Speculation: What If The Beatles Broke Up in 1968

For those who would like to speculate, my question is what would the individual Beatles have done as musicians in 1969 - if the group broke up after the "White Album", something that I believe George and John suggested would've been a good idea.

John: Not much would've changed except that he wouldn't have been in the Beatles. Otherwise, he would've put out "The Ballad Of John & Yoko", "Give Peace A Chance", and "Cold Turkey" as solo singles, and Live Peace In Toronto. I don't think songwriting was a big priority for Lennon in 1969.

George: He would've put out a brilliant solo album, self produced. It would've contained songs such as "I'd Have You Anytime", "Old Brown Shoe", "Hear Me Lord", "Art of Dying", "Here Comes The Sun", "Something", "For You Blue", "I Me Mine", "Let It Down", "Isn't It A Pity", "All Things Must Pass", "Dehra Dun", "Woman Don't You Cry For Me"

Paul: He would've put out a brilliant solo album, self produced, and he probably would've played all the instruments . It would've contained "Oh Darling", "Let It Be", "Get Back", "Two Of Us", "The Long And Winding Road", "You Never Give Me Your Money", "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight", "Teddy Boy", "Junk", "The Back Seat Of My Car", "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window", "Another Day", "Every Night".

Ringo: Pretty much the same - he would've recorded Sentimental Journey.

So ultimately, George and Paul would've been hailed as brilliant, and their resulting albums would still be considered classics. John and Ringo would've pulled it together in 1970.

 

As Abbey Road is my all time favorite album - I shudder to think about the Beatles breaking up before it's recording. We would all be poorer indeed.

 

I think maybe John & Paul would have got together for a duo album, with The Ballad of John & Yoko as the single.

 

Probably. But since the group viewed it as pretty much a patch up on their reputation, it could easily have not happened. In early 69, only Paul and Ringo still wanted the Beatles. John and George were already gone (mentally).

 

I've often thought this could have been good, despite the fact that they did excellent material after 1968. It might have saved them a lot of grief, as well as making it more likely they (especially John and Paul) would have worked together in some capacity in the Seventies. By 1970, I think they really had had enough of the whole thing and each other.

If Let It Be and Abbey Road had never existed, if "Hey Jude"/"Revolution" had been their last single, if the White Album had been their last album, thus making side 4 of said album their final statement to the world -- would the world be much worse off, if any, had The Beatles had ended on such a note? Sometimes I think it would have made all the difference in the world. Sometimes I think people were so tied into what The Beatles were saying and doing that, in a way, they were given a way out of their idealism as the Sixties turned sour by The Beatles getting a little depressed and resorting to professional-quality work for the last couple years. Leaving them with "Revolution 9" would have furrowed many eyebrows, even enraged people, but overall might have, in essence, left the work of revolution to the people, rather than allowing them to come down from the dream of the mid-Sixties gradually enough as to be able to justify their not doing anything to make it a reality. It might have created more of a feeling of something must be done (as finally came in the late Seventies) rather than whew I'm tired, let's kick back for a while (as much of the early Seventies was like). Punk rock might have happened ten years earlier.

It's an idea anyway. The whole thing is an interesting hypothetical question with more than just musical consequences.

 

I don't think the Beatles story would have been complete.

With the completion of "Abbey Road" they did come full circle.

 

John Lennon has said that they ended as a group when Brain Epstein died. They were in the middle of Sgt. Pepper. Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Sub were really extensions of that. These were their last true group efforts, and the peak of their creativity, IMO. The White album was solo songs using the others as backing musicians. They nearly broke up during that album, fine though it was. Then Let it Be and Abbey Road were McCartney projects with the other Beatles along for the ride (whilst protesting and complaining). That was it. They were fed up, having turned into Paul's sidemen - and called it quits.

That being said, we would be missing a lot of great music had they quit in 1968. But they weren't ready to quit. They were on top of the world, and it's not easy to climb down from that. I suppose they could have quit after the White Album, and not renegotiated their contract at that point. I think they have said that they werwe motivated to put out a double album to finish out their obligations to EMI.

 

If you really want to speculate, maybe if they had officially broken up in '68, they'd have more likely gotten back together at some point in the 70's.

 

If they had broken up after the WHITE ALBUM? Guess John would have had time for TWO VIRGINS VOLUME 2...

So PTL we got AR instead....

 

It seems to me that they would've remained a band except for John deciding to put a complete end to it. I think Paul, George, and Ringo would've been willing to continue eventually. Then Paul eventually got fed up with keeping it a secret. And then there's the whole Klein thing. I think that the chances them breaking up when they did were as likely as breaking up prior to Abbey Road or after completing another album.

From a music standpoint, I doubt it. The songs that came out as Beatles songs would've come out as solo songs, which is presumably what eventually happened in the cases of "Give Me Some Truth", "Oh My Love", "Look At Me", "Jealous Guy", "Teddy Boy", "Junk", "Another Day", "Back Seat of My Car", and a dozen or so George songs. IMO, they absolutely had another INCREDIBLE album in them.

Maybe a more difficult question would be what would've happened if they had made that one more album and broken up sometime at the end of 1970 or in 1971? At that point most of the early solo classic songs would've been used up.

 

It's hard to say what songs would have existed had the Beatles not been together after 1968. Would George have been hiding in Eric Clapton's garden writing "Here Comes The Sun" instead of attending an Apple meeting? He certainly wouldn't have written "Wah Wah" after storming out of the "Get Back" sessions that would not have happened. Off-the-cuff songs like "Dig It" would not exist. Then again, other songs may have come forth.

