Paul McCartney revisits one of the most controversial chapters in The Beatles’ history with Man on the Run.
McCartney defended his decision to sue the Beatles, revealing the subsequent “fuck you, John” moment in a documentary chronicling the end of an era and the beginning of the singer’s journey with Wings.
But before forming Wings, McCartney dealt with the aftermath of the Beatles’ breakup.
The band’s original manager, Brian Epstein, passed away, and the debate over who to hire reached a fever pitch.
McCartney refused to sign on to a proposal to hire Allen Klein as the new manager, which was supported by John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
“I saw it through. At this rate, Allen Klein is going to swallow all of the Beatles’ fortune,” McCartney said in a Prime Video documentary released on February 27. “I thought I had to fight it.”
“My brother-in-law and his father were very helpful. They said they would sue, and I said, ‘Allen Klein can sue, but the Beatles can’t sue,'” he added. “‘These are my people. They’re going to hate me for that, the public is going to hate me for that, and I’m going to hate me for that.’ But if they weren’t, they would never have gotten out.”
McCartney sued the other Beatles in 1970 because he felt he was financially stuck in a partnership led by manager Allen Klein.
At the time, McCartney believed Klein was mismanaging the band’s multimedia company, Apple Corps.
This lawsuit wasn’t really about disbanding the band musically, that was already happening. The idea was to legally wind up the business before things got worse.
John Lennon later wrote a song called “How Do You Sleep?” that criticized McCartney for leaving the legendary band.
The lyrics read, “All you did was ‘Yesterday’/And now that you’re gone, it’s just another day,” and “The sound you make is muzaak to my ears.”
“The only thing you did was ‘Yesterday,’ which was obviously suggested by Allen Klein,” McCartney claimed in the documentary. “But in the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘If all I ever did was ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Let It Be,’ ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ and ‘Lady Madonna,’ then…fuck you, John.”
“How do I sleep at night? Well, I actually sleep very well,” he said.
By 1973, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr also accused Klein of financial misconduct.
They eventually severed ties with him.
“John broke up the Beatles,” McCartney claimed in the documentary. “But I could rap. And it’s a bit of a burden to bear.”
McCartney and Lennon met as teenagers at a church festival in Liverpool, England. Lennon was already a member of his own band, The Quarrymen. After meeting McCartney at an event, Lennon asked him to be part of the group. About three years later, the Beatles were formed.
At a screening of Man on the Run, McCartney reflected on his close relationship with Lennon.
From teenage shenanigans to the pressures of Beatlemania, the musician explained that his complicated friendship with Lennon has gotten him through it all.
“I’ve known John since I was a little kid, just like it’s portrayed in the movie. We were just a couple of rock ‘n’ roll fans,” he said, The Sun reported. “We enjoyed spending time together, and we started writing little songs in my house. My father had a pipe in his drawer, so we decided to smoke it. We couldn’t find cigarettes, so we smoked tea. We had all the memories in common.”
“Then we went through the whole Beatles trajectory. But even though he was really mean, John was always that guy to me, and I had to accept that. At the same time, I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s John, he does that.’ He’s always done that — so it was a little bit easier.”
“But I loved him. I loved all the members of the Beatles,” McCartney added. “I think it could have been done differently, but if it was just me, John, George and Ringo, it was a magical group. And we worked out!”
