Off The Beatle Track

I’m no psychologist or sociologist, but it seems clear in any group larger than two, the members form separate alliances with and bear resentments towards each other that can work to the detriment of the larger collective.

The Beatles were as susceptible to these types of pressure as any of us. So what were the subgroups among The Beatles, how long did they last, and what effect did they have on the band’s success and eventual breakup?¹ I’ll examine a few of those subgroups here.

The engine: John and Paul

I’ve written elsewhere that John and Paul formed the engine that drove The Beatles. Their working relationship began when they met in 1957 and ended–well, when did it end? I’d argue that it lasted until John announced in September 1969 that he wanted to leave the band, but I could be persuaded that it ended in early 1968 in India.²

We saw in the Let It Be/Get Back sessions how the relationship between John and Paul affected George: after a morning in which John and Paul seemingly had eyes only for each other, George quit the band at lunchtime. It’s not a stretch to say that the John and Paul subgroup all led directly to the existence of

The “economy-class Beatles”: George and Ringo

George referred to himself and Ringo as “economy-class Beatles,” which is of course fraught with all sorts of resentment. I interpret this label as tacit (but frustrated) acknowledgement that John and Paul never regarded George (and Ringo, for that matter) as equals. I get it, but George was in a group with JOHN LENNON and PAUL MCCARTNEY, two strong personalities who also happened to be two of the best pop songwriters ever.³

I don’t believe that The Beatles could have stayed together indefinitely as long as John and Paul remained on good terms. But I do believe that John and Paul might have been able to maintain the band even without George or Ringo,⁴ at least temporarily. So although George might not have been part of The Beatles’ core, he did belong to

“The writers”: John, Paul, and George

Ringo applied this label to his bandmates in The Beatles Anthology.⁵ John, Paul, and (eventually) George all wrote their own material, whereas Ringo largely had to rely on John and Paul to write songs for him. Ringo doesn’t seem angry when he says it; it’s just a fact. Writing their own material gave them an element of control over their appearance on any given album that Ringo didn’t have until the White Album and Abbey Road. But Ringo was part of

The early LSD takers: John, George, and Ringo

Also in Anthology, Paul discusses why he ended up taking LSD for the first time several months after John, George, and Ringo had: “Talk about peer pressure. The Beatles?” John and George (along with Cynthia and Pattie) were famously slipped LSD at a dinner party in March or April of 1965; Ringo joined them for a trip in August 1965 with The Byrds and Peter Fonda in Beverly Hills. Paul was present but declined to partake.

The excellent Paul McCartney Project website says that Paul first tried LSD in December 1965, but not, curiously, with any of the other Beatles. Rather, he was with Tara Browne, the Guinness heir who later “blew his mind out in a car.” It’s possible that Paul didn’t take LSD with another Beatle until 1967, when he and John tripped during the Sgt. Pepper sessions.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but the early LSD takers were the same group as

The Klein clients: John, George, and Ringo

I suppose one could argue that Paul’s refusal to take LSD with the others created a rift in the band that was never repaired. In any event, when John met Allen Klein in early 1969 and asked Klein to represent him, then persuaded George and Ringo to sign with Klein as well, that rift became a rupture.

Let’s end by returning to the subgroup at the core of The Beatles. Instead of asking why The Beatles broke up, maybe it’s better to ask: Why did John and Paul separate over the question of who should manage the band? Why did John and Paul let Allen Klein come between them?⁶

Email me at beatletrack@gmail.com to share your thoughts about the groups within The Beatles.

1. That sounds like the proposal for an excellent book, doesn’t it? Sadly, all you’ll get is the lousy post. ↩︎
2. Except they seem to be on fairly good terms for most of Peter Jackson’s Get Back. ↩︎
3. Of course, when George met them, they were just Paul and John, not JOHN LENNON and PAUL MCCARTNEY, and I’m sure that had something to do with the later resentment he felt towards them (especially Paul). ↩︎
4. But probably not both. ↩︎
5. The writers also happens to comprise the three pre-1960 Beatles, who were in the band the longest. ↩︎
6. I know, I know: Many forces strained their relationship, some internal, some external. Klein didn’t break up The Beatles any more than Yoko or Linda did. But it’s also true that neither John nor Paul would budge on the Klein question until it was too late. ↩︎