Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: What about too Many People?
Speaker 3: Two or eight People is on an album called ram.
Speaker 3: It was at a time when John was firing missiles
Speaker 3: at me. I don't know what he hoped again, other
Speaker 3: than punching me in the face. And this kind of
Speaker 3: annoyed me. Obviously, I suddenly decided to turn my missiles
Speaker 3: on him.
Speaker 4: I'm Paul, will do And I've been fortunate to spend
Speaker 4: time with one of the greatest songwriters of the era.
Speaker 5: And will you look at me? I'm going on to
Speaker 5: I'm actually a.
Speaker 4: Performer, That is sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on
Speaker 4: a book looking at the of more than one hundred
Speaker 4: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 4: of our conversations.
Speaker 1: Oh she'm a songwriter?
Speaker 5: My god? Well that that crypture, homie.
Speaker 4: This is McCartney, A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 4: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 4: figures in popular music. In this episode, too Many People
Speaker 4: that you.
Speaker 6: Touban now?
Speaker 3: Can you.
Speaker 4: Who broke up the Beatles? Was it Paul McCartney or
Speaker 4: was it John Lennon? Was it the death of manager
Speaker 4: Brian Epstein? The interference of businessman Alan Klein, or somehow
Speaker 4: the mere presence of Yogo Ono. No matter how many
Speaker 4: times this question has been asked, trying to answer it
Speaker 4: seems futile. There are many reasons why the Beatles broke up,
Speaker 4: so in this episode we won't be trying to find
Speaker 4: a definitive cause for the Beatles breakup. Instead, we will
Speaker 4: be telling the story of its aftermath.
Speaker 3: I was keeping largely quiet about John and the Beatles
Speaker 3: sort of split up. I didn't really have many accusations
Speaker 3: to fling but he was flinging quite a few. Being John,
Speaker 3: they were quite hurtful bobs to be flinging around, and
Speaker 3: I was the body they were being flung at. So
Speaker 3: I was having to accept this.
Speaker 4: But in a nineteen sixty nine business meeting, John Lennon
Speaker 4: met an announcement.
Speaker 3: There was a few of us there, and he said, oh,
Speaker 3: I've been wanting to tell you this, but I'm leaving
Speaker 3: the Beatles. Well a bit shocked, it was, you know, me,
Speaker 3: George and Ringo, we're all a bit shocked.
Speaker 1: Why why why? And I think I've told you.
Speaker 5: I remember him saying, oh, this is quite quite exciting.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: That was very John, that was sort of what you
Speaker 5: admired about John.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 5: It was a bit of a nooney in the nicest
Speaker 5: possible way.
Speaker 2: It was like breaking up with someone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's what he said.
Speaker 3: It's like a divorce, and he had just had a divorce,
Speaker 3: so he was saying, yeah, you know, there's an excitement
Speaker 3: to this. And I think obviously we whilst all of
Speaker 3: us could see what he meant, those of you left
Speaker 3: in the opposite.
Speaker 1: Side of the borderline.
Speaker 3: It's not quite so funny.
Speaker 4: When John Lennon announced his departure from the group, it
Speaker 4: was clear to the other three Beatles that the band
Speaker 4: was done for good.
Speaker 3: It was such a unit and such a foursome and
Speaker 3: I don't think any of us, I mean, we joked
Speaker 3: about it, you know, we joked about forming a group
Speaker 3: called the Threetles.
Speaker 5: That was pretty good, but you know, it was never
Speaker 5: anything more than the joke.
Speaker 4: In that same meeting where John Lennon announced he was
Speaker 4: leaving the group, he also told his band Meds that
Speaker 4: he was set to go along with the manager Alan Klein.
Speaker 4: McCartney was resistant to trusting Alan Klein, who was already
Speaker 4: known for his mishandling of the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 3: The whole story in an absolute nutshell because we were
Speaker 3: having a group meeting and John appeared at it and
Speaker 3: he said, I've just been to see this guy Alan
Speaker 3: Klein in the Dorchester me and Joko. He's promised Joko
Speaker 3: an exhibition up in Syracuse, and I think this guy's great.
Speaker 3: Oh and by the way, I'm leaving the group. So
Speaker 3: that was basically how all of that happened. And it
Speaker 3: was looking like Alan Clyn would have because it was
Speaker 3: three to one.
Speaker 1: The other two went with John.
