Paul described the situation as him nearly having a nervous breakdown,
he would lie awake shaking, one night after he had been asleep, he awoke, he
couldn’t lift his head from the pillow, and he feared he would suffocate. He
hardly had the energy, but he pulled himself up and sat up, he had so much that
he wanted to express - but couldn’t. Paul got up the nerve to the rest of the
band and asked to be let go from the Apple label, but the rest of the band
replied ‘No, we’re not going to let you go.’ Klein reasoned that Paul had
recorded things like “Those Were The Days” for Mary Hopkin, a mirror of what
had happened with James Taylor when Klein didn’t want to let Taylor go from the
label, but James Taylor had been released. Paul once even had a private
conversation with George Harrison with the similar request, and George replied
with ‘You’ll stay on the fucking label. Hare Krishna’. Paul described his
situation mentally:
“I was having dreams that Klein was a dentist. I remember telling
everyone and they laughed but I said, ‘No, this was a scary fucking dream1’ I
said, ‘I can’t be with this guy any longer. He was in my dreams now, and he’s a
baddie.’ He was giving me injections in my dreams to put me out and I was
thinking, Fucking hell! I’ve become powerless. There’s nothing I can do to stop
this rot. So I decided to just get out, but they wouldn’t let me out, they held
me to the contract.”
What Paul
is describing sounds like the traps that narcissists create when it comes to
obligations. Paul took his new wife and adopted daughter and went to the farm in
Scotland in December 1969, took a Studer four track that he had installed in
Cavendish Avenue the prior September and started making music. With the exception
of staff from Apple, the engineering staff from Abbey Road and Morgan studios
in Willesden – no one knew. They had to start to use the Studer without VU
meters that hadn’t been shipped yet, but the home studio and secret studios
gave Paul some productive control again, he was even given a planned release
date from Apple from Neil Aspinall of April 17th.
To Paul’s
credit, he did come back for the Let It Be sessions on January 3rd,
1970 to record “I Me Mine” with George and Ringo, John wasn’t involved. Back a
year earlier as seen in the Get Back documentary, George ran through the
song with Paul and Ringo while they showed keen interest, John just waltzed
with Yoko in the background – he didn’t care. This is why George’s hostility
towards Paul seems a little puzzling in hindsight, John wasn’t always
supportive of George. On March 25th, George had informed Paul the 17th
release date wouldn’t affect other releases, but little did Paul know – Phil
Spector’s work on Let It Be changed everything.
Paul was
working on the package design when he called up Apple and was told the release
date had to be changed, that the release date for Let It Be was going to
be changed to coincide with the film release date, ironically, they had already
shut out Paul for input on the mixing and completion of Let It Be, it
was the final straw. It is known that Ringo came by Paul’s home to deliver the
message about the release date changes for April, Paul threw him out with fury.
Ringo was shocked and disturbed, but the group backed down on the release date,
Paul got his release date, but he won a temporary battle. People tend to want to see Paul as spoiled,
but when you take in the full context of the situation, one begins to see
Paul’s point. When the Let It Be documentary was being completed by
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the companion album had to be prepared. George Martin and
Glyn John’s mixes had been discarded for Let It Be, and producer Phil
Spector was brought in. But it was the April 1st sessions that would
cause the most consternation, Phil had altered Paul’s track “The Long and
Winding Road”, first recorded by the band in January 1969. But the orchestra, harp,
and female choir seemed out of place with the original intent.
The
exclusion of Paul from those scoring sessions seems unheard of; Paul could have
shown up. Typically, a Producer will present an outside musician session
scoring and walk it through the artist prior to the date. Furthermore, John’s
place holder bass work could have been re-recorded by Paul, and John could have
added some additional guitar or other instruments. There is a feeling that Phil
Spector used the scoring sessions as a showcase to impress Lennon and Harrison,
rather than serving the song. In fairness, Paul had informed few of the key
figures about his solo project, but then again, Paul was mentally drowning.
Allegedly, Spector did send a formal letter open to any suggestions to
all parties for the sessions, but it is difficult to surmise if Paul was
excluded, but it seemed to be true. Neither Paul or George Martin were aware
that Spector was working on the tapes, until after the fact, and with Paul only
minutes away from EMI studios, many argue it was indefensible wasn’t asked to
step in – Paul had in early January. Paul commented in the Evening Standard;
“The
album was finished a year ago, but a few months ago American record producer
Phil Spector was called in by John Lennon to tidy up some of the tracks. But a
few weeks ago I was sent a re-mixed version of my song “The Long and Winding
Road”…No one had asked me what I thought. I couldn’t believe it. I would never
have female voices on a Beatles records. The record came with a note from Allen
Klein saying he thought the changes were necessary. I don’t blame Phil Spector
for doing it, but it just goes to show that it’s no good me sitting here
thinking I’m in control because obviously I’m not. Anyway, I’ve sent Klein a
letter asking for some of the things to be altered, but I haven’t received an
answer yet.”
