Chapter 5

[The Beatles] are not children. They know what they are doing. One forgets that, I think, sometimes.

Apple counsel Morris Finer, the High Court, 1971

'America is where it's at, ' John Lennon said in December 1970. 'You know, I should have been born in New York, man, I should have been born in the Village! That's where I belong. Why wasn't I born there? '

Once the Beatles belonged to Liverpool, then England, then the world. Apple had anchored them in the English capital, but for a year or more the office had meant only stress. Freed from responsibility to each other, three Beatles made their way to New York as the year closed. George Harrison followed Phil Spector to his hometown for the final sessions on his solo album. Lennon was drawn by the city's reputation as an artistic hub: 'Everybody heads towards the centre, that's why I'm here now. I'm here just to breathe it. . . this is where it's happening. ' New York was also where Allen Klein plied his trade, but that didn't prevent Paul McCartney from travelling there in November. The move marked a symbolic break from the depression that had

burdened him in Britain. For all three men New York represented liberation. Only Lennon admitted to being overwhelmed by the city: 'I'm such a fucking cripple that I can't take much of it; it's too much for me. I'm too frightened of it. It's so much, and people are so aggressive. '

Like Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono was effectively a New Yorker, and she walked her husband through the city's art world, where she had acquired her maverick reputation a decade earlier. In her domain the couple inevitably adopted her style, quickly assembling two conceptual films: Fly, in which an insect crawled across the drugged body of a naked woman and was encouraged to dwell near her more exotic curves and crevices, and Up Your Legs Forever, a logical sequel to FilmNo. 4 ('Bottoms').

The McCartneys were in New York to inaugurate their own creative partnership, in which the balance of power was tipped decisively in Paul's favour. Linda's contribution to the McCartney album had been ephemeral, but when he began his first ever sessions in America the goal was a 'Paul and Linda McCartney' record. Not that the nature of the partnership was obvious: 'Linda didn't have much to do in the studio; she just took care of the kids, ' revealed session guitarist David Spinozza. 'I really don't know what she did aside from sit there and make her comments on what she thought was good and what she thought was bad. I don't know where she's coming from. Now she thinks she's a producer. ' In a tone that Harrison might have recognised, Spinozza complained, 'There was no freedom. We were told exactly what to play. He knew what he wanted, and he just used us to do it. '

Harrison and his wife Pattie were in New York when All ThingsMust Pass was released. A three-record set – the first in rock history – it was greeted as 'an extravaganza of piety and sacrifice and joy, whose sheer magnitude and ambition may dub it the War and Peace of rock and roll' by Rolling Stone magazine. The airwaves resounded to the spiritual chanting of Harrison's single 'My Sweet Lord'. 'Every time I put the radio on, it's " Oh my Lord", ' John Lennon noted. 'I'm beginning to think there must be a God. ' The Rolling Stone reviewer was among the first to note that 'My Sweet Lord' sounded like the Chiffons' 'He's So Fine', a 1963 hit built around an almost identical structure and melody line. Harrison later admitted that he had set out to rewrite another song, 'Oh Happy Day', but had taken the precaution of altering the melody. It is remarkable that neither he nor Phil Spector recognised the similarity to a record that had been a sizeable hit on both sides of the Atlantic. On 14 February 1971 Bright Tunes, the publisher of 'He's So Fine', filed a lawsuit claiming that Harrison had plagiarised their song and demanding financial restitution. By then, 'My Sweet Lord' had swept the world like the Beatles hits of old, topping the sales charts in the UK and US. Though it retailed for more than twice the price of a single album, All ThingsMust Pass was a worldwide No. 1 hit by January. The comparison with the therapy-inspired John Lennon Plastic Ono Band was telling. Despite being the first album of new Lennon songs since the demise of the Beatles, it sold no better than the audio-vé rité recording of his Toronto performance a year earlier.

The knowledge that he had been outstripped by his supposedly less talented friend ensured that Lennon took a jaundiced view of Harrison's work. 'I wonder how happy George is? ' he said dismissively. He complained that Harrison was 'not the kind of person I would buy the records of.

