I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [39]
On April 5, 1970, the Plastic Ono Band was back with the Phil Spector produced, uplifting “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).” John was consistently releasing songs, creating media events, and staking out an independent position with Yoko on the pop scene. He was not in hiding like Paul. I loved the fact that there were new Beatle recordings, and I was entranced by what John and Yoko were doing and let everyone know about it. I had a lot of defending to do because most people didn’t get it and were accusing Yoko of breaking up the Beatles.
Within weeks of the release of “Let It Be” the single, Paul McCartney announced on April 8, 1970, that he had quit the Beatles. Even though John was the one to bring it to an end after the Rock and Roll Revival, Paul decided to arbitrarily proclaim it in a mock-interview press release that was contained in his first solo album, McCartney, that hit the shelves nine days later. In response to a question as to whether he could foresee Lennon/McCartney being a songwriting partnership again, his answer was a curt “no.” I could not go to school for days. I did not answer the phone. I locked myself in my room and tried to contemplate a world without the Beatles. Only when I began to realize that they would individually still make music did I come out of my cocoon and go back to school—albeit dressed all in black.
On May 8, 1970, Let It Be, the album, was released. It was to be their final album together. The cover consisted of four single photos of each Beatle alone, not together as a group. The songs were not supposed to be heavily produced. In part they weren’t—it was the four of them playing, sometimes with Billy Preston on piano and organ, as if it were live. Phil Spector was called in after the fact by John and George, to go through the hours of tapes and come up with an album. Paul would go so far as to raise this in the future litigation and claim that it was a deliberate attempt to ruin his songs, particularly “The Long and Winding Road,” with a syrupy orchestral and choral overdub. But the power of the music was undeniable. And the message, as I saw it, was a conscious attempt to have fans come to grips with the end. Spiritual, rocking, and lyrical, it set the right tone for me to lick my wounds and realize that my heroes had not gone away, but were ever present and would be with me forever.
Reality completely set in when I went to see the premier of the film Let It Be about a week later. There they were, just as in the Sullivan videos, depressed and detached, but now in deep discord. They were at one another’s throats. The film documented, unwittingly, their breakup. John clearly in love with Yoko and dependent on her; George alienated and frustrated by the musical restraints on him; Ringo utterly lost; and Paul desperately trying to keep it all together. In one classic scene that sums it all up, George in response to Paul’s directions on how he should play a lead guitar riff, says, “I’ll play what you want or I won’t play at all. Whatever it is that’ll please you, I’ll do it.” You knew it was over and they had had it.
And yet to end the film, in a typically inspired act of originality, they gave their last concert on the roof of Apple, to stunned onlookers and the dismay of the London financial district. Hoping to get arrested by the deferential London bobbies, they played like they did in the Cavern, as a group, tight and aiming to please. “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” the trippy “Dig a Pony,” one of the first Lennon/McCartney compositions “One After 909,” and “Get Back.” It was John who