Paul’s letter was rather blunt, as seen here.
Paul never did get an answer; but it led to another reason to make the
most difficult decision of his life.
Release
It first appeared that John Lennon would have the upper hand, Rolling
Stone magazine was still based in San Francisco, when John and Yoko had planned
to visit the bay area after some matters in Los Angeles. The documentary Let
It Be had been released in May of 1970, and in the interim there was a
screening in a San Francisco theatre where Jann, Jane, John and Yoko attended a
showing of Let It Be, and it has been reported tears were shed during
the ending rooftop gig. Who knows why John was crying, but perhaps it was
recognition over what had been lost with his band’s end. Jann invited them to
the Rolling Stone offices, then helped moved John and Yoko’s accommodation from
a Hilton to a Huntington hotel in Nob Hill. Jann courted John for an interview,
and it worked. A tentative agreement was reached. Jann later admitted: “We were
a full forum for John and Yoko, anything they said, we printed.”
John wanted to control his media narrative and he saw Rolling Stone as a
way to do it, Later that year Jann’s interview was conducted in New York, at
the Midtown, Manhattan offices of Allan Klein, although Klein wasn’t present
during the infamous interview, it could appear like it was a way for Klein to have
some indirect control. Klein did insist on making his own recording of the interview
recording for insurance purposes. Lennon poured out everything he wanted to in
that interview, and that interview did buoy attention to Rolling Stone and
helped their circulation. Something that tends to get missed is that while John
didn’t conduct that interview on Heroin, he was going through withdrawals, that
may have explained his anger and erratic behavior.
Photo source: Raeanne Rubenstein, Crawdaddy
There’s the issue of Jann’s ethics in that situation, it seemed as
thought Jann was exploiting the moment without thinking about the impact. Also
bear in mind that John and Yoko spent four months with Authur Janov, John was
convinced he was able to be more open and candid with his feelings, even if it
seemed to scorched earth. John had a history of seeking ‘father figures’ who
held the answers, some argue he did it with Brian Epstein and later Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi, only to discount them later on.
Regardless, Lennon only agreed to the magazine interview, and in spite
of John’s thoughts on the matter, Jann would push his publishing partner Alan
Rinzler to work on getting a book deal out of the interview even after publication,
Wenner would still press the idea to Lennon In April 1971 while in Britian, to
which John told him ‘no’. John developed a regret about his involvement and it
circulating further after what was promised.
Jann published the book under the title “Lennon Remembers”, much to
John’s frustration. John sent Jann a scathing letter:
“As your company was failing (again), and as a special favor (Two
Virgins was the first), I gave you an interview, which was to run one time
only, with all rights belonging to me. You saw fit to publish a book of my
work, without my consent --, In fact, against my wishes, having told you many
times on the phone, and in writing, that I did not want a book, an album or
anything made from it.”
Jann
misread the situation; he was doused in the illusion he was closer friends to
John than he actually was; they would not speak again. Yet the damage was done
as far as public perceptions, that interview would help to codify certain
impressions of Paul. Years later, after the rest of the band had removed
themselves from Klein, Jann received a package in 1974, a Polaroid photo of John
with Paul, Linda, May Pang, and Keith Moon, with Lennon holding Paul’s daughter
Mary, that was dated “Palm Sunday, 1974 – How do you sleep?” The tables
had turned, Jann was being attacked. Even Paul would keep his distance with
Jann and Rolling Stone: “We didn’t really wanna hang out with him, we’d make
fun of him,” It would be a while before Paul would trust Jann and the magazine. To be fair, Paul did his own interview for Life magazine in 1971 to present his side of the story.
But at the moment, Paul was mired in getting out of the clutches of
Klein, at the start of 1971. Paul wanted to sue Klein, but John Eastmen pointed
out that Klein was not party to any of the agreements, and had not been
involved when they were drafted as far back as 1967, It always came back to the
same issue: the only way out was to dissolve the Beatles partnership itself,
Paul had to break up the Beatles, as much as this would soon turn into a public
relations disaster, to save future millions, it was the best route. “Talk about
traumas!” Paul would later say.
