friend from Liverpool [Maureen Cox, 1946-1994]; George to his beautiful London model [Pattie Boyd, geb. 1944]; Paul to his homely New York photographer [Linda Eastman, 1941-1998] and John to an avant-avant-garde Japanese artist [Yoko Ono, geb. 1933].
Het waren wel vrouwen met een zeer verschillende achtergrond, merkte hij op.
“Can you possibly imagine those four ladies being natural-born bosom pals? It would be difficult to conceive of four more distinctly different women”.
George Harrison en Pattie Boyd
Altijd samen
Dat de vier artiesten dag in dag uit met elkaar hadden moeten optrekken, was van grote invloed geweest. “As boys and young men the overriding factor binding the Beatles together was their obsession with their music – and their determination to one day make something of themselves. There was no time for other outside activities.
Being Beatles kept them retarded at an adolescent stage. While all their contemporaries were growing up and getting on with their lives John, Paul, George and Ringo were being picked as the four people who were to become the centre of the world’s obsession with a youth culture. That held them together. For four years they were hardly ever out of each other’s sight. They worked, played, travelled and lived together”.
Nog maar weinig samen
De Beatles waren in november 1969 nog maar weinig samen te zien. Zelfs niet in de studio.
“ Now the only times you can ever see all four Beatles together are for meetings at Apple or the very rare occasions when it’s necessary for them to be in the recording studios at the same time – and due to modern recording techniques this is less frequent than one might expect. The only time, in fact, that the Beatles actually exist in an entity is when they are recording. Their meetings outside of the studios grow more and more infrequent.
But even in the studios there is nothing like the harmony of what we once fondly imagined as a four-headed genius. If Paul has written a song, then he is the producer of the record, and the others tend to act as session musicians. And it’s the same with John or George.
Obviously each has something to offer, and discussion about techniques takes place all the time, but Beatle records today are strictly the product of the imagination of the composer. The other three are there to help get the sound the composer wants.
Samenwerking van Paul McCartney en John Lennon is fictie
Als je op het label keek van de Beatles-platen, zag je nog steeds Lennon & McCartney. Dat was langzamerhand niet meer dan een contractuele, zakelijke overeenkomst – pure fictie.
“It’s a common fiction that Lennon and McCartney still write together, since all their songs bear both names, but in fact they haven’t composed a song together for years. ‘We tend to write when were at home when it’s quiet”, says Paul. ‘We only wrote together when we were always living together and travelling about in the van together’.
Ruzie in de groep: Ringo en George
Er waren ook persoonlijke conflicten, wist Ray Connolly. Ringo en George hadden al eens afscheid van de andere leden genomen. Toch waren ze teruggekomen, misschien wel vanwege de financiële consequenties. Het ging immers om grote hoeveelheden geld.
“The lull in their public activities since they gave up live appearances left them at first with a vacuum and outsized egos which now clash frequently. At one point last year Ringo became so tired of the incessant arguing between John and Paul that he left the group and took his family up to Liverpool.
‘It’s just not any fun playing with you anymore’, he told them. But three days later he was back. The Beatles, which they often speak of as an entirely separate entity from themselves as people, had won.
Then it was George’s turn. He walked out because he didn’t feel he was getting enough of his songs on their albums – a justifiable grouse. He came back too.
Now both Ringo and George are making albums by themselves, and Ringo is building himself a second career as a film actor. The second-class Beatles are going it alone”.
George en Ringo hadden gelukkig een uitlaatklep gevonden.
Paul McCartney versus John Lennon
Volgens Connolly konden Paul en John elkaar steeds minder uitstaan. Voortdurend gingen ze in de contramine. Dat pakte nog wel eens verkeerd uit. De journalist gaf een voorbeeld. “What is more serious is the clash between John and Paul. Both are men of outstandingly tough and forceful personalities. When they fight they can go on for hours, neither side giving an inch. Before the release of their last album they planned to give a party for the press. Paul wanted a small party ‘no more than 20 people’, but John insisted that all the underground press be invited too. They began arguing at four o’clock. At nine they were still at it. In the end the party was cancelled”.
Door de slechte resultaten van hun eigen platenmaatschappij, Apple, was de zaak uit de hand gelopen. “The big split between John and Paul came over the running of Apple, the Beatles’ company. Originally it had been Paul who was the main force behind the company, and in his bustling, busy, and offhand way he tried hard to make it succeed. But in its original form it was doomed to failure. It lacked a big business brain. So John called in American Allen Klein who managed the Rolling Stones. Paul was furious and refused to have anything to do with the agreement which brought Klein in. He was, however, outnumbered by the other Beatles”.
Paul maakte zich los van Allen Klein. In tegenstelling tot de andere Beatles liet hij zich adviseren door de vader van zijn vrouw Linda. “His interest in Apple has waned considerably. I understand he now takes much of his advice from his father-in-law – a well-known New York show business lawyer – and he rarely visits the Apple offices”.
Het gezin van Paul McCartney
Paul leek zich af te zonderen en zich terug te trekken in zijn gezin. “Always close to his own family he now seems content to spend as much of his time as possible with Linda and their children. Once the most charming and diplomatic of the four his attitude is now one of remoteness.
