This week, an article appeared hyping an audio tape of one of the last meetings of The Beatles during their final days, and the article makes the claim: 'This tape rewrites everything we knew about the Beatles."
Before I go into full beast mode, let me note that no transcription or audio recording of the tape is provided, so maybe it does change 'everything we knew' about the end of The Beatles, but what is presented, does not change everything we know. Not by a long shot.
Synopsis: The article makes the claim that it's accepted history that The Beatles knew that Abbey Road was going to be their final album (Abbey Road is regarded by fans as their final album as it was recorded after Let It Be, even though Let It Be was released after Abbey Road.)
The article goes on to talk about a recording of a business meeting just prior to the release of Abbey Road, where John and George are talking about continuing after Abbey Road, while Paul seems less than enthusiastic.
“It’s a revelation,” Lewisohn says. “The books have always told us that they knew Abbey Road was their last album and they wanted to go out on an artistic high. But no – they’re discussing the next album."
Well, that's almost interesting, except I'm curious what books "have always told us" that they knew Abbey Road was going to be their last album. Certainly things were strained during that period, but if you'd asked me last week whether The Beatles set out to record Abbey Road, knowing it was going to be their last album, I would have said 'No.'
In fact, George Martin, in the Anthology TV program said "Nobody knew for sure that it was going to be the last one, but everybody felt it was." (Emphasis mine.) Ringo, in the same program, said that “It was always a possibility we could have carried on. We weren’t sitting in the studio saying okay this is it, last record, last track."
I always understood that there were a series of incidents that resulted in the ultimate demise of The Beatles, but that the two most notable disagreements were John, George and Ringo bringing in Klein as their manager, and Ringo turning up to tell Paul not to release his solo album on the same date as Let It Be. The latter happened long after Abbey Road was recorded. I never understood that they had decided that Abbey Road would be the last album, so the whole premise of the article seems suspect.
Or maybe I've been reading the wrong books.
Before I go into full beast mode, let me note that no transcription or audio recording of the tape is provided, so maybe it does change 'everything we knew' about the end of The Beatles, but what is presented, does not change everything we know. Not by a long shot.
Synopsis: The article makes the claim that it's accepted history that The Beatles knew that Abbey Road was going to be their final album (Abbey Road is regarded by fans as their final album as it was recorded after Let It Be, even though Let It Be was released after Abbey Road.)
The article goes on to talk about a recording of a business meeting just prior to the release of Abbey Road, where John and George are talking about continuing after Abbey Road, while Paul seems less than enthusiastic.
“It’s a revelation,” Lewisohn says. “The books have always told us that they knew Abbey Road was their last album and they wanted to go out on an artistic high. But no – they’re discussing the next album."
Well, that's almost interesting, except I'm curious what books "have always told us" that they knew Abbey Road was going to be their last album. Certainly things were strained during that period, but if you'd asked me last week whether The Beatles set out to record Abbey Road, knowing it was going to be their last album, I would have said 'No.'
In fact, George Martin, in the Anthology TV program said "Nobody knew for sure that it was going to be the last one, but everybody felt it was." (Emphasis mine.) Ringo, in the same program, said that “It was always a possibility we could have carried on. We weren’t sitting in the studio saying okay this is it, last record, last track."
I always understood that there were a series of incidents that resulted in the ultimate demise of The Beatles, but that the two most notable disagreements were John, George and Ringo bringing in Klein as their manager, and Ringo turning up to tell Paul not to release his solo album on the same date as Let It Be. The latter happened long after Abbey Road was recorded. I never understood that they had decided that Abbey Road would be the last album, so the whole premise of the article seems suspect.
Or maybe I've been reading the wrong books.
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