Off The Beatle Track

Here’s an opinion that some Beatles fans regard as unpopular: The Beatles broke up at exactly the right time. And here’s why I believe that to be true.

1. They had already spent more time at the top than their predecessors had.

The Beatles’ recording career lasted from mid-1962 to mid-1969 (with one Threatles¹ session held in January 1970), though their breakup didn’t become public until April 1970. From early 1963 in the U.K., and early 1964 in the U.S. and elsewhere, The Beatles were, well, famous doesn’t do their celebrity justice. They were several levels beyond famous.

Even in the 1960s, six or seven years was a long time for a pop/rock act to remain at the industry’s forefront. Consider some of the artists who influenced The Beatles:

• Elvis Presley’s first single on the Sun label, That’s All Right, was released in 1954. Elvis was inducted into the Army in March 1958. John later said that “Elvis died the day he went into the Army.”
• Little Richard’s first hit, Tutti Frutti, was released in September 1955. In late 1957, Little Richard announced that he would stop performing secular music.
• Buddy Holly’s first single (Blue Days, Black Nights) was released in April 1956. Buddy died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.

There are other U.S. artists with similarly short careers in the national or international spotlight (Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers).² The point is that, in the late ’50s and early ’60s, artists would burst onto the scene, make a splash, and then recede from view in just a few years.

By September 1969, one wonders how many more splashes The Beatles could have made. They had proved that pop/rock music could be both wildly popular and critically acclaimed. They had adapted styles several times, moving from early rock to pop music to pop folk to rock to psychedelic rock to roots rock to arena rock. They had succeeded in music, movies, television, and publishing. As Hans Gruber says of Alexander the Great in Die Hard,³ by late 1969 The Beatles had no worlds left to conquer.

2. They were on each others’ last nerve.

John met Paul when he was 16 and Paul was 15. George joined them a year later at 15. The Beatles spent the first half of the ’60s in almost constant company with each other. Familiarity breeds contempt, and The Beatles were extraordinarily familiar with each other by 1969.

Peter Jackson’s Get Back shows the cracks that had formed in the band’s relationships. George’s telling Paul that “you don’t annoy me anymore” is heartbreaking because we know how close they are to the end. Ringo had walked out during 1968’s White Album sessions, and George left during the January 1969 Let It Be sessions.

Let’s stipulate, charitably, that the others didn’t share Paul’s work ethic. I don’t mean to imply that John, George, and Ringo were lazy. But the White Album was released on November 22, 1968. The band convened for what became the Let It Be sessions 41 days later, on January 2, 1969. So about six weeks after releasing a 30-song double album, The Beatles embarked on their next project.

Why? What was the rush? My sense is that Paul, legitimately concerned that the group was close to breaking up, initiated what would become the Let It Be project in an attempt to forestall the split. And who knows whether they would have broken up sooner, or later, or not at all had they not spent so much of January 1969 together. But for years we heard that no one was happy with the results of their January 1969 collaboration and they were increasingly unhappy with each other.

3. They went out on top.

And then they rallied. Somehow, they pulled together to produce Abbey Road, released in September 1969.

In this post-Get Back era, I don’t think we appreciate enough how unlikely Abbey Road was (a) to exist at all let alone (b) to be a brilliant album. If you didn’t know, what would you think happened after the rooftop concert? Wouldn’t it make sense if the last Get Back title card said something like, “And The Beatles never played together again after January 1969”?

John didn’t bring many songwriting ideas to the January 1969 sessions, but he contributed Come Together, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Because, and a few fragments to Abbey Road. George seemed to withdraw the best songs he’d written from consideration for Let It Be, then wrote not one but two masterpieces–Something and Here Comes the Sun–for the next album. George Martin’s return to the producer’s chair meant that Paul had a willing and able partner (John missing many of the sessions after his July automobile accident) for the side 2 medley.⁴

Isn’t that the way you want want The Beatles to end (with, by the way, a song titled The End)? They could have produced one or two additional albums in 1970 and 1971, but their collaboration had run its course. Had The Beatles disbanded at any other time in any other way, we would wish they had broken up after an album like Abbey Road.

What are your thoughts about the timing of The Beatles’ breakup? Email me at beatletrack@gmail.com.

1. I’ve seen this spelled Threetles. But doesn’t Threatles make more sense? ↩︎
2. I don’t know as much about the British music scene, but Cliff Richard released his first single, Move It/Schoolboy Crush, in 1958. John said, “Before Cliff and Move It, there was nothing worth listening to in England,” but The Beatles never seemed to regard Cliff as real competition. ↩︎
3. The line in Die Hard is incorrect, by the way; it’s a misquote. Here’s a very snarky article that explains: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/03/19/and-alexander-wept/. ↩︎
4. Side 2 of Abbey Road, which I consider to be a unified suite, is my favorite piece of music. ↩︎