He used to be the Beatles’ greatest fan and defender, but now one gathers the impression that perhaps he is disillusioned with the events of the last couple of years – disillusioned perhaps with John, the elder boy he hero-worshipped for so long during the early days in Liverpool and Hamburg”.
De komst van Yoko Ono
John Lennon en Yoko Ono kort na hun huwelijk
De komst van Yoko Ono – op 20 maart 1969 was ze met John Lennon in het huwelijk getreden – had de cohesie binnen de groep niet versterkt, integendeel zelfs.
“While feigning that tolerance of others on which all four Beatles pride themselves, I wonder is there not a degree of contempt in Paul’s eyes for the activities of Lennon and Yoko. A couple of months ago, when half London was talking about a particularly outrageous film that John had made of his sexual organs, which he had titled ‘Self Portrait’, I was staggered to discover that Paul didn’t even know about it. And nor, he made quite clear, did he want to know particularly.
For John life changed totally the day he met Yoko Ono – and whatever you may think of them you must admit that together they represent the love story of the decade. He told me this week that the reason he returned his MBE to the Queen at this particular moment was because he wanted to start the seventies off as just plain John Lennon, not ‘John Lennon, MBE’.
He might also have said he wanted to start the seventies as just John Lennon – not Beatle John Lennon, because the Beatles have become, in many ways, a hindrance to him.
While his position with them has provided the cash for him to follow his own pursuits – artistic, altruistic and otherwise – the reasons which first made him into a Beatle are now out of step with those of the other three”.
Plastic Ono Band
Rooftop Concert
Omdat de Beatles gestopt waren met optreden, had John Lennon besloten om een ‘nieuwe’ groep op te zetten voor de bühne. Die vernoemde hij naar zijn tweede echtgenote, de opvolgster van Cynthia Powell: Plastic Ono Band. Op 30 januari 1969 hadden de vier Beatles nog één keer samen gespeeld – op het dak van platenmaatschappij Apple, hun ‘rooftop concert’.
“ Recently he decided he wanted to go back on stage and perform again, but none of the others was interested, so he had to create his Plastic Ono Band (a makeshift group of friendly and untied musicians) to accompany him.
The fact that the Plastic Ono Band’s latest record, ‘Cold Turkey’, didn’t sell very well must have been particularly upsetting – proof, in a way, that even with a Beatle singing, it takes the magic name of the Beatles to make it into an automatic hit”.
‘John Lennon is niet gek’
Volgens Connolly werd hem meer dan eens gevraagd of John Lennon ze wel allemaal op een rij had. “People ask me all the time if John is insane”.
Uit zijn antwoord kon je opmerken dat Lennon inmiddels wel een bijzondere plaats in de groep was gaan innemen. “He isn’t. Far from it. in fact. He’s possibly capricious, juvenile and distasteful on occasions, and maybe his demonstrations for peace [in Amsterdam en Toronto] might be more effective were he to tackle them more orthodoxly. But he’s still the great wit, the very original thinker. Sometimes I think he’s rather like the monkey in the zoo who is really laughing at all the people who are laughing at it”.
Was er nog toekomst voor de muzikanten uit Liverpool in de jaren zeventig? “So what can we expect of the Beatles in the seventies? Is a final split inevitable?”
Zo pessimistisch was hij nu ook weer niet. Uit elkaar gaan was te onpraktisch. De consequenties waren te groot. “I think not. In fact, I’d say it was practically impossible. Contractually they just can’t afford to leave each other, and for similar economic reasons nor can their company Apple be killed. And ironically enough, although Apple started off very badly, this year it’s proved the most successful of all the independent recording companies in the country”.
Het mooie van het begin was er evenwel van af. “The Beatles can’t go back. There’s no possibility of the myth of the four-in-one being resurrected. Each of the four will now continue to further his separate career. True they will go on making records together, and presumably, since Lennon and McCartney have the ability to capture so well the mood of the moment in their music, they will make many more hits. This week they are top of the American hit parade for both singles [‘Come Together’] and albums [Abbey Road’], and have the best-selling album in Britain [ook ‘Abbey Road’].
Billboard LP top 10, 29 november 1969
De toekomst, gezien in november 1969
Connolly probeerde vooruit te kijken. “They won’t really be the Beatles any more: just four musicians, two of whom may turn out to be the greatest song writers of the century, who will occasionally get together in the recording studios, paper over their differences of temperament, reminisce about their one shared magnificent memory, and then go ahead and make good music”.
John en Paul waren ‘volwassen’ geworden. Dat kon je niet meer terugdraaien “They’ll get on with being adult, growing older, and being artistic. And, who knows, but might not they singly yet create something more worthwhile than all their joint efforts created in that frenetic period of pop culture six years ago?”
Ray Connolly eindigde zijn artikel met een citaat van John Lennon uit 1964, toen hij nog maar 24 jaar jong was. “I can’t see me still being a Beatle when I’m 30”.
Op zijn dertigste verjaardag, 9 oktober 1970 was John Lennon inderdaad geen Beatle meer. Dat gold tevens voor Ringo Starr, George Harrison en Paul McCartney.
Billboard 18 april 1970
Harry Knipschild
2 mei 2025
* John Lennon en Yoko Ono, Hilton Amsterdam
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