The one manager Paul McCartney said lied through his teeth: “I don’t like him”
Has there ever been any rock star to appear more diplomatic than Paul McCartney?
Although there have been times where he has flown off the handle and made the kind of statements that were bound to get him in hot water, it’s hard to find too much to hate on with the guy, even in his more embarrassing moments. He always had a good sense of himself whenever he was in the spotlight, but he knew that there was no way that he was going to let the facts get skewed along the way, either.
Although Macca did find ways to go along with the more ridiculous claims about him. For as much as the longstanding rumour has been that he died all the way back in the 1960s and was replaced by a look-alike, either he has a very good sense of humour about it or the double has released the finest music that he ever made. It’s not like he can’t take a joke, but it wasn’t exactly a laughing matter when The Beatles decided to break up.
It was clear that the band were fracturing together, and it was for the best that they grew apart and started working on their own music, but McCartney at least tried to keep the thing going. He was a workaholic by nature, and even if the rest of the band didn’t have the same sense of drive that he did all the time, it was much better for him to write a song about the way he felt than letting everything come to a standstill.
But when the rest of the group reconvened to work on what was going to be called Get Back, the cracks were already forming. George Harrison wanted to leave the group and finally walked out on them during the sessions, but even when they came back together, there was one lingering presence that was bound to take over everything. And that presence’s name was Allen Klein.
The entire fallout of the band might not completely fall on Klein’s shoulders, but it’s not like he went out of his way to help the band, either. He was far more interested in the money they had rolling in and how much it could line his pockets, but whereas the other three agreed with him, McCartney knew he couldn’t possibly go with a manager that had so many red flags behind them.
And when Klein claimed that Macca signed a contract with him, the music legend had no business calling him out on it, saying, “The thing is I am not signed with Allen Klein because I don’t like him and I don’t think he is the man for me, however much the other three like him. I have read in Rolling Stone that he said those things, that he said I signed a contract with him but it is not true. Paul McCartney did not sign any contract with Allen Klein. The time has come where I’ve got to let him know that.”
That didn’t stop Klein from pitting the rest of the band against each other. For a brief period, it truly looked like McCartney was the villain of The Beatles’ story for putting everything out into the open, but with fresh eyes, Klein was the real scoundrel that helped take the band down, and it wasn’t until a few years later that the other three members of the band realised the mistake they had made.
Macca couldn’t stop Klein from spreading lies about controlling The Beatles’ brand, but the end result was about more than a bunch of business bullshit. He had to come to terms with the fact that he lost three of his best friends from the last decade of his life, and even if that stung, he was going to keep going with his head held high.
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