Speaker 3: So it's looking like Alan Klein was going to own
Speaker 3: our entire mental empire, which is an idea that I was.
Speaker 1: Not too keen on.
Speaker 3: I just thought, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know
Speaker 3: this guy has got such a bad reputation, and good
Speaker 3: old John Johnny goes, oh, if he's that badly talked about,
Speaker 3: he can't be all bad, you know. To John, there
Speaker 3: was this kind of distorted way of thinking.
Speaker 4: What followed was a series of lawsuits between McCartney and
Speaker 4: the rest of the band over who would control the
Speaker 4: rights to their music.
Speaker 1: So all in all I had to I had to
Speaker 1: fight them for.
Speaker 3: My bit of the Beatles and in actual fact for
Speaker 3: their bit of the Beatles, which many years later they
Speaker 3: kind of you.
Speaker 1: Know, realized, realized that almost thanked me for. And nowadays,
Speaker 1: you know, people get it. They get it, and.
Speaker 3: As I had to fight them, I think they thought, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, and felt they were the ones who were
Speaker 3: being hurt by this. But the hurt that went down
Speaker 3: during that period though, was them feeling hurt, me feeling hurt.
Speaker 3: But John being John, John would be the one who
Speaker 3: would want to write a hurtful songs his kind of bag.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I don't believe in Peters.
Speaker 3: I just believe in me.
Speaker 4: In his nineteen seventy song God, Lennon announced the end
Speaker 4: of the Beatles dream Dreams Over.
Speaker 5: What can I say?
Speaker 4: And to publicize the release of his new album, he
Speaker 4: was interviewed by Rolling Stone Fonder and publisher Yan Winner.
Speaker 7: I no longer believe in in myth, you know, and
Speaker 7: Beatles is another myth. I don't believe in it. The
Speaker 7: dream's over, you know. And I'm not just talking about
Speaker 7: the Beatles as though, I'm talking about the generation thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: The dreams over like it's over, you know, and we
Speaker 7: got to well, I have any of you personally got
Speaker 7: to get down to so called reality.
Speaker 3: John would do it in some of the songs. He
Speaker 3: was writing some of the comments about how the Beatles
Speaker 3: did nothing.
Speaker 1: It was rubbish, The Beatles was crap.
Speaker 3: And you know I told you Yoko Saint Paul never
Speaker 3: did anything. All he did was book the studio.
Speaker 7: It looks so awful. When I said I don't like
Speaker 7: this and I don't like that, it's just that I
Speaker 7: wouldn't you know. I don't like many of the Beatles
Speaker 7: records either. You know, my own taste is different from
Speaker 7: that which I've played sometimes, which is called cop out
Speaker 7: to make money over whatever or because I didn't know
Speaker 7: any better.
Speaker 5: So I'm having to read all this stuff and I'll
Speaker 5: there one hand, they.
Speaker 1: Go, oh, fuck off, your fucking idiot, and that's my
Speaker 1: main sentiment.
Speaker 5: But on the other hand, it's like, what why would
Speaker 5: you say that?
Speaker 1: Why would you want to be? What is it about me?
Speaker 5: Like you're annoyed at me or you're jealous or what
Speaker 5: is it?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And John had all of those emotions wrapped up into
Speaker 3: a ball of lenon is.
Speaker 4: That in too many people? His nineteen seventies version of
Speaker 4: a disc track, McCartney made a veiled response to Lennon's
Speaker 4: harsh comments.
Speaker 3: I meant, I think literally people sort of grabbing for
Speaker 3: a piece of the cake, a slice.
Speaker 2: Piece of the pie, also the apple.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. Yeah. So I think that because it had
Speaker 3: all been just a little bit weird and a bit nasty,
Speaker 3: I was just basically saying, let's be sensible, let's be peaceful.
Speaker 3: Let's you know, we we've we had a lot going
Speaker 3: and what's actually split us up is.
Speaker 1: The business stuff.
Speaker 3: That's pretty pathetic, really, so let's try and be peaceful.
Speaker 8: Weird.
Speaker 3: I think it was quite mild, but the idea of
Speaker 3: too many people preaching practices was aimed at him and
Speaker 3: yoga telling everyone what they.
Speaker 1: Ought to do.
Speaker 3: You should do this, should do that, And I just
Speaker 3: got fed up being told what to do. So I
Speaker 3: wrote the song, and it was you made your first mistake,
Speaker 3: you know, you took your lucky break and broke it
Speaker 3: in two. Was me basically saying, you've made this break, so.
