Paul McCartney 'wanted The Beatles to tour again' to help heal rift with band
A tour to help heal the rifts between members of The Beatles had been suggested by Paul McCartney, but amounted to nothing, the veteran songwriter has claimed.
McCartney, who would leave the band in the late 1960s, had hoped that getting back on stage with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, might help the band work through the problems laid bare in documentaries Let It Be and Get Back. But it appeared the tensions were too much for the Fab Four, with Lennon confirming his departure from the group privately to his bandmates. McCartney, who would go on to form Wings and later enjoyed a successful solo career, commented on his hopes of getting The Beatles back on the road and why it never came to pass.
In response to criticism from Philip Norman in his book, Shout!, the Blackbird songwriter says he tried his best to keep the band together in the late ’60s.
He said: “What the book says, about me being the great manipulator simply isn’t true. Nothing happened in The Beatles unless everyone wanted it to happen. But when there was a decision to be made, somebody had to say it out loud — and that usually turned out to be my job. I accepted it.
“I certainly wasn’t responsible for splitting up the Beatles, as some people think — in fact, I was the last one to come to that view. I’d wanted us to tour, to bring us closer together again.
“It all gets absorbed into the myth, your image builds up, it gets into plays and books, and it becomes the truth. Except that it wasn’t. There’s a story that I used to straighten John’s tie before we went on stage. That seems to have become a symbol of what my attitude was supposed to have been. I’ve never straightened anyone’s tie in my life, except perhaps affectionately.”
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