Paul’s
lawyers started to build the case, while the McCartney album hit the stores. Roughly
two years after Klein got involved, the case date came up February 1971 while
Paul was working on Ram.
“They called me and Linda back from L.A: John Eastman said, ‘You’ve got
to be there every day in court’, But I realized it was make or break. And it
was, it really was. The Beatles fortune was on the line. Not just mine, but
theirs as well. Which is now how I can look back on it and think, Thank God I
did that; If I had not had the nerve to sue them, none of us would have
anything now.”
The other three never showed up, but sent affidavits, In John’s
affidavits, he denied he tried to pressure Paul to sign with Klein, when he
did. Paul’s confidence grew as he could face Klein. Paul’s lawyer, David Hirst,
did a masterful job, countless documents were pour through, but one document
was damning, when Klein got the royalty advance from EMI of the Beatles, Klein
had been entitled to 20 percent of the 7.5 percent increase, but Klein
overcharged by 500,000 pounds, and that was the basis, in a letter signed off
by the other three in January 1970 that royalties owed to Apple Records be paid
to ABKCO, that all earnings on records sold between September 1969 and April
1972, and then after January 1976, be directed to ABKCO, was signed by all
three Beatles but never implemented by Capitol, Paul’s lawyer’s didn’t know
about this until discovery.
Photo source: Henry Diltz, likely Life magazine
The agreements were done without Paul’s consent, and the judge Stamp,
was scathing about Klein in his ruling, arguing Apple was not some Frankenstein
set up to control the individual partners. The judge didn’t trust Klein to
administer their affairs, so Paul won. A side point, once again, the delays in
getting the Beatles 1962-1970 compilations out probably had to do with this.
They couldn’t get Klein for what he had done as it wasn’t a crime, but years
later in 1979 Klein did go to prison for two months for not declaring income
from Apple Promotional records between 1970 until 1972. Most of this related to
George’s Concert for Bangla Desh release. It would take another six
years to be completely disentangled from Allen Klein until 1977, but Paul was
free. But it came at a price, the tensions between the four of them would
remain high for a spell. It’s all too common for musician clients to be taken
advantage of by managers.
But the pieces were in play for Paul to have to defend himself; to which
he did.
All those songs
In spite
of the poor reviews for McCarttney, Paul and Linda decided to press
forward months later in late 1970. It would be irrational to expect Paul to
cease to exist now that he was an Ex-Beatle. The couple left Scotland for New
York and secretly audition musicians for what would become Ram (1971), they put
out adverts under the guise of session players for advertising jingles, eventually,
David Spinozza was brought in on guitar and Denny Seiwell was brought in on
drums. Hugh McCracken would also be brought in. Sessions for Ram began in
October 1970 and would run until March 1971. There were two songs that seemed
related to the Beatles and John Lennon, “Three Legs”, and especially “Too Many
People”. For the record, Ram is a fantastic album and "Too Many People" is a great opener, vibrant and interesting. Nothing happens in a vacuum - people don’t just lash out unless
something has built up in them to take action. Paul made a full explanation
about “Too Many People” in 2021, so here are the points he raised, and then
additional points.
“The song was written a year or so after The Beatles breakup, at a time
when John was firing missiles with his songs, and one or two of them were quite
cruel. I don’t know what he hoped to gain, other than punching me in the face.
The whole thing really annoyed me.”
In
Fairness, it’s unclear what songs from Plastic Ono Band would account as an
actual attack, the first song that mentions Paul in one line is “I Found Out”,
a pretty scathing rebuke of many things. The only other song would have been
the rebuke in “God”, rejecting The Beatles, and the use of the word
‘Yesterday’, which could have been more general, or a dig that Paul’s song
being their most remembered track. The real missiles lobbed were in the
notorious “Lennon Remembers”, the Rolling Stone interview conducted by Jann
Weiner at the end of 1970. Paul’s first album were mostly instrumentals,
experiments, or devotionals to Linda, so technically John fired the first shot.
“I decided to turn my missiles on him too, but I’m not really into that
kind of a writer, so it was quite veiled. It was the 1970s equivalent of what
we might call a ‘diss track’,,,,but back then it was fairly new ‘genre’. The idea of too many people ‘preaching
practices’ was definitely aimed at John telling everyone what they ought to do
– telling me, for instance, that I ought to go into business with Allen Klein,
I just got fed up with being told what to do, so I wrote this song. ‘You took
your lucky break and broke it in two.’ Was me saying basically, ‘You made this
break, so good luck with it’. But it was pretty mild. I didn’t really come out
with any savagery, and it’s a fairly upbeat song. It doesn’t really sound that
vitriolic. If you didn’t know that story, I don’t know that you’d be able to
guess at the anger behind the writing.”
