Paul took this opportunity to explain what had happened with Allen Klein and the Beatles' disintegration. The article would be entitled, 'The Ex-Beatle Tells His Story.' The interview was conducted by Richard Merryman in Los Angeles.- Jay Spangler, www.beatlesinterviews.org
Article ©1971 Life Magazine
PAUL: "The whole Beatle thing -- it's like it was all years ago -- like going back a distance more than anything. I think the troubles really began when we weren't aiming anymore for the same thing, which began, I think, when we stopped touring in 1966.
During the making of the White Album, Ringo left the group saying he wasn't 'getting through' to the rest of us. But he came back in two days. By the time we made Abbey Road, John and I were openly critical of each other's music and I felt John wasn't much interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself. When we made the 'Let It Be' album, George walked out over a row about the performance of some songs -- and said he was leaving the group. A few days later there was a meeting at Ringo's house, and he agreed to come back at least until the recording was finished."
"So I felt the split coming. And John kept saying we were musically standing still. One night -- this was the autumn of '69 -- Linda and I were lying there, talking about it, and I thought, 'That's what I miss, and what they miss too -- Playing.' Because we hadn't actually played for anyone for a long time. And being an actual good musician requires this contact with people all the time. The human thing. So I came into the idea of going to village halls which hold a couple of hundred people. Have someone book the hall and put up posters saying, maybe, 'Ricky and Redstreaks, Saturday Night.' And we'd just turn up there in a van and people would arrive and we'd be there. I thought that was great. John said, 'You're daft.'"
"At this time John's thing was playing for 200,000 people because he'd been at a big festival or something. So he wanted to do that. And I can see now what he thought. I can see which way John sees progress. I see it sometimes another way."
"We were talking in the Apple offices. Ringo was there -- he agreed -- and maybe George wasn't there. So then John says, 'Anyway, I'm leaving the group.' He said, 'I want a divorce.' He literally said, 'I want a divorce.' And for the first time ever, he meant it. So that just hit everyone.
I think what John did was tremendous from the point of view of 'Okay, so we are actually going to go our own ways.' You just can't be as tied together as we were for so long a period of time, unless you all live in the same house. From then onward it was to be a question of living your own life, which was the first real turn-on for me in a long time -- and this coincided with my meeting Linda. So early in 1970 I phoned John and told him I was leaving the Beatles too. He said, 'Good! That makes two of us who have accepted it mentally.'"
We used to get asked at press conferences, 'What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?' When I talked to John just the other day, he said something about, 'Well, the bubble's going to burst.' And I said, 'It has burst. That's the point. That's why I've had to do this, why l had to apply to the court.
"You see, there was a partnership contract put together years ago to hold us together as a group for 10 years. Anything anybody wanted to do -- put out a record, anything -- he had to get the others' permission. Because of what we were then, none of us ever looked at it when we signed it. We signed it in '67 and discovered it last year. We discovered this contract that bound us for 10 years.
So it's 'Oh gosh, Oh golly, Oh heck,' you know. 'Now, boys, can we tear it up, please?' But the trouble is, the other three have been advised not to tear it up. They've been advised that if they tear it up, there will be serious, bad consequences for them. The point, though, to me was that it began to look like a three-to-one vote, which is what in fact happened at a couple of business meetings. It was three to one. That's how Allen Klein got to be the manager of Apple, which I didn't want. But they didn't need my approval."
"Listen, it's not the boys. It's not the other three. The four of us, I think, still quite like each other. I don't think there is bad blood, not from my side anyway. I spoke to the others quite recently and there didn't sound like any from theirs. So it's a business thing. It's Allen Klein. Early in '69 John took him on as business manager and wanted the rest of us to do it too. That was just the irreconcilable difference between us."
I had a knot in my stomach all summer. I tried to think of a way to take Allen Klein to court, or to take a businessman to court. But the action had to be brought against the other three."
"I first said, 'No, we can't do that. We'll live with it.' But all those little things kept happening, such trivia compared to what has happened, but the kind of things that... well, for example, my record McCartney came out. Linda and I did it totally -- the record, the cover the ads -- everything presented to the record company. Then there started to appear these little advertisements. On the bottom was 'On Apple Records,' which was okay. But somebody had also come along and slapped on 'An Abkco-managed company.' Now that is Klein's company and has nothing to do with my record. It's like Klein taking part of the credit for my record."
John has a new record out with a song called 'Power to the People.' There's a line in it -- sort of shouting to the government -- 'Give us what we own.' And to me Apple's the government thing. Give me what I own."
"So then we began to talk again about the suit, over and over. I just saw that I was not going to get out of it. From my last phone conversation with John, I think he sees it like that. He said, 'Well, how do you get out?'"
"You can read the other boys' side to find out I'm the stinker. I think I'm right. But don't we all! You couldn't believe it! It's a movie! Because I've had to take this action against the others, it looks like we can't stand each other. I can really only speak for myself, but I still like the other three. And maybe it's deeper than 'like.' But at the moment, I'm not stuck on them. I'm not pleased. We are not amused at the moment! I am not loving them. But I know when it's over I will really like them."
"People said, 'It's a pity that such a nice thing had to come to such a sticky end.' I think that too. It is a pity. I like fairy tales. I'd love it to have had the Beatles go up in a little cloud of smoke and the four of us just find ourselves in magic robes, each holding an envelope with our stuff in it. But you realize that you're in real life, and you don't split up a beautiful thing with a beautiful thing. I ignored John's interview in Rolling Stone (1971). I looked at it and dug him for saying what he thought. But to me, short of getting it off his chest, I think he blows it with that kind of thing. I think it makes people wonder why John needs to do that."
