T
“there! cut the tape there!” John Lennon
shouted. It was Aug. 20, 1969, and the Beatles were
gathered at EMI’s London studio complex on Abbey
Road, listening to a playback of “I Want You (She’s
So Heavy),” his anguished love song for new wife
Yoko Ono. The track seemed headed for one last cre-
scendo prior to the fade-out when Lennon suddenly
yelled that instruction. Surprised, the sound engi-
neer dutifully picked up a pair of scissors and sliced
the tape in midmeasure. The effect of the abrupt,
unexpected silence was “electrifying,” writes Mark
Hertsgaard in A Day in the Life: The Music and Art-
istry of the Beatles.
Exactly one month later, on Sept. 20, Lennon
made another sudden exclamation that would
ultimately silence the Beatles and sever the ties that
bound the four. John, Paul and Ringo met at Apple’s
Savile Row headquarters (George, out of town visit-
ing his parents, was notably absent). “The group’s
over,” Lennon abruptly announced, “I’m leaving.”
“Our jaws dropped,” McCartney later recalled of the
shock. There was no mistaking. Lennon’s word was
final. He wanted a “divorce.”
A seven-months-long separation would follow,
during which, for business and personal reasons, they
kept their decision to split up secret.
They named their final masterpiece Abbey Road, after
the studio where, seven years earlier, they started their
recording career. Although they made it a few months
after Let It Be, the Beatles released Abbey Road first, in
the fall of 1969. Critical reaction was mixed, if gener-
ally appreciative. “It is much less flossy and grandiose
than the Beatles’ last effort,” wrote a New York Times
reviewer, referring to 1968’s double LP The Beatles (The
White Album). “But it is endlessly more satisfying for
just that reason... the Beatles maintain enough grit and
vigor to keep their creation rocking.”
Would that it were so. On April 10, 1970, McCartney
issued a press release—along with copies of his forth-
coming solo album—making public the news that the
Beatles were, effectively, no more. By then they had
played more than a thousand live performances on
stages from the basement of Liverpool’s Cavern Club
to the Royal Albert Hall and stadiums from Memphis
to Manila. They had recorded 20 No . 1 hit singles,
13 studio albums and generated $200 million in sales
(equal to $1.3 billion in 2019 dollars). Then there was
the immeasurable joy they had brought to millions of
fans who were now reeling from headlines that read
“Paul Quits the Beatles.”
First came shocked puzzlement. Why, when Abbey
Road had already hit No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic
would they end it? Quickly disbelief turned to angry
finger-pointing. Some posited it was McCartney’s
bride, Linda Eastman, who broke them up. Or it was
THE LAST DAYS
70 THE BEATLES 1969 PEOPLE
THE STARS HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING
The Let It Be film’s London premiere on May 20,
1970, had all the excitement of a Beatles event.
Except none of the four attended.
