George being stifled as a guitarist by Paul, John not caring enough, Paul going more into an orchestrating compositional style (like Brian Wilson). Throw in some of Paul’s songs being a bit naff and/or take days and days to record eg Maxwells Silver Hammer, Obla Di Obla DaĪnd thats what I think tipped it. George doesn’t get to just play guitar, like he used to. And that just becomes no fun and exasperating. He hears it all in his head and just wants the band to play his parts, how he hears them, a perfectionist. Whereas Paul is very much play this note here, make it last this long and sound like this. Now when John writes stuff he just gives big top line instructions “make it sound like Buddha (or whatever the quote is)”.

But it seems John ignores George’s songs the most. Throw in a little of George being ignored creatively. What rings truest to me is Paul becoming such a dominant creative force which is fine but it’s the telling everyone what parts to play. I’ve been a slightly above averagely successful musician for 30 years and got to know band dynamics inside and out. He got a fair amount of backlash for announcing the split to promote McCartney, but the others knew that it was over. Paul was desperate to keep the band going, and was clinically depressed after the split. Despite the critical words during their public divorce, Paul and John admired each other. When Ringo left, he felt the others were all getting on well and that he was the odd man out. He also ran through a good amount of money just as things were starting to get lean with the Apple Corps fiasco. The drugs affected John’s once-prolific songwriting and his judgment, as he offered “Cold Turkey” and “Revolution No. Yoko Ono is often blamed, but it was not Yoko per se but the fact that, once John and Yoko became inseparable, they soon brought along drugs that the others did not want to be a part of. Going back, one of the reasons the other Beatles did not like Pete Best is that he did not party with them. It’s always the drugs, which leads to paranoia, which leads to the breakups.

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