When McCartney visited in April 1976 Lennon told him that his sole ambition was to write a classic novel. McCartney explained the touring schedule that faced him over the next few months and Lennon said, 'Sooner you than me.' In one of his final interviews Lennon claimed that he had become so tired of McCartney turning up on his doorstep clutching a guitar that he asked him to phone ahead first. 'This isn't the 1950s, you know.' But as their mutual friend Derek Taylor wrote,
It wasn't like that at all . . . John was very funny about the extraordinary McCartney panache, cheek, impudence that enabled Paul to pass doorman, cops, fans, almost anyone in the world except Japanese customs officers without let or hindrance. "I dunno how he does it," John marvelled, "the cheeky get; but he's the only one who can get in here without anyone being able to do anything about it. Elton can't get away with it, nor can Bowie or Mick – and if it was me going to see Paul, I'd definitely be stopped." So I don't buy all that stuff about Paul barging in on The Great One's peace of mind.
Yet friction remained. As McCartney noted later, the key was not to mention their business difficulties, which could still catapult them into open conflict. 'I happened to be on my way to the Caribbean, passing through New York,' he recalled of a conversation in spring 1977, 'so I rang John up. But there was so much suspicion, even though I came bearing the olive branch. I said, "Hey, I'd really like to see you." He said, "What for? What do you really want?" It was very difficult.' Twenty years after their first meeting McCartney could still be intimidated by the man he'd imagined as his closest friend. 'He had a great line for me. He said, "You're all pizza and fairy tales." He'd become sort of Americanised by then, so the best insult I could think of to say was, "Oh, fuck off, Kojak," and slam the phone down,' knowing that as usual he had just lost the argument.
No problems affected Lennon's relationship with Richard Starkey: the two men saw each other as often as they wanted, usually once or twice every year. For George Harrison though 'There was a lot of alienation between us and him. Well, there was alienation amongst all of us. Suddenly we're all grown up and we've all got these other wives. That didn't exactly help. All the wives at that time really drove wedges between us.' He was not referring to his own wives, or to Starkey's. Harrison did occasionally visit Lennon at the Dakota, and 'always got an overpowering feeling from him. Almost a feeling that he wanted to say much more than he could, or than he did. You could see it in his eyes. But it was difficult.' That adjective disguised the identity of the obstacle, as far as Harrison was concerned. 'It was almost like he was crying out to tell me certain things, or to renew things, relationships,' he continued, 'but he wasn't able to, because of the situation he was in.'
Other friends were more explicit about Lennon's 'situation'. As May Pang said, 'I still remember vividly the day John moved out. Mick Jagger had rung up looking for him. I remember his reaction when I told him John had gone back to Yoko. There was a long pause, and then Mick said, "I guess I've lost a friend."' In an Ono-approved anthology of tributes to Lennon, Jagger reiterated the charge: 'When he went back to Yoko, he went into hibernation. He was living close to where I was living in New York City, but I was probably considered one of the "bad influences", so I was never allowed to see him after that.'
Lennon's friend Pete Shotton, who'd known him since they were five, offered a disturbing portrait of the artist in retreat. He left a message at the Dakota to say he was in town, and Lennon invited him over. 'He said first of all he'd had to ring his numerologist, to ask if it was OK to see me,' Shotton recalled. 'I said, "You had to ask permission to see me?" He sort of flushed up, like a child.' That evening Shotton found his friend 'warm, funny and at peace with himself and the world. It was the real John Lennon, the one I always knew was there.' But two days later, when Shotton called again,
In the background I could hear Yoko shouting something, and John saying, 'Look, Yoko, he's fucking coming over and that's it.' John didn't realise I could hear all this. I thought, Fuck, here we go again. Yoko is just the same about me. Then I thought, What the hell? I'll go anyway. When I got there, all three of us went out for dinner, to the same Japanese restaurant. But the atmosphere was totally different. They were both uptight. They hardly spoke to each other, or to me. John looked pale and drawn, not as fit or healthy as he'd looked three days earlier. We didn't talk about the old days or personal things this time. Just about the occult and mysticism.
Every couple has its tensions, but Shotton's account chimes not only with the sensationalist tomes published in the wake of Lennon's death, notably John Green's Dakota Days, a pseudonymous astrologist's view of the Lennons' marriage, but also with the faintly eerie reports from Cynthia Lennon in 1968 and May Pang in 1975. All three represented Lennon's past; all three reported their friend, husband or lover seeming somehow different, and removed. Was there a darker message that Lennon was attempting to communicate to George Harrison than a simple 'Leave me alone'?
Lennon promised to attend a New York concert by Paul McCartney and Wings in May 1976, and possibly appear on stage. Inevitably, he didn't turn up. McCartney had solved his visa problems and was free to perform in North America for the first time in a decade. 'Everything we did was in the shadow of the Beatles,' McCartney admitted later. 'So we did everything with quite a lot of paranoia. You look at 1976 – we have this big, big tour, and at first everyone wants to know, Is this gonna be a Beatles reunion? Even in our most successful year they were taking our success off us. But the great thing was that three weeks into the tour it was suddenly, Who cares? This is a great band. We did this thing that we set out to do. And we needn't have worried.'
McCartney had drilled Wings into a formidably tight touring unit, light on spontaneity – for the rest of his career he relied on well-rehearsed stage patter – but delivering a spectacle that rivalled any of his mid-1970s contemporaries. By late June, when the tour climaxed in California, he could boast that Wings had established itself beyond any comparisons with the past. Two singles from their hastily assembled album Wings at the Speed of Sound had topped the US charts; so did the LP. But Speed of Sound was a distinctly patchier effort than its two predecessors, not least because McCartney had attempted a more democratic distribution of songs among the five members, with decidedly mixed results. In a sour 1984 interview his bandmate Denny Laine complained, 'Paul and Linda smoked a fantastic amount [of cannabis] by anybody's standards. They smoked joints the way ordinary people smoke cigarettes. That's why Paul's albums take him ages and ages to make. He just cannot be decisive about anything. It is very frustrating for people to work with him, because he changes his mind so often.' In particular, Laine highlighted the delayed release of the films documenting Wings' triumphant tour: Wings Over the World wasn't premiered until 1979, and Rockshow the following year. But McCartney did manage to complete a triple-album anthology of live recordings, Wings OverAmerica, for Christmas 1976. Five songs from the Beatles era were included, and for all of them, the original 'Lennon/McCartney' songwriting credit was altered to read 'McCartney/Lennon'. There was no objection from Lennon.
The most reclusive of the Beatles was forced into public that summer, at a formal hearing to mark his victory against the US immigration department. He was now free to travel without the fear of being barred from returning to America. His first destination was widely expected to be England, but instead he flew to Hong Kong, apparently at the suggestion of Ono's numerologist. There he fell into the company of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, and enjoyed a brief weekend of rock star hedonism, before returning home obediently on the flight Ono had reserved for him. In New York Lennon and Ono rarely socialised, beyond occasional dinners with actor Peter Boyle and his journalist partner Loraine Alterman (Lennon was best man at their 1977 wedding). Their most regular visitor was a former DJ named Elliot Mintz,*33 who had interviewed the couple in 1973 and become particularly close to Ono. He became the Lennons' spokesman and travel companion, though as another friend of Lennon's, record producer Jack Douglas, noted, 'It w
as so weird, because John never had a good word for Elliot. In the studio, if Elliot was coming, John was like, "Ugh."' But Mintz offered the attractive quality of not representing Lennon's past or threatening to question his withdrawal from the world. Softly spoken, obsequious but strong-willed, Mintz soon became the Lennons' loyal buffer against media intrusion.
George Harrison also recognised the attractions of withdrawal. He made an anonymous appearance on stage with the Monty Python troupe in New York 'looking tired and ill', as Michael Palin recalled. A vacation in the Virgin Islands failed to restore him, and he was diagnosed as suffering from hepatitis. The collapse of his marriage and the criticisms levelled at his touring and recording activities had encouraged him to take refuge in alcohol and drugs, and now his body was calling a halt. The illness was a decisive moment in his life. Secure in his new relationship with Olivia Arias, he decided that happiness and health were more important than stardom. He was still a Beatle, with the psychology and self-importance that entailed. But he no longer courted the life of a celebrity.
One consequence of his illness was that he failed to deliver his first album to A&M by the due date, 26 July 1976. This forced the cancellation of a major world tour and doomed his Dark Horse Records label. A new legal team had taken over at A&M and discovered that their predecessors had separated Harrison's contract from the rest of the Dark Horse roster: if
Harrison's other signings failed to make a profit, A&M couldn't reclaim their losses from the ex-Beatle's royalties. 'What happened was that they realised they had not made themselves such a good deal,' Harrison explained as the relationship unravelled.
They found that the only legal grounds they had [against me] was that I had had hepatitis, so my album was two months delayed. And so they picked on that legal point and said, 'OK, we'll get him on that.' I arrived in LA with the album under my arm, all happy, and I was given this letter saying, 'Give us back the million dollars,' which was an advance, 'and give us the album, and when you give us the album, you don't get the million back.' I turned down a deal from Capitol/EMI that was of more value than what I took with A&M. But I took that because of the relationship we were supposedly going to have – which it turned out we never did have.
So Harrison returned the advance and cancelled the A&M deal. 'We backed the truck up to our office and filled it with our stuff,' he recalled. Warner Brothers was happy to offer Harrison what he wanted, but their commitment to Dark Horse's other artists was merely symbolic, and he was soon the only viable performer on the label.
The album, Thirty-Three-and-a-Third, was more tuneful and lighter in spirit than its predecessors. It contained a sly satire about the 'My Sweet Lord' plagiarism suit, which promised, 'This song has nothing Bright about it.' The timing was ironic: just before 'This Song' appeared as a single, a New York court ruled on the case of Bright Tunes vs Harrisongs. It decided that when Harrison wrote 'My Sweet Lord' in 1969, he had been guilty of 'subconscious plagiarism' of Bright's song 'He's So Fine'. A second set of hearings was scheduled to calculate Harrison's liability for damages. 'It's very difficult to just start writing after you've been through that,' he admitted. 'When I put the radio on, every tune I hear sounds like something else.'
The earnings power of 'My Sweet Lord' was boosted by the release of The Best of George Harrison, a Capitol/EMI album deliberately scheduled to coincide with his new record. Both Lennon ( Shaved Fish) and Starkey ( Blast From Your Past) had been under contract to EMI when their anthologies were released, so a degree of co-operation between artist and corporation had been involved. But Harrison had no such leverage. To his embarrassment, EMI decided that his solo catalogue was not strong enough to command a compilation album, so they filled half of the record with Beatles material. 'I don't see why they did that,' Harrison said, interpreting the decision as a personal slight and ensuring that he would remain a staunch opponent of EMI in the litigation with Apple that lay ahead.
Another enduring legal battle was nearing its denouement, as the London High Court set a January 1977 date for hearing the case brought by three of the Beatles and Apple against Allen Klein and ABKCO. At stake were the infamous management contracts from 1969/70 and millions of pounds in commissions that had either been paid in error (Apple's case) or grossly underpaid (according to ABKCO). The verdict would not be binding on the reverse litigation that was being brought on the other side of the Atlantic, but it was difficult to imagine that the US actions would not be influenced by the judge's decision in London.
To add an extra frisson to the dispute, Allen Klein had made a mischievous intervention in the 'My Sweet Lord' saga. Having acted as Harrison's adviser during the early years of the plagiarism case, he now emerged as the new owner of Bright Tunes, buying it for $587,000 on the assumption that the company would soon be worth much more. The judge in the case estimated that Bright's share of the income from 'My Sweet Lord' could exceed $1.5 million, but Harrison's lawyers challenged Klein's right to switch sides midway through the litigation, and any hope of a quick resolution was lost.
Meanwhile, Harrison, Lennon and Klein were set to face each other in the High Court. 'Paul doesn't have to go,' Harrison explained, 'because he didn't do the deal, and Ringo has got out of it because he's got a tax year out of Britain. So it's John, Yoko and I versus Klein. It's for huge figures, but it's completely like a game.' The prospect filled him with dread: 'It's going to be awful if it does come to court, a fiasco and a nightmare, because it's going to be open to the public and the press . . . It's very strange. I've got to put my body there, and I'll be sitting in it, but really I'll be somewhere else.' The alternative to this process of mental withdrawal was grim: 'People commit suicide in that sort of situation, and I've decided I'm not going to be a rock casualty.'
Lennon faced an equally forbidding ordeal. When he had imagined returning to Britain, he had envisaged a scene of triumph mixed with sweet nostalgia. Instead, he would be dragged home by the legal system to face the humiliation of his financial affairs, his private life and every facet of his relationship with Allen Klein undergoing intense public scrutiny. Like Harrison, Lennon had chosen to withdraw rather than expose himself to the world. Both men now had to consider whether any sum of money could compensate for their loss of privacy.
They agreed to trust their cause to an unlikely saviour: Yoko Ono. 'Somebody has to take care of business,' Lennon explained, 'and there's no way I can do it. I don't have that talent. So she had to do it. She has the talent to do it . . . We decided not to have an outside party. We had to look after our own stuff and face that reality.' Over the weekend of 8–9 January 1977 Ono and Allen Klein negotiated at the Plaza Hotel in New York. On Monday morning Lennon, Ono and Klein assembled at the hotel to make a formal announcement: all the cases involving Apple and ABKCO were now at an end. Apple would pay Klein $5,009,200 as total and final payment of any outstanding management commissions; and with that, Klein's involvement with the Beatles ceased. Lennon signed a document confirming the settlement in front of a photographer, while Klein graciously praised 'the tireless efforts and Kissinger-like negotiating brilliance of Yoko Ono Lennon'. There would be no embarrassing pursuit of the Lennons through a London airport lounge, no court appearance and no return to Britain.
Klein's money came from the collective Apple pot earned by the four Beatles up to September 1974. Not everyone thought it was such a wonderful deal. 'It's true she settled with Klein for $5 million,' said Linda McCartney later. 'But it wasn't her money, really. Each Beatle gave a share, Paul included, and he never wanted that man as manager in the first place. Five or six million! When you think that they were pulling bloody [tarot] cards to see what they would do! If only we had known what they were doing.' But as a joint owner of Apple, still in a minority of three to one, McCartney had no option but to accept the settlement, pay the money and claim the moral victory. Later he could enjoy the glow of vindication when Klein was put on trial in New York for tax evasion. The first trial in 1977 resulted in a hung jury;
a second was held in May 1979. It was alleged that Klein had accepted 'substantial cash payments' for copies of Apple albums that were intended to be given away for promotional purposes but not reported that money to the Internal Revenue Service. Klein's colleague Pete Bennett testified against him, and he was found guilty of not declaring his full income in 1970 to the IRS but not guilty of two further charges. Inevitably the appeals process was invoked, but Klein began a two-month jail sentence in July 1980.
'I feel sorry for him now,' McCartney said magnanimously while the trial was under way. 'I was caught in his net once, and that panicked me. I really wanted to do everything to get him. I was contemplating going to where he lives and walking outside his house with placards. I was really that crazy at the time. I would have done anything to get out of it, but it all turned out OK.' Harrison separated his affection for Klein from his dismay at the consequences of their business relationship. But Lennon, Klein's first and most ardent supporter, was less compassionate, refusing to acknowledge the profound empathy he had once shared with his manager.
Having proved her worth during the negotiations with Klein, Ono became Lennon's primary representative at Apple board meetings. There she sparred with Lee Eastman, Denis O'Brien and Hilary Gerrard, each championing the cause of his Beatle patron. Meanwhile the four protagonists maintained a wary distance from each other. Yet their unwillingness to act as Beatles did nothing to restrain the industry that had grown up in their name. In 1977 two vintage live recordings – neither authorised by the group – competed for attention. Live atthe Hollywood Bowl was collated from tapes of concerts in 1964 and 1965, edited and remixed by George Martin. 'It's not very good,' Harrison said dismissively, 'it's just a bootleg.' 'We never wanted it out,' Paul McCartney admitted.
You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles Page 31