The Breakup of The Beatles

Hello everyone, in case you haven’t noticed I’m a big Beatles fan, but I’ve only been a fan for about a year or so.
I think I became a fan when I would go places with my Grandma, she has a large CD collection and she keeps some in her car.
Anyways one of those CD’s is a Beatles CD,
And when I would go places with her she would sometimes play that CD.
Whenever she would put in that CD I actually liked it, that was one her CD’s that caught my interest and I think that’s what peaked my interest in The Beatles.
And now a year later, my knowledge and appreciation of The Beatles has grown.
But one thing that always intrigued me was, why did they break up?
They had created one of the greatest rock band of all time, and they changed music forever, so why? Why did they break up?
The Beatles were simply four lads from Liverpool, England, but they made life changing music. With 13 Albums worldwide, 22 singles, and in total 213 songs recorded and released, this is how the greatest rock band came to an end.
How it all began
In order to know why The Beatles broke up, we need to know how they started.
In the very early years things were weird, even though The Beatles formed in 1960 they didn’t make their core music until 1962.
The Breakup of The Beatles
And during all this time The Beatles changed members frequently, the band didn’t really stabilize until 1963.
In 1962 The Beatles began to work on their debut album Please Please Me, but the band during this time consisted of five members Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Andy White.
Ringo joined the band in 1962, but he didn’t become the core dummer until 1963 when The Beatles manager Brian Epstein kicked Andy out.
On October 5th 1962 The Beatles released their first single Love Me Do, which peaked at number 17 in UK charts.
On January 17th 1963 The Beatles released their first number one hit Please Please Me, which hit number one on both UK and US charts.
And finally The Beatles released their debut album Please Please Me, on the 22 of March 1963, this would soon kick off one of the greatest musical legacies of all time.
After doing 4 tours in the UK and a 5 day tour in Sweden, it was finally time for The Beatles to come to the United States.
The British Invasion and the release of Please Please Me, had already made The Beatles massively popular in The United States.
After the release of The Beatles second album With The Beatles, the band began to make plans to make an appearance in America.
On the morning of February 7th 1964 the plane carrying the fab four, left from London heading to New York.

The Breakup of The Beatles
The Beatles landed in New York, with an estimated 4,000 fans greeting them at the airport.
The Beatles soon made their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, with about 73 Million people watching.
This soon began a mass wave of “Beatlemania” in America, with the band being called “The Fab Four.”
After this the band soon hit worldwide fame, with each new album and single released with “I want to hold your hand” being considered their biggest hit single.
The band began to do more tours in the U.S, and the world with each perforce gaining more and more screaming Beatle fans.
This is where the trouble began, this is where the signs of break up started to emerge though slowly, it would soon cause the band to break up for good.
The beginning of the end.
When The Beatles sixth album Rubber Soul was released in 1965, it was considered by fans and critics to be a mature step forward for The Beatles.
After the release of the album the band was going back to touring, Paul McCartney one of the bands lead singers and bassist, pressured the rest of the band to start touring again.
Paul loved to do touring, he loved the attention of the screaming fans, but the rest of the band was not so enthusiastic about doing tours.
So The Beatles did more tours in the U.S, throughout 1965 and 1966, but they soon ran into a problem, a very loud problem.

The Breakup of The Beatles
During this Time, The Beatles has worldwide success and growing fame, but this would turn into a big problem.
The problem? The fans, when ever the band would do a performance or a concert, the fans would scream so loud, that the band could not even hear their own instruments or voices.
Ringo hated this the most, he could not hear his drum set and he could only see the others playing their guitars, he couldn’t hear them so he would improvise.
The rest of the band soon grew tired of having to deal with screaming fans, all except Paul he loved touring, but the rest of the band soon hated it.
The band returned to the studio to recored their seventh album, Revolver during this time they discussed about touring, with led to some arguments.
Paul tried to convince the others to continue touring, but all three said no, Paul eventually gave in and of course this created some tension.
In 1966 the band officially announced that they would stop touring, and that they would mostly be a studio band.
This of course caused speculation and backlash, many fans thought the band was breaking up and it was actually kind of close to happening.
After the announcement the band began to record their eighth album, Sgt. Pepper’s lonely hearts club band.
Sgt. Pepper’s was also a major step forward for the Beatles, it became one of their best known albums and changed album covers forever.
Even though the recording process for Sgt. Pepper’s was ok, there were still some problems.

The Breakup of The Beatles
If you notice on the album nearly all the songs are written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, only one song on the whole album was written by George Harrison.
John and Paul wrote most of the songs for The Beatles, they usually let George put two songs on the album and one song for Ringo.
George wanted to write a lot of songs for The Beatles, but John and Paul usually only let him have two songs sometimes only one.
Many songs written by George were rejected, this made George angry and it made him want to leave the band.
Sgt. Pepper’s was released in 1967 and it topped the charts, but by this time there was already some friction in the band.
Paul wanted to get back to touring, but the other three still said no and this of course only made Paul angry and created more tension.
Without a tour the band began to record their tenth studio album nicknamed The white album, except things were different this time.
The Breakup begins
Most of the time the Beatles wrote songs together, except now Paul and John would go home, write a song and bring to the studio.
This of course meant that there were a lot of disagreements on songs, and recording sessions were long and difficult.
A lot of people do not know this but Ringo actually left the band during this time.

The Breakup of The Beatles
Paul, after recording sessions, would often criticize Ringo’s drum playing and Paul kept doing this over and over again.
This eventually made Ringo temporarily leave, and some songs on the album were recorded with Paul on the drums.
The Beatles manager Brian Epstein, had to convince Ringo to come back and he did, George decorated Ringo’s drum set with flowers and welcomed him back.
Even though Ringo was back, there were still a lot of tension.
The white album consisted a whopping 30 songs, which was released in November of 1968, But is considered to be one of their greatest works of art.
After this the Beatles would release three more albums Yellow submarine, Abbey Road, and Let It Be.
Tensions still existed and only continued to get worse.
Another major factor in the break up, is the death of The Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Epstein would often ease any tensions between the Beatles, and would solve any argument, and was important in keeping the band together.
With his death in 1967 due to a drug overdose, it severely impacted all four members, and the future of the band.
Epstein’s death impacted John the most, his death led John into a heroin addiction with of course impacted the rest of the members.
Without Epstein The Beatles needed a new manager, but it would never be the same Epstein was a central driving force keeping The Beatles together.

The Breakup of The Beatles
After the release of The White Album in 1968, the status of the Beatles being a group was on thin ice.
But despite that, the band began to work on the albums, Let it Be and Abbey Road.
This time Paul was demanding to do live concert, but George absolutely refused to one in front of live fans.
With George’s demands of being able to record more songs not being met, and Paul’s suggestion of doing a live concert, George’s frustration got to a boiling point and he informed the band that he was leaving.
Of course George only left for a while, and with some negotiations George rejoined the band. But the real break up would happen soon.
In 1969 The Beatles gave their last public performance on the rooftop of Apple records.
During this time each of the band members were working on projects outside of the band, and each member wanted to create their own music.
After the release of Abbey Road in September of 1969, John Lennon’s interest in the group dwindled away.
With John’s heroin addiction, and John wanting to spend more time with his wife, Yoko Ono John realized that The Beatles was no longer beneficial to him anymore.
So on the 20th of September a meeting was called, and John privately informed his bandmates he was leaving, except this time it was permeant.
John agreed to make the announcement private, the real announcement would come later.
After this announcement Paul became deeply depressed, and began to record his first solo album from home.

The Breakup of The Beatles
Ringo soon released his solo album, Sentimental Journey, and by this time Paul had finished his solo album was planning to release it five days before the release of Let It Be.
Pauls solo album release date was problematic, as it got in the way of the release of Let It Be. Ringo came over to Paul’s house and tried to convince him to delay the release of his solo album, this led to a argument which led to Paul kicking Ringo out his house.
This upset Paul so on the 10th of April 1970, Paul officially announced he was leaving The Beatles.
Paul’s announcement made the front lines and the public was shocked.
Let It Be was released on the 8th of May 1970 this would be the last studio album by The Beatles.
Each Beatle would go on to make their own successful solo careers, and many theorize what it would be like if The Beatles never broke up.
Even with John Lennon’s death in 1980, and George Harrison’s death in 2001 their careers still live on today.
And that is how the greatest rock band of all time, came to pass away thank you.