When did John decide to leave The Beatles/what was the "final straw"?

The Beatles did everything in a big way. Even their breakup is still being analyzed almost 50 years later.

 

Paul stated before that he did not know if anyone would buy his album. Few had bought John's and even fewer bought George's.

 

I think that Ringo, George and John were all pretty tired of being "the Beatles" and working as hard as they did. They all shared a growing discontent with Paul's driving, workaholic"leadership" (lots of issues here), so they all had reasons to see it come to an end, including John.

I think once John fell in love with Yoko, and she became his partner in "art" (of all forms), the end of the Beatles was inevitable. I wasnt there, and am only guessing, but I think John decided to leave when Paul, for the millionth time, was dominating a group meeting at Apple and proposing/insisting that the group pursue yet another set of McCartney hatched projects.

I believe Lennon responded pretty spontaneously, emotionally, and with some anger and frustration, saying that he wanted a "divorce". I dont believe Lennon planned this, but I also dont think Lennon was playing political games. He was done and didnt want to be in the Beatles anymore, at least for the foreseeable future. As he agreed to keep his decision under wraps so Klein could negotiate their contracts, he would not have filed anything legally.

This gutted McCartney, and scared the crap out of Starr. Harrison was probably happy.

Paul then "quit" for three reasons:
1) He needed to dissolve the partnership because they their business interest were absolutely a mess and he was convinced that Klein was robbing them (something that proved to be true) The other three owe Paul thanks for having done this.
2) He was deeply hurt that his "brother" Lennon had dissolved their musical and personal relationship, and McCartney needed to be free to carry on in his career as a busy superstar
3) He needed to stop Klein and his ex partners from messing with his work, both past and future. (He was not asked to review and approve the Spector Let It Be production and was being told when he could release his first solo record, are examples)

 

Huh?

Lennon and Harrison put out some wacky records before "McCartney", and before the Beatles broke up, but they werent conventional rock records and yes, sold poorly.

I cant imagine that McCartney would have considered these as bell weathers as to how his record would sell.

I dont have the sales data, but McCartney, POB and All Things Must Pass were all commercially successful, with ATMP a HUGE success.

 

But All Things Must Pass had gnomes on the cover! And everyone knows that gnomes are instant album-sales-boosters ...

 

I'm still disappointed that Harry Nilsson didn't join to make an avant la lettre NSYNC. The world's hairiest boy band!

 

Y o k o

 

Indeed...

 

Yes but that was after the fact. Before the bands demise, Beatle solo albums were not good sellers. Fans wanted Beatle albums, not solo albums.

 

Yup, this argument seems to be stretching it. Paul did not even release a single to promote the album, his first single does not come out till '71. If he was so interested in promoting the album it would have featured either his name or a picture of himself on the front cover or maybe even score a controversial interview in the Rolling Stone or Melody Maker to get publicity.

He wanted out of the Beatles, his frustration is pretty obvious with the whole situation. Him trying to leave Apple was not a publicity stunt, he genuinely wanted out.

 

this may be true but this would be the first solo album aside from live peace with proper songs on it as opposed to avant garde or electro or indian music, as such it would have been expected to sell better. And in fact wasn't live peace a damn good seller ? i recall Lennon being p*ssed that emi only claimed it as one of theirs and not an apple album because of its success although how emi worked that after the fact i am not sure of.

In fact Live peace is an all around mystery, EMI allowed the Beatles to release their avant garde stuff on Apple but kept hold of any musical product for themselves, this goes back as far as Give peace which was first released as an Apple record then almost immediately re-claimed by EMI and re-allocated an EMI cat number, i wonder how the deal was worded. Cold Turkey & instant Karma were like Live peace allocated cat numbers that gave them a more ambiguous owner, not obviously emi but not the normal apple number either theoretically allowing for emi to make a claim on them.

McCartney got the full EMI treatment not Apple and yet the band were still officially alive at that point

 

then George said " you'll stay on the effin label, hare krishna "
the irony is that they were recording for EMI and the apple label was just window dressing.

 

He did release a promo video for Maybe I'm Amazed which was shown on Ed Sullivan.

 

ps POB of course was not after the fact.

 

POB must have been a bit of disappointment in comparison, as despite being ever preset in the critics list of the all time best albums it is still to hit platinum status. The reason Imagine is so commerical is likely in response to POB's relative failing.

These are their original chart runs

02. JOHN LENNON/PLASTIC ONO BAND (by John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band)
Date: 26/12/1970 - Run: 14-12- 9-9-8-*6*- 12-12-12-29-32-36-44-42-60-63-93-88 (18/4 wks)

02. ALL THINGS MUST PASS
Date: 19/12/1970 - Run: 5-2-*1*-1-1-1-1-1-1-3-6-7- 11- 9-9- 13-15-19-24-37-40-38-45-56-53-73-87 (27/14-13c/7 wks)

01. MCCARTNEY
Date: 09/05/1970 - Run: 14- 3-*1*-1-1-2-2-2-2-3-3-3-5-5- 12-13-16-19-18-25-48-48-68-61-68-70-83-88-88-99 (30/13/3 wks)

 

It was a Dec., 1970 release.

 

And as I remember it, it was not a big seller. At least not n the US.
And by the time the year was over neither was the McCartney album

I do not know if this is correct or not, where is Cosmos Factory?
You may not even want to read this list because some of it seems like a bad joke.

The 20 Best Selling Albums of 1970 (US - Billboard)

1. Bride Over Troubled Waters
   
   
2. Led Zeppelin II
   
   
3. Chicago II
   
   
4. Abbey Road
   
   
5. Santana
   
   
6. Get Ready
   
   
7. Easy Rider
   
   
8. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
   
   
9. Joe Cocker
   
   
10. Three Dog Night Live
    
    
11. Déjà vu
    
    
12. Willie And The Poor Boys
    
    
13. Blood Sweat And Tears
    
    
14. Hair
    
    
15. Sweet Baby James
    
    
16. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
    
    
17. American Woman
    
    
18. Grand Funk
    
    
19. Crosby Stills And Nash
    
    
20. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (must be the actual BJ Thomas album)
    

 

Abbey Road would probably be higher, but time was split with 1969. All Things Must Pass s would probably be on a 1971 list? The list does seem a bit odd. Easy Rider?

 

18th best selling album of '71 while McCartney was the 25th of 1970.

 

my apologies i was referring to POB Live Peace in Toronto ( jan 70 ) so we are at cross purposes. Live Peace is significant to this argument and i am surprised it hasn't been mentioned why is probably why i thought pob referred to pob live peace not pob ....

 

Was that from Billboard, I think their lists tend to have the ones earlier in the year placing higher because they had longer chart runs within the year.

 

yes sorry again i was referring to pob live peace so sorry to have been unclear and i believe pob live peace was a very decent overall seller and remained so.

 

I'm sure he felt that way but it would have sold regardless. The only albums that didn't sell well were the experimental stuff made with John and the soundtrack album George made only got to #49. When they went back and made some real music, they did well.

 

Interesting comment in light of the fact. Paul during the Get Back Project. was pushing for for The Beatles to play a concert for the film.

Also before John died, how many tours did he have compared to Paul.

 

Now, that would be because Paul had a lawsuit going against those three would it?