 

I think it would have been more likely that, because of the comparative lack of acrimony by the end of '68, they might have alternated solo and Beatles material. George and John discussed this possibility during the Get Back sessions.

 

Then why didn't they? If they wanted to continue, why would John's opinion have mattered? Unless there was a legal reason they couldn't use the name. But that didn't stop them in 1996.

In 1969 I think neither John nor George were willing to continue. Paul and Ringo were, but that's not enough obviously.

 

Yes, but the Beatles had a special magic together that would not have been reproduced if the same songs were done solo. When I think of the richness of the playing on Abbey Road...I really would have missed that if the songs had been done in another context.

 

...we'd still be loving them as much!...wouldn't know what we would have missed anyway...

 

Why would Paul, George and Ringo have wanted to continue as the Beatles without John? (In 1994 they had no choice, and even then his voice was included.)

 

I don't necessarily agree with that - the song "All Things Must Pass," to name just one example, was probably better served by Spector's production than it would have been at a Beatles session, where Paul and George Martin just weren't all that interested in George's songs. I sometimes wish that "Here Comes the Sun" had been saved for All Things Must Pass - Spector's production really worked well on George's acoustic material, and the Moog overdubs on the Abbey Road recording of "Here Comes the Sun" stick out like a sore thumb to me.

On the other hand, it is a real tragedy that McCartney songs such as "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Back Seat of My Car" and "Another Day" were not arranged and produced by George Martin. In particular, I wish that "Back Seat of My Car" had received a polished George Martin Abbey Road-era arrangement and production, instead of the sloppy, frustrating arrangement that particularly mars the second half of the Ram recording of this song.

 

Like someone else said above, they didn't continue because John wasn't interested, and because they couldn't agree on management. Those two factors were both present as soon as Klein appeared. They went on to do Abbey Road despite the problems. I imagine its like a married couple that just stays together even though there are irreconcilable problems. Then eventually they split.

We know that John wanted out. And then Paul announced it was over. George, despite his dissatisfaction didn't quit (not for good anyway). My thinking is that if John had not quit, then Paul wouldn't have quit. Things would've settled down, emotions would've cooled. Then a call or two gets made sometime in 1970, and they'd be making another album by 1971. Unless, of course, the management issue rankled Paul so much that HE quit first. I think its worth noting, however, that despite Klein's great deal, John STILL quit, and he had to be persuaded by Klein to keep quiet about it. His feelings about ending the Beatles were THAT strong.

It seems to me that had the management issue been resolved, they could've carried on in a similar manner as Crosby, Stills & Nash - solos, duo, and group combinations. I think that was a new concept at the time though. And again, John didn't want the Beatles anymore at that point. Had he been a little more mellow about it in 1969, then by the time he started to feel good about The Beatles again (73-74), they could've done something without it being a big "BEATLES REUNION" situation.

 

I can't believe you think "Maybe I'm Amazed" should be improved upon. It seems perfect to me. I feel almostthe same way about "Another Day". Personally, I love "The Back Seat Of My Car" as is. However, I can see how a different approach would've worked as well, or better.

 

I just went through the whole story again, reading Bob Spitz's book. Even so, I've never really understood how it was the Beatles pulled themselves together to record "Abbey Road." You would think that the failed "Get Back" sessions would have been the end of the line. The hostility between John and Paul over Allen Klein and other issues was unbelievable; I don't really know why John agreed to record that album.

I think once the Beatles split, they would have stayed split forever, regardless. They didn't have any use for each other anymore. Paul didn't need the others' musical input. John was only interested in playing his own songs. Being in the Beatles consigned George to a limited supporting role. There was no motivation to get back together beyond the obvious commercial one.

 

I've always wondered if personal and management issues loomed larger, or the musical ones. It seems to me that deep down, John wanted to record personal songs like "Cold Turkey" and when the rest of them wouldn't have it, he was tired of the democracy, and just wanted to do things his way. I think that side projects with other people, like band members often do nowadays, would have been a good way to handle it. I feel they burned bridges that they shouldn't have. They didn't have to get a messy divorce. They could have had a temporary separation instead. Here I am thirty five years older, still talking about this stuff! I guess I'll never get over it as long as I live.

 

Get Back, Something, Let It Be, I Want You, Don't Let Me Down, You Never Give Me Your Money, I've Got A Feeling, Come Together, Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End, Here Comes The Sun. All classic songs that may have not existed at all or would be radically different if the writer had not been directly influenced by the other members of the group. The Beatles are the one group the broke up at the perfect time. They left everyone wanting more.

 

Well, he DID want to record "Cold Turkey" as a Beatles song, and he was denied. So music was a factor. We also know that George didn't like Paul's approach to music, especially after hanging out with The Band and seeing it done differently. George later affirmed this by stating in the mid 70s that he'd join a band with John anyday, but not Paul.

 

God, how I wish that "Cold Turkey" had opened Abbey Road instead of "Come Together." Thanks to CD-Rs, it does, at my house, anyway. Is "Cold Turkey" really that much more abrasive than "I Want You"?

This is an excellent point, and, in fact, they did sort of do this for a while, with Ringo playing on Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass, George playing on Imagine, and George writing and producing "It Don't Come Easy" and "Photograph" for Ringo. For that reason, the aforementioned records have as much claim to being "Beatles" records as does Abbey Road imho, where, despite the legend that they "got it together one more time" in the studio, there was probably more tension in the studio than there was during the "solo" sessions that featured two or three Beatles.