How John Lennon and Paul McCartney ended their feud
From 1960 to 1970, The Beatles released 13 studio albums to wild and unprecedented success. Amid all the monumental highs, however, dismal lows were just around the corner as personal tension, creative differences, and challenging business decisions started to drive an irreparable wedge down the middle of the Fab Four. While Ringo Starr and George Harrison had brief departures from the band, when John Lennon made his plans to leave in 1969, there was no coming back. The Beatles announced their official split in 1970, and years of bitterness were to follow.
When the breakup was confirmed, the relationship between former songwriters Paul McCartney and John Lennon turned brutally sour. In fact, they were at the height of a heated feud that would last years, and they weren’t shy to admit it. In 1971, Lennon told Rolling Stone that he thought McCartney’s self-titled album was “rubbish”. There were also several songs – “diss tracks” – that the pair released separately that included intentionally direct lyrics, including McCartney’s ‘Too Many People’ to which Lennon responded with his track ‘How Do You Sleep?’.
“[That] was me saying basically, ‘You’ve made this break, so good luck with it.’ But it was pretty mild,” McCartney wrote about ‘Too Many People’. “It was all a bit weird and a bit nasty, and I was basically saying, ‘Let’s be sensible. We had a lot going for us in The Beatles, and what actually split us up is the business stuff, and that’s pretty pathetic, really, so let’s try and be peaceful. Let’s maybe give peace a chance.'”
‘How Do You Sleep’ was considerably more pointed though, at least in McCartney’s eyes. In response to one of Lennon’s lyrics in the song, “The only thing you done was yesterday”, McCartney said: “I had to work very hard not to take it too seriously, but at the back of my mind, I was thinking: ‘Wait a minute, All I ever did was ‘Yesterday’? I suppose that’s a funny pun, but all I ever did was ‘Yesterday’, ‘Let It Be’, ‘The Long and Winding Road’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Lady Madonna’…fuck you, John.”
In private, the discontent continued, as we saw in Lennon’s scathing letter to McCartney in 1971. You can practically hear the passion in Lennon’s writing as he points accusatory fingers at McCartney and the disillusionment. He said: “Do you really think most of today’s art came about because of The Beatles? I don’t believe you’re that insane—Paul—do you believe that? When you stop believing it, you might wake up! Didn’t we always say we were part of the movement—not all of it?—Of course, we changed the world, but try and follow it through. GET OFF YOUR GOLD DISC AND FLY!”
Thankfully, though, the duo reconciled their relationship before Lennon’s passing. As the years went on, they slowly but surely rekindled their friendship and started spending time together again. In early 1974, Lennon was recording with Harry Nilsson when McCartney and his wife Linda turned up and surprised them. The two proceeded to jam together, and in 1976, they were spotted hanging out together in Lennon’s NYC apartment. McCartney also released his song ‘Dear Friend’ as an open letter to Lennon, and the two bonded over becoming fathers.
In fact, they almost patched things up to the point where they considered getting the band back together. In 1976, The Beatles came close to reuniting for an episode of Saturday Night Live: initially meant as a joke, Lorne Michaels reached out to Lennon and McCartney about having them perform on the show. “Now, we’ve heard and read a lot about personality and legal conflicts that might prevent you guys from reuniting,” he said, live on air as 22 million people watched on. “That’s something which is none of my business. That’s a personal problem. You guys will have to handle that. But it’s also been said that no one has yet to come up with enough money to satisfy you. Well, if it’s money you want, there’s no problem here. The National Broadcasting Company has authorised me to offer you this check to be on our show. A certified check for $3,000.”
His beckon for Lennon and McCartney almost swayed the pair. They were sitting together watching the show from Lennon’s place in the Dakota, about 1.5 miles from the studio, when they considered getting in a cab. The only thing that stopped them, aside from being too tired, was the fact that it would’ve been considered work, and they were having a night off.
Then, after the 1975 Grammy Awards, Lennon invited Art Garfunkel and David Bowie back to his Dakota Building apartment and asked Arty for advice about reuniting with McCartney. So it was always something that was on his mind; maybe the passing of time helped him to soften, and he realised the importance of their friendship.
It’s something that McCartney now looks back to with fondness. “We had even more in common, and we’d often talk about being parents,” McCartney wrote years later in his book. “I was very glad of how we got along in those last few years, that I had some really good times with him before he was murdered. Luckily, our last meeting was very friendly. We talked about how to bake bread.”
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.