‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’: the song that marked the beginning of the end of The Beatles
The only music you could possibly listen to that hasn’t been touched by The Beatles‘ influence is that which came before them; anything after has their stamp on it, whether that’s clear or faded. The creativity shared among the band was truly second to none, as they all were magnificent musicians and songwriters in their own right, contributing to the barrage of hits they released that connected with the public. They might have been a phenomenon, but everything else was second to the music.
When it was announced earlier in the year that four separate Beatles biopics would be released, one for each member, many people said this was overkill and there was no need to make so many. These people are wrong. The Beatles were so much more than a collective; they had their own individual personalities, creative outlets, and approaches to songwriting. The magic came from the fact that these individuals could merge in a way that was effortless and beautiful. But then with ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, suddenly, it wasn’t.
The band was bound by its creativity. While they had different approaches to writing and prioritised various aspects of a song, they all sided with the idea of good music and that constant strive to make it, which kept them together. When this bond was broken, the cracks in the band started to develop, and the band’s split eventually began.
The thing to bear in mind is that there were a lot of cogs eroding within the Beatles towards the end of the band. Different members took different drugs, which altered personalities and mindsets; each member was settling into the people they would eventually become, most notably seen in John Lennon, who, after meeting Yoko Ono, embraced his inner activist; however, despite these changes happening, their creative bond is what kept them going.
It’s not like the band had agreed harmoniously on their music in the past. There were different attitudes towards songs, but the desire to make ambiguous, genre-bending and innovative music always took precedence. Consider a track like ‘Hello, Goodbye’, for instance: Lennon was never a massive fan as he said it was “An attempt to write a single,” however, there was space in there for the band to continue experimenting with their music. “It wasn’t a great piece,” he said, “The best bit was the end, which we all ad-libbed in the studio, where I played the piano.”
So long as the band continued to have the mindset that they were an imaginative outfit that wanted to change the face of music, no amount of creative or personal differences could come between them. That all changed when ‘Ob-La-Di, ‘Ob-La-Da’ came along and switched up the dynamic entirely. Now, looking back, Lennon calling it “Paul’s granny shit” feels like an understatement, as it was essentially the track that marked the beginning of the end of the greatest band of all time.
The song sounds like a lot of what viral musicians make today. It is devoid of any substance but has a melody embedded in it that is difficult to shake. It’s one of the most apparent grasps at writing a pop song The Beatles ever made. Considering that the band was famous for pushing the boundaries of creativity and altering musical landscapes, it is entirely out of place for the Fab Four.
The majority of the band agreed with this. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had no intention of recording or releasing the song, as they believed it went against the band’s ethos. McCartney didn’t listen to them and pushed the song forward regardless. This represents a few things that contributed to the Beatles’ end: their differing creative personalities and McCartney’s disregard for the band’s opinions. As communication broke down and the band’s intentions altered, The Beatles were playing on borrowed time.
“John Lennon came to the session really stoned, totally out of it on something or other, and he said, ‘All right, we’re gonna do ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’,” recalled Richard Lush, the band’s engineer at the time. He remembered not just Lennon’s visible frustration but also his audible anger, as he refused to give in to McCartney’s song and purposely played the keys up-tempo, different to the original version. “He went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they’d done it before, and said, ‘This is it! Come on! He was really aggravated.”
George Harrison was also very outspoken about how much he detested the song. He joined forces with Lennon, and they vetoed releasing it as a single. This was undoubtedly frustrating for Harrison, who had many of his songs rejected because they didn’t fit the Lennon-McCartney sound. Seeing then that the sound had no definitive shape gave him more of a reason to step away from the band and pursue his solo career.
The Beatles eventually split for various reasons, but the quickest way to say why is that their individuality began to take precedence over the band. This is best reflected in how much the solo music they went on to make varied compared to that of The Beatles. To realise these differences, they had to manifest in the music they were making first. While this will have lingered for a while, the divisiveness of a track like ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ signalled the beginning of the end for the band.