I don't consider my talents fantastic compared with the fucking universe, but I consider George's less. ' Harrison recalled, 'I remember that John was really negative at the time. I was away, and he came round to my house, and there was a friend of mine living there who was a friend of John's. He saw the album cover and said, " He must be fucking mad, putting three records out. And look at the picture on the front, he looks like an asthmatic Leon Russell. " There was a lot of negativity going down. '

That may explain why Harrison and Lennon avoided each other in New York, despite both making regular visits to Allen Klein's office on Broadway. ^*21 But the Harrisons did find time for the McCartneys, the first time the two men had met since McCartney's publicity coup in the spring. Though the encounter began peaceably enough, the mood soured – as it so often would over the years to come – when the conversation turned to business. McCartney recalled, 'I said, " Look, George, I want to get off the [Apple] label, " and George ended the conversation, and as I say it now I almost feel like I'm lying with the devil's tongue, but I swear George said to me, " You'll stay on the fucking label. Hare Krishna. " That's how it was, that's how the times were. '

Ironically, when the press learned of the meeting between the two Beatles, they treated it as a sign of dé tente. Knowing that Lennon had been in the same city, they embellished the story to the point where the conversation became a summit conference. The pop paper Disc trumpeted its 'exclusive' a few days later: 'Come Together! The Beatles may play again – live! ' Journalist Mike Ledgerwood proclaimed that the group were planning a concert in Britain 'following reports that Paul McCartney's " rift" from John, George and Ringo is about to be patched up'. He quoted an anonymous 'friend', who told him, 'They certainly seem serious about working together. There have been definite discussions in that direction. ' The New Musical Express caught the same whispers in the breeze: 'The Beatles are said to be closer than at any time for the last 18 months. ' Harrison did nothing to dispel the rumour, saying coyly, 'Stranger things have happened. ' The reality was that Lennon had arranged a meeting with McCartney in Manhattan, but McCartney had cancelled the appointment. Just as well, Lennon revealed later, as he hadn't planned to turn up either.

After his argument with Harrison, it was obvious that McCartney would investigate other ways of escaping from the Beatles' partnership agreement. So a scheme was hatched to narrow his options. According to Lennon, 'Paul would have forfeited his right to split by joining us again. We tried to con him into recording with us too. Allen came up with this plan. He said, " Just ring Paul and say, 'We're recording next Friday, are you coming? '" So it nearly happened. It got around that the Beatles were getting together again, because EMI heard that the Beatles had booked recording time again. But Paul would never, never do it, for anything, and now I would never do it. ' The result was the recording session for Starkey's song 'Early 1970', which – if McCartney had accepted the bait – would have been the symbolic focus of a manipulative Beatles reunion.

Once the rumour had been let loose, it proved impossible to contain. Within two weeks the story had changed: now McCartney was the outsider, and his colleagues had supposedly enrolled their mutual friend Klaus Voormann in his place. Voormann found the subsequent media attention so oppressive that he escaped to Harrison's Friar Park home. Once he went into hiding, the press decided that the new Beatle must be another bass guitarist, Lee Jackson (formerly with the Nice). The details were irrelevant: it was an open secret that the Beatles were about to re-form.

Coincidentally, both Lennon and McCartney chose to puncture the fantasy. They were working independently, to separate agendas, in starkly different ways. But their actions in December 1970 effectively ensured that there could be no Beatles reunion, then or in the years ahead. Lennon moved first. On 8 December, he and Ono submitted to the longest interview he had ever given, with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner. The encounter took place at the ABKCO office, where Klein's staff were instructed to provide Lennon with laxatives and headache medicine – corroborating later claims that, despite the benefits of Primal Scream Therapy, Lennon had relapsed into heroin use. On the aural evidence of the tape, his drug of choice could just as easily have been cocaine, as his voice displayed the manic enthusiasm and aggression of the habitual user.

Designed to promote the Plastic Ono Band album, the Rolling Stone interview (published in two issues of the magazine and subsequently in book form) broadened into a virtual manifesto of the post-Beatle Lennon. He set out his credo: he believed in himself, Yoko, art as creative expression and total honesty, in whatever proportions suited him best. Everything could be judged by these criteria, and aside from the Lennons' work outside the Beatles and the primitivism of 1950s rock 'n' roll, everything was found wanting.

Intrinsic to his philosophy was rejection of the past, which in the arithmetic of Primal Scream Therapy equalled pain. If, as he believed, Janov's therapy had liberated him from his inner torment and the defence mechanisms he'd erected to conceal it, then he needed to rid himself of all the other encumbrances he'd gathered in recent years. None of them weighed or imposed more than the Beatles. After initially diverting Wenner away from that subject, as if he was frightened how much he might reveal, Lennon tore ferociously into the myth, exposing the group