Most people read the song as a comment about John’s involvement with
Yoko, but another read, in part, is that Paul is directly questioning John’s
judgement and blind faith over Allen Klein, that is what lead to John’s
over-the-top reaction with “How Do You Sleep?” from Imagine, I have seen from personal
experience, people don’t just get wildly defensive unless they feel that they
may have wronged the other person, in this case, John’s treatment of Paul in
early 1970. Paul further elaborated:
“It was all a bit weird and nasty, and I was basically saying, ‘Let’s be
sensible. We had a lot going on for us in The Beatles, and what actually split us
up is the business stuff, and that’s pretty pathetic really, so let’s try to be
peaceful. Let’s maybe give peace a chance.’”
Outwardly, John was promoting peace, but internally, due to the
influence of a bad apple, John was being antagonistic towards the Paul and it
must have looked very hypocritical. Unfortunately, Narcissists are very good at
cultivating enablers, and having people not see it.
“The thing is, so much of what they held to be true was crap. War is
over? Well no, it isn’t. But I get what you’re saying: war is over if you want
it to be. So, if enough people want war to be over, it’ll be over. I’m not sure
that’s entirely true, but it’s a great sentiment: it’s a nice thing to think
and to say. I’d been able to accept Yoko in the studio, sitting on a blanket in
front of my amp. “I’d worked hard to come to terms with that. But then when we
broke up and everyone was now flailing around, John turned nasty, I don’t
really understand why. Maybe because we grew up in Liverpool, where it was always
good to get in the first punch of a fight.”
This is just a personal hunch, as I don’t know what was in John’s head
or heart, but I suspect John was wildly insecure about the launch of his solo
career, in spite of him already putting out a few good singles, he had to take
down the McCartney persona. John held the cards at that moment with Klein, and
getting the good graces of Rolling Stone magazine to advocate for him for the
sake of access. As Paul had noted John was an ‘Maneuvering swine.’ A point even
acknowledged by John in his Rolling Stone interview that would be published as Lennon
Remembers.
When it
came to picking Klein over Paul wishes, John stated:
“That’s what leaders do…Maneuvering is what it is, let’s not be coy
about it. It is a deliberate and thought-out maneuver of how to get a situation
the way we want it. That’s how life’s about, isn’t it, is it not?”
Even Jann Wenner would parrot the idea that Paul was consistently
hostile towards Yoko, while forgetting that Paul did write the liner notes for Two
Virgins. You can see in the Get Back documentary in early 69 that
Paul was sympathetic towards John’s love of Yoko. Paul further explained with
the bigger picture:
“I had to fight them for my bit of The Beatles and, in fact, for their
bit of The Beatles, which many years later they realized and almost thanked me
for. Nowadays, people get it, but at the time I think the others felt they were
the ones who were victims, who were bring hurt by my actions…. A lot of hurt
went down during that period in the early 1970s – them feeling hurt, me feeling
hurt – but John being John, he was the one who would write a hurtful song. That
was his bag.”
The
problem with “How Do You Sleep?” is that while it is a good song, it feels very
puerile, and full of a lot of defensive self-projection. Paul has noted that
Klein and Yoko were suggesting lyrics, the song was done as a laugh, or like a
naughty schoolboy taking down the school master. John’s line “Jump when you momma
tell you anything” seems quite odd, Paul lost his mother at 14, like John lost
his mother as a teen. Was the line referring to Linda? It was John who was
already known, or would become known, for calling Yoko ‘Mother’. His line “You
live with straights who tell you - you was king’ is also another odd line, John
was just as guilty of being surrounded by sycophants as what he was accusing
Paul of. “The one mistake you made was in your head’, that’s pretty obvious a
rebuttal to Paul’s ‘You made your first mistake’, but it seems pretty childish
and addresses nothing, it doesn’t offer an answer, because on some level John
knew he was in the wrong. The most damning line wasn’t ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Another
day’, but ‘A pretty face may last a year or two’, because it suggested Paul was
just superficial and a light weight, which was very much not true. John hoped
Paul staying power wouldn’t last very long - but that was wish fulfillment.
It has
become a common perception that John was the only one who had depth, or was the
most experimental, it stuck for decades, but a look into Paul’s post Beatles
work reveals a great deal of depth, it just that Paul went about things
differently than John. The dialog didn’t stop there, on the Wing’s first album Wild
Life, Paul did write “Dear Friend”, a song that tried to lessen the
tension. With lines like: “Dear Friend, what’s the time? Is this really the borderline?
