![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/John-Lennon-1971-Musician-The-Beatles-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Tue 3 March 2026 18:00, UK <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to pinpoint exactly the moment that spelt the beginning of the end for The Beatles<\/a>.<\/p>\n We all know when roughly the rot began to creep in. An essential chapter of Fab Four lore, as soon as the Summer of Love\u2019s psychedelic dress-up had run its course, The Beatles entered 1968\u2019s eponymous double LP sessions in a vastly different individual headspace and creative fracture than had ever struck The Beatles unit yet.<\/p>\n In the case of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, they\u2019d been playing together as early as 1957, playing local skiffle and rock and roll as teens in the Liverpool area. A minor lifetime had already been had before Ringo Starr\u2019s recruitment on drums and \u2018Love Me Do<\/a>\u2019 was first unleashed to the world, cutting their teeth at the centre of the Merseybeat scene with countless local shows and Hamburg club dates under their belts, as well as respectable backing band credits for Tony Sheridan and Johnny Gentle.<\/p>\n Through the global frenzy of Beatlemania a few short years later, to titans of the counterculture by the 1960s\u2019 end, at some point, the little Merseybeat band that conquered the world had to come to a close. Band fatigue, artistic splits, beckoning pastures beyond Fab, and simmering business disputes all hovered over the fraught album sessions and doomed Let It Be film venture across The Beatles\u2019 final dwindling years.<\/p>\n While Harrison infamously declared he\u2019d see his Beatles \u201cround the clubs\u201d when first announcing his departure early in 1969 in the miserable Twickenham Film Studios, it was Lennon who\u2019d practically already left the band. Romantically and creatively partnered with Yoko Ono and eyeing up a new era of radicalism in the political sphere along with his restless artistry, Lennon knew The Beatles\u2019 gig was up and was eager to spread his wings, privately informing the band of his intentions to leave days before Abbey Road\u2019s drop late September.<\/p>\n The Beatles\u2019 unravelling is a well-told Fab narrative, but when did the tide turn? According to Lennon, the pivotal moment struck once their longtime manager Brian Epstein died suddenly in August 1967. \u201cAfter Brian died, we collapsed,\u201d he confessed to Rolling Stone in 1970. \u201cPaul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in circles? We broke up then. That was the disintegration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Beatles broke up after Brian died; we made the double album, the set,\u201d Lennon furthered, touching on the band\u2019s slow dissolution and creative disunity that crept in following Epstein\u2019s death. \u201cIt\u2019s like if you took each track off it and made it all mine and all George\u2019s. It\u2019s like I told you many times, it was just me and a backing group, Paul and a backing group, and I enjoyed it. We broke up then.\u201d<\/p>\n Epstein had served as a crucial linchpin for The Beatles\u2019 rise. Managing the band from the get-go, Epstein\u2019s managerial expertise landed national appeal, a marketable image, and tidy record deals, pulling the group away from Merseybeat to usher in the era\u2019s British invasion.<\/p>\n Yet, as the counterculture began to colour their work across 1966-1967, Epstein\u2019s managerial control of the band began to wane. The Beatles lost to the wonders of Transcendental Meditation and LSD and began to steer the unit away from Epstein\u2019s impresario vision. With eerie timing amid The Beatles\u2019 psychedelic adventures, Epstein was found dead in his East Sussex home during the Magical Mystery Tour<\/a> sessions, having overdosed on sleeping pills.<\/p>\n New business plans with Allen Klein that would dog the band for years, as well as McCartney\u2019s good faith but clumsy efforts to creatively captain the sinking ship, all saw The Beatles\u2019 eventual crumble in 1970. Lennon would be the last signatory to the band\u2019s official contractual end in 1974, somewhat cynically adding his name to the paperwork in Florida\u2019s Walt Disney World resort.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
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