{"id":813381,"date":"2026-08-14T13:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813381\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:04:08","slug":"the-summertime-project-that-signaled-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-beatles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813381\/","title":{"rendered":"The Summertime Project That Signaled the Beginning of the End for The Beatles"},"content":{"rendered":"

No matter how much you might like to, it\u2019s impossible to force someone to care about something as much as you do, and that\u2019s especially true when you\u2019re in a band. This was a lesson Paul McCartney and George Harrison were experiencing in real time during the making of Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/a>. Both men felt disillusioned and disgruntled, but for opposite reasons.<\/p>\n

In a 1990 interview<\/a>, McCartney threw his ex-bandmate under the bus with accusations of flippant\u2014and sometimes all-around absent\u2014behavior during the recording process for Sgt. Pepper. \u201cDuring the making of Sgt. Pepper, George hadn\u2019t shown for most of the album, which was unusual, as we normally showed for our recording sessions.\u201d McCartney said that the album didn\u2019t interest Harrison, adding, \u201cI think he was building a swimming pool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

McCartney\u2019s brow furrowed as he mentioned the summertime project he believed was taking up most of Harrison\u2019s time, as if to further emphasize how much less important something like that would be in the face of the next Beatles album. McCartney said that although he made the choice not to say anything, he thought it was a \u201cbit dodgy.\u201d<\/p>\n

George Harrison Had a Different Perspective From Paul McCartney<\/p>\n

To Paul McCartney, George Harrison was remarkably absent from the recording process of Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The guitarist appeared preoccupied with other life experiences, whether building a swimming pool, as McCartney suggested, or marinating in his recent adventures through India<\/a>, as Harrison might\u2019ve said. In any case, Harrison had a much different perspective on Sgt. Pepper\u2014one that would justify his not being there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was becoming difficult for me because I wasn\u2019t really that into it,\u201d Harrison said about making Sgt. Pepper in Anthology<\/a>. \u201cUp to that time, we had recorded more like a band. We would learn the songs and then play them. Although we were starting to do overdubs and had done a lot on Revolver. Sgt. Pepper was the one album where things were done slightly differently. A lot of the time it ended up with just Paul playing the piano and Ringo [Starr] keeping the tempo, and we weren\u2019t allowed to play as a band so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison likened the recording process to an assembly line where the song came together in small individual pieces. He remarked on how revolutionary the general public considered Sgt. Pepper and how that contrasted with his own opinion of it being a regressive album for the band. \u201cFor me, it was not as enjoyable as Rubber Soul or Revolver,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cI had gone through so many trips of my own, and I was growing out of that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Archive Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No matter how much you might like to, it\u2019s impossible to force someone to care about something as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,2156,13979],"class_list":["post-813381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music","tag-the-beatles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}