On January 30, 1969, four men stood on top of the Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London, England. Unbeknownst to those who watched, this would be the last time The Beatles – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr – would ever play together. A year later, the group would be broken up, and their final moments were seemingly captured in Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary, Let It Be. Now, more than 50 years later, Peter Jackson looks to challenge that narrative and finally answer the lingering questions: when did the Beatles break up, and what really drove the band apart?
“It’s sort of that one impossible fan dream,” Peter told The New York Times about Get Back, the seven-plus hour project on Disney+. The documentary, divided into three parts, was made after Peter was given access to nearly 60 hours of unseen footage recorded during the Let It Be sessions. “Everyone sort of thinks it’s a whitewash,” the Lord of the Rings director told the NYT, but insisted it isn’t. “It shows everything that Michael Lindsay-Hogg could not show in 1970. It’s a very unflinching look at what goes on.”
April 10, 1970, holds grave significance in Beatles lore, for it is the day that Paul McCartney seemingly announced his departure from the band. Paul released a “self-interview” to the press as part of the lead-up to his debut solo album, McCartney, according to History. “Q: ‘Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career?’ PAUL: ‘Time will tell. Being a solo album means it’s ‘the start of a solo career…and not being done with the Beatles means it’s just a rest. So it’s both.’”
Paul also asked himself if this break with the Beatles was temporary or permanent. He replied, “Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don’t really know.” While this wasn’t a definitive announcement of a breakup, many in the press took it as such.
“[Paul] can’t have his own way, so he’s causing chaos,” John Lennon said in the May 14, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. “I put out four albums last year, and I didn’t say a f-cking word about quitting.” Those albums would be Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions, the Wedding Album, and Live Peace In Toronto 1969, all collaborations with Yoko Ono.
In May 1970, The Beatles put out Let It Be, its twelfth and final studio album. It came with the documentary film of the same name, which captured the album’s recording process and the rooftop performance. The Let It Be film, Paul McCartney wrote for a new reissue of the Let It Be album, was “pretty sad as it dealt with the breakup of our band, but the new film shows the camaraderie and love the four of us had between us.” (h/t The New York Times)
While the generally accepted knowledge is that The Beatles broke up in 1970, fans and historians have argued that the group was on the rocks long before that. The rooftop performance took place in 1969, but the Beatles’ final paid concert took place three years earlier, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on Aug. 29, 1966 (h/t Newsweek).