Does It really mean that much to you? Are you afraid? Or is it true?” or the
line “Are you a fool? Or is it true?” Paul had
seen the incongruity of John, a wealthy man lecturing the working class, and
man who was both genius - and at times - a fool. John didn’t pursue another
reply, perhaps he was too busy with his activism or the move to New York in
1972. A year that would see John’s weakest album “Some Time In New York City”
released. That year also saw the rise of another New York band, Steely Dan, and
their debut Can’t Buy a Thrill. There would be a kind of poetic karma or
justice over the song John and Paul feuds, when Steely Dan recorded “Only A
Fool Would Say That”, a rebuttal to “Imagine” that recognized the inherent
flaws with their idealism.
That band
was signed to ABC Records, they were not associated to Apple Records, they had
no obligations to the Beatles, as much as they were massive fans, and they
didn’t need to be sycophants, Fagan and Becker could be more cleared eyed when
they wrote: “I heard It was You, Talkin’
‘bout a world were all is free, it just couldn’t be, and only a fool would say
that.” The point is, most working-class people will just shrug their shoulders
at John’s idealism, he held some nice ideas worth merit, but it’s difficult to
talk about peace or equal sharing when one is hardly peaceful themselves. John
did change his views about Klein and would even write “Steel and Glass” about
him in 1974.
Epilogue
Paul would
weather the storm, defeat Allen Klein - and with Wings - move to a highly
successful career, and even critical acceptance for the second half of the 70s.
John’s solo albums would start getting panned by Rolling Stone starting with Mind
Games. George’s solo albums would remain the most interesting and although
he suffered the occasional slings. George kept his footing with his late 70s albums
and would see a massive revival in the late 80s. After separating with Yoko in
late 1973, John would resolve his issues with Yoko, and after an effort by the
American Government to deport him for past legal issues. John would prevail and
stay in New York. Yoko would become pregnant with Sean Lennon, and John retired
from the music scene to raise Sean starting in 1975. John was poised for a comeback
in late 1980 with the Double Fantasy album, when a nobody silenced John
with several bullets. Paul, George, and Ringo would be affected and haunted by
the death for decades. George invited Paul, Linda and Ringo to contribute to
“All Those Years Ago” in 1981 Paul would write and release “Here Today” in 1982
– the love never really went away.
As of this writing, The Beatles combined collective net worth is at over
1 billion, Paul’s personal worth is 1.2 billion. The John Lennon estate is
estimated at 800 million from sales, streaming, and licensing. The George
Harrison estate is estimated at 400 million, and Ringo Starr’s net worth is
estimated at 350 million. The faithful Neil Aspinall managed the business of
Apple as a corporate entity and set up numerous great deals to benefit the
band. The Beatles remain a cultural juggernaut today. Allen Klein’s net worth at the time of his
death was around 500 million. Of course this was built on Klein’s companies
owning rights to recordings, that he exploited from the hands of others.
Jann
Wenner’s net worth is estimated around 800 million, Jann was able to control
the narrative over how people view classic music artists through Rolling Stone,
and as a co-founder with Ahmet Ertegun of the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame from 1987,
and as a chairman of the Hall of Fame Foundation until he stepped down in 2020,
a man who controlled the narrative for the music buying public with RNRHOF, but
it’s a very mixed legacy as Rolling Stone Magazine has been plagued with
scandals.
John once
quipped in the late 1970s that “Time wounds all heels”, and that seems to have borne
fruit for certain figures who tried to divide all of them back then, Paul and
John reconciled their differences by the mid-seventies. George passed in
November of 2001. Paul and Ringo are still very active today at the ripe old
age of their mid-eighties. The children of The Beatles and grandchildren will
be the beneficiaries of their band’s hard work. The love that was made, the
output, was always equal in the end.
Sources
Books: “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now” by Barry Miles, published
by Owl Books / Henry Holt and Comp, © 1997
“The Lyrics” by Paul McCartney, Published by Liveright
Corporation, © 2023 by MPL Communications, Inc
“I Me Mine” by George Harrison and Derek Taylor, Published by Genesis
Publications © 1980, reprint © 2002
Online: Vanity Fair: “Jann Wenner, John Lennon and thegreatest Rolling Stone cover ever” by Joe Hagan, September © 2017
Life magazine: "The Ex-Beatle tells his Story" by Richard Merrymen (c) 1971
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