Ringo Starr is sitting on a picnic rug in the paradisiacal gardens of George Harrison’s mansion, with George and Paul, talking about the old days. Talking about… the Beatles.
It’s midsummer, circa 1994, and they are all still, well, not old. Fifties. McCartney’s face is young enough to still have those round, puppyish Paul-cheeks. Ringo is lush-lipped. George’s hair is long, brown and luxurious. This is what happens if you formed the Beatles when you were still in your teens, and had, in the case of Harrison, released Sgt Pepper by the time you were only 23. You can be discussing events from a quarter-century ago — a black and white world, which you then, personally, changed into colour — when you’re just 50. Not old at all.
They’re talking about the Beatles — but it’s a conversation you haven’t seen before. Or, maybe, even considered. The conversation is about how, well, difficult it was to be a Beatle. Confusing. Overwhelming. How furious, hurt and sad they made each other. In brief, being a Beatle is basically ten years of people screaming and rioting at you, followed by a deeply wounding implosion — and then one of your best mates being shot on the street, in front of his terrified wife. It’s a lot.
If you were only the guys who’d done Please Please Me and Shea Stadium — the biggest pop band in the world; girls wailing like police sirens — it would still be much to process. But Rishikesh, and “bigger than Jesus”, and piles of burning records? Tomorrow Never Knows, Yellow Submarine, the rooftop? John, outside the Dakota? That could take a lifetime to understand. Maybe you never would.
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A old clip of John Lennon appears: “We gave our whole lives to the Beatles.”
We cut back to Ringo, in the garden, talking about how John — who, in the end, died because he was “Beatle John” — isn’t here any more: “I’m just going to pretend he’s… gone away, on holiday.”
Ringo looks at the remaining Beatles, Paul and George. Friends — brothers — he has not talked with since 1969. He’s beaming. He’s glad he’s finally — finally — able to talk to them.
“I just… like hanging out with you guys.”
And we like hanging out with the Beatles. Last week, Disney+ released the latest chance to hang out with the Beatles. The 1995 documentary series Anthology has been remastered, and given a new, unexpectedly emotional episode: No 9. In the reels of footage from 1995 — where Ringo, Paul and George are interviewed together for the first time since the ’69 bust-up — there’s a new story about the Beatles, and one we probably weren’t ready to hear until now.
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In previous eras, you would have needed a pretty tiny violin for a chat entitled “It was hard to be a Beatle”. Hard to be hot, millionaire geniuses with psychedelic Rolls-Royces and great hair? Sure. Sure.
But now it’s 2025, and we’ve seen a lot of biopics about fame — the pressure; the loneliness — and learnt a lot about anxiety and trauma. Now, maybe, we are ready to see the melancholy in the story of the Beatles. That four men who defined being the best of friends — in larky press conferences; in the holidays they always took together — ended up turning on each other. Previously, we blamed this on Yoko, Linda, Paul, the lawyers — but episode 9 is clear: no friendship could withstand, as George puts it, “the weight and pressure of being a Beatle”. If there are only four things in the centre of a decade-long cultural storm — John, Paul, George and Ringo — eventually, one would always have broken free of their moorings and smashed into the others. The centre cannot hold.
“In the end, it was really stressful being a Beatle,” Ringo says, of the break-up. “We all just wanted a bit of peace.”
I’ve now watched episode 9 four times — each time, at some point, through tears. Since Anthology was filmed, we’ve been reduced to just two Beatles. And there will be a time where there are no Beatles left on Earth at all.
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Theirs isn’t a tragic story: their houses were beautiful. They were more loved than kings. And they were granted the highest of graces: the ability to create something that makes us feel like kings when we listen to it. The Beatles elevated us.
But when Anthology shows the Beatles finishing each gig with their trademark low bows — at the Cavern, on The Ed Sullivan Show, at Candlestick Park — it seems like they are subconsciously acknowledging something obvious now, as, in turn, each generation comes to marvel over Strawberry Fields, Something and Hey Jude: ultimately, being a Beatle was an act of service. To make the world scream is actually terrifying, and has a cost.