Speaker 1: Good luck with it. But I say it was pretty mild.
Speaker 3: I didn't really come out with any savagery. The first
Speaker 3: person and the chorus was basically that was all the
Speaker 3: anger I could muster. And when I did the vocal
Speaker 3: one of the second line, too many reaching for a
Speaker 3: piece of cake. I remember singing it, and if you
Speaker 3: listen to it, it says, piss off cake, too many
Speaker 3: people reaching for a piss off cake.
Speaker 8: Many reading.
Speaker 3: I was just getting back at him, but I wasn't
Speaker 3: really in it many.
Speaker 6: Lucky.
Speaker 4: Despite the mild nature of the insults in too Many People,
Speaker 4: Lennon was fired up and responded with the song how
Speaker 4: do You Sleep on his nineteen seventy one album Imagine.
Speaker 3: Yes, I understand some of the stuff he was doing.
Speaker 3: He actually had Alan Klein and Yoko in the room
Speaker 3: suggesting lyrics. So all you ever did was yesterday, apparently,
Speaker 3: was Alan Clein's suggestion.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So John McCay, hey, hey, great, put that in. And
Speaker 3: I can see the joy in the fun and the
Speaker 3: laughs they had doing it. But I've got to work
Speaker 3: very hard to not take this too seriously. But in
Speaker 3: the back of my mind, I'm going, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: all I ever did was yesterday. Yeah, well, it's funny,
Speaker 3: it's funny pun But all I ever did was yesterday.
Speaker 3: Let him be Long Wining Road, Elean repe Lady Madonna,
Speaker 3: fuck you John, Too many people sharing party lines? I
Speaker 3: don't know what that means except people used to have
Speaker 3: party lines and you coming on their conversations.
Speaker 9: But the party line of Paul is also tolling the
Speaker 9: party line.
Speaker 2: You know, this is our position here, and we're fixed
Speaker 2: in that position.
Speaker 3: Basically, all of these things were just whether they were
Speaker 3: actually physically right, whether John and Joko slept in late
Speaker 3: or not. Yeah, they were all veiled references to people
Speaker 3: thinking that the only truth is their own truth, which
Speaker 3: is what was coming from John and Yoko. And you
Speaker 3: know the thing is it was crap. War is over. Well,
Speaker 3: no it isn't. But I get what you're saying. War
Speaker 3: is over if you want it. So if enough people
Speaker 3: want war to be over, it'll be over. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure that's entirely true, but it's a great sentiment. It's
Speaker 3: a nice thing to think and to say. I'd been
Speaker 3: able to accept Yoko in the studio on a blanket
Speaker 3: in front of my app I worked hard to come
Speaker 3: to terms with that, but then when we broke up,
Speaker 3: when everyone was now flailing around, John turned nasty. So
Speaker 3: this is me sort of saying shut up. Really.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a song that has a particular purpose.
Speaker 1: Too many people.
Speaker 9: Yeah, for better or worse it is, you know, getting back.
Speaker 9: That's not really a feature of your songs much, is it.
Speaker 1: No, I don't do that much.
Speaker 5: And Jesus.
Speaker 4: Well, McCartney's lyrics were more often about love than competition.
Speaker 4: He enjoyed Lennon. Both wrote many songs with the intention
Speaker 4: of impressing or even upstaging one another.
Speaker 1: That was the.
Speaker 3: Nature of all competitiveness. And we're both very upfront about that.
Speaker 3: You know, if you'd write a good one, I'd feel
Speaker 3: like that to write a better one.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 9: That is a very very common phenomenon, very understandable one.
Speaker 1: It's also a great.
Speaker 5: Thing because it's inspiration, you know, it's it's motivation.
Speaker 3: If you've got someone who you respect who comes up
Speaker 3: with something rather good.
Speaker 5: Sure it happens to everyone totally.
Speaker 10: You know, you'll suddenly see so and so's new poem
Speaker 10: and think, hmm. You don't necessarily have to tell anyone no,
Speaker 10: but in your own private mind you just think, well,
Speaker 10: I could do that.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt this friendly competition contributed to the beatles
Speaker 4: prolific output. After the band's disintegration, However, the competition between
Speaker 4: McCartney and Lennon was no longer about who could write
Speaker 4: a more catchy chorus or skillful bridge. It was about
Speaker 4: who could fling the most hurt Here again is how
Speaker 4: do you sleep.
