Paul McCartney has delved into The Beatles, and his decision to sue the band following the announcement of his departure in April 1970.
In a new interview with GQ, McCartney explored what he described as being one of the greatest “misconceptions” shrouding The Beatles split — his decision to file a lawsuit calling for the groups’ formal disbandment.
McCartney revealed that his decision to sue the group was fuelled by his desire to “save” their music and company, Apple. The legendary rocker filed a suit with The Beatles in the months following his departure.
The legal battle between him, EMI and music publisher Allen Klein went on for years. Klein took over The Beatles business affairs following the death of the band’s manager Brian Epstein in 1969.
“Because I had to do that, I think I was thought to be the guy who broke The Beatles up and the bastard who sued his mates,” McCartney revealed.
“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,” McCartney shared.
McCartney went on to detail that if he hadn’t decided to sue the band, The Beatles would have lost the rights to their music.
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“If I hadn’t done that, it would have all belonged to Allen Klein,” he claims. “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 was told I couldn’t because he wasn’t party to it. ‘You’ve got to sue The Beatles.’
“…As you can imagine, that was horrendous and it gave me some terrible times. I drank way too much and did too much of everything. And it was crazy, but I knew that was the only thing to do, because there was no way I was going to save it for me, because there was no way I was going to work that hard for all my life and see it all vanish in a puff of smoke.
“I also knew that, if I managed to save it, I would be saving it for them too. Because they were about to give it away. They loved this guy Klein. And I was saying, ‘He’s a fucking idiot.’”
Last week, McCartney released an unheard acoustic version of ‘Calico Skies’.
Check out ‘Calico Skies’ by Paul McCartney:
