Unearthed Interview Reveals The Beatles’ Thoughts On Old Songs Prior To Sgt. Pepper’s
Words by Riley Fitzgerald (@Riley.NF)
Graphic by Press
When the Beatles performing their final public concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park four months before in 1966 many commentators believed the Fab Four were finished.
“Three years after instigating an entire era, the Beatles are breaking up,” an uncredited writer erroneously proclaims in a December 1966 KLRA Beat article recently archived by Rock’s Backpages.
The US rock magazine then provides several quotes from Brian Epstein, John Lennon, and George Harrison which provide insight into the state of the Beatles at the time.
“The Beatles have changed their thoughts as their career has been altered by their attitudes in the past,” KRLA reports Brian Epstein as stating. “Naturally, this pattern will continue… I’d be a fool to forecast exactly how it will be.”
Feeding rumors of turmoil within the band, KRLA reports John as having a less than favorable view on the Beatles’ earlier work.
“Songs like ‘Eight Days A Week’ and ‘She Loves You’ sound like big drags to me now,” John states.
While KRLA interprets this as John’s disaffection with the band, the truth was that Lennon and his fellow Beatles had spent a busy year in the studio.
In fact, they were only months away from completing the era-defining opus Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Keeping this information close to his chest, John is also quick to dismiss rumors that the four are parting ways.
“I suppose we’ve got to go on being the four mop-tops,” he quoted as sharing. “We’ve no intention of splitting up. We will go on recording.”
George Harrison, who KRLA notes as having spent a good deal of 1966 in India learning sitar, also weighs in.
“We’ve had four years of doing what everybody else wants us to do,” he states. “Everything the Beatles have done so far has been rubbish as I see it today. We’re not kidding ourselves.”
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