Speaker 3: Those e.
Speaker 8: Mis sake?
Speaker 5: You gotta remember I sued him in court.
Speaker 3: I sued my friends from Liverpool Lifeline friends in court.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of getting over that has had
Speaker 3: to be done.
Speaker 4: As much as too many people represented McCartney on the attack,
Speaker 4: it wasn't aligned with his natural disposition. Six months later,
Speaker 4: he made an attempt at appeasement in Dear Friend, a
Speaker 4: song from his nineteen seventy one album Wildlife.
Speaker 8: Dear Friend, what's the time? Is this really the boer?
Speaker 8: Does it really mean so much?
Speaker 5: Do you?
Speaker 6: I mean?
Speaker 1: Why is this argument going on?
Speaker 8: You're afraid?
Speaker 1: Is it because you're afraid of something?
Speaker 8: Oh? Is it true?
Speaker 3: Are you afraid of the split up? Are you afraid
Speaker 3: of me doing something without you?
Speaker 2: Dear friend?
Speaker 11: Through the word.
Speaker 8: I mad love with a friend of mine?
Speaker 1: Are you afraid of the consequences of this?
Speaker 8: Who knows newly?
Speaker 5: And then the little rhyme is or is it true?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: Is it true?
Speaker 5: Is all these hurtful allegations true?
Speaker 8: Ah, is it true?
Speaker 4: I was aware of the McCartney Lenon feud as it
Speaker 4: was happening, and I heard these very public arguments in
Speaker 4: the songs. But I've always wondered if there was indeed
Speaker 4: a form of reconciliation. Did Lenon ever listen to Dear Friend?
Speaker 1: I would think he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think he listened to my records, you know,
Speaker 3: when they came out.
Speaker 2: Did they ever respond to this in particular?
Speaker 1: No? No, that was not his way.
Speaker 3: You know, we were guys, and it's not it's not
Speaker 3: like a boy and girl. It's like it's a guy
Speaker 3: and guy. It's a boy and boy, and you don't,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: You don't.
Speaker 3: Those days, you didn't release as much emotion with each other, did.
Speaker 8: What's the time.
Speaker 4: Even if Lennon never explicitly addressed McCartney's olive branch, the
Speaker 4: two did find their way back to one another.
Speaker 8: Means so much.
Speaker 4: Some years later, Lennon even admitted that the anger and
Speaker 4: lyrical attacks and songs like how Do You Sleep were
Speaker 4: directed more towards himself than towards McCartney. Eventually, they were
Speaker 4: able to put the hurt and negative feelings behind them
Speaker 4: and moved forward with their friendship.
Speaker 3: It was super, super painful, and there was a lot
Speaker 3: of navigation of emotions to be done, a lot of
Speaker 3: hurt to be sailed around, but we did it, and
Speaker 3: you know, in the end was something I was very
Speaker 3: glad of when he got.
Speaker 1: Murdered, was that I had had.
Speaker 3: Some really good times with him before that happened. It
Speaker 3: would have been the worst thing in the world for
Speaker 3: someone like me. Had he'd just been killed and we
Speaker 3: still had bad relationship, I would have just thought, oh,
Speaker 3: I should have, I should have, I should have, I
Speaker 3: should have. That would have been a big guilt trip
Speaker 3: for me. Luckily, you know, we were friendly and we
Speaker 3: talked about how to bake bread.
Speaker 4: It seems like Paul McCartney's adoration for his childhood friend
Speaker 4: has only deepened over time. In twenty twenty two, on
Speaker 4: his Got Back tour, McCartney surprised his audience by bringing
Speaker 4: Lennon back on stage. Turning away from the crowd, he
Speaker 4: looked up at a video of his old friend projected
Speaker 4: on a giant screen behind him, and together they sang
Speaker 4: I've got a feeling, their contrasting voices washing over the crowd.
Speaker 4: The two Beatles again joined in a musical conversation. In
Speaker 4: the next episode, when I get to the bottom, I go.
Speaker 6: Back to the top of the slot where stop.
Speaker 11: Go right till I get to the past.
Speaker 4: All an innocent carnival ride gave birth to heavy metal.
Speaker 2: Do you don't you?
Speaker 11: Hmmm, tell me.
Speaker 3: Tell me.
Speaker 4: McCartney. A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
Speaker 4: iHeartMedia n p L. And Pushkin Industries.