In 1970, Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles had broken up, much to George Harrison and John Lennon’s irritation. While they were happy to no longer be in the band, they didn’t think it was McCartney’s place to announce the split. Harrison believed this sort of behavior was typical of McCartney. He complained that the bassist also used rumors of Beatles reunions to generate buzz for his albums.
George Harrison said Paul McCartney used Beatles reunions as self-promotion
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While promoting his self-titled solo album in 1970, McCartney broke the news that The Beatles were no longer together. Harrison seemed to believe his former bandmate did it to help promote his album. He said that, in his opinion, McCartney did this often over the years.
“Paul has a way of using stuff. I mean, even now, if he is going to do a tour he’ll conveniently tell the press that we’re all getting back together again or something,” Harrison said in The Beatles Anthology. “It’s just his way, really. It’s something that over the years may have kind of annoyed us, but I think after all these years we’re used to it. But in that period everybody was getting pissed off at each other for everything.”
In the case of the solo album, McCartney, Harrison believed his former bandmate wanted to use press coverage of the breakup to generate buzz.
“With his album, I think what he was trying to do was just grab a bit of the momentum of the time, and while everybody else was just accepting the fact that we’d split he was the one to use that for his own benefit: ‘Oh, my album’s coming out. And, incidentally, The Beatles have split up, you know.’”
Paul McCartney defended himself against George Harrison’s statement
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While McCartney understood why his bandmates may have felt this way, he defended himself against Harrison’s words. He said he was just trying to tell the truth to the public, not make a grab at an opportunity for self-promotion.
“The others all saw me as the one who issued the statements, as if it was to my advantage (but I got caught with the LSD thing, and all I did on the break-up was, unlike them, to tell the truth),” he said. “Years later, when the Anthology was coming together, I was asked in a press conference if we were getting back together. It was going to be true, so I said ‘yeah’, nothing more.”
George Harrison did not think it was a good idea for The Beatles to get back together
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McCartney, Harrison, and Ringo Starr teamed back up to work on Anthology. This was not a reunion in the truest sense, though. Harrison wanted no part of that.
“Everyone’s enjoying being individuals,” he said in a press conference (via Ultimate Classic Rock). “We were boxed up for 10 years. So, it’s all fantasy about the Beatles coming together again. If we do it again, it will probably be because we’ll be broke and need the money.”
Various members of the band have teamed up on songs and performances over the years. All four of them never worked together again, though.
