Classic Rock
Paul McCartney reveals why he sued The Beatles back 1970
The Beatles bassist and singer Paul McCartney revealed the reason why he sued the band back in 1970. The musician talked about it in an interview with GQ Magazine saying that when the band was over people thought they hated each other.
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Paul McCartney reveals why he sued The Beatles back 1970:
“I suppose that when The Beatles broke up, perhaps there was a misconception that we all sort of hated each other. What I realise now is that, because it was a family, because it was a gang, families argue. And families have disputes. And some people want to do this and some people want to do that.”
“So I think what came about after that,” he continued.”The only way for me to save The Beatles and Apple – and to release Get Back by Peter Jackson and which allowed us to release Anthology and all these great remasters of all the great Beatles records – was to sue the band.
“If I hadn’t done that, it would have all belonged to [former manager of The Beatles] Allen Klein. The only way I was given to get us out of that was to do what I did. I said ‘Well, I’ll sue Allen Klein,’ and I wasn’t told I couldn’t because he wasn’t party to it. ‘You’ve got to sue the Beatles.’”
Paul also talked about a supposedly ill-spirited song written about him by Lennon:
“I remember reading an article. An interview with Yoko, who, OK, she was a big John supporter, I get that. But in this article she goes: ‘Paul did nothing. All he ever did was book studio.’ And I’m going: ‘Err? No…’ Then John does this famous song, ‘How Do You Sleep?’, and he’s going: ‘All you ever did was ‘Yesterday’…’ And I’m going, ‘No, man.'”
“But then you hear the stories from various angles and apparently people who were in the room when John was writing that. He was getting suggestions for the lyrics off Allen Klein. So, you see the atmosphere of ‘Let’s get Paul. Let’s nail him in a song… And those things were pretty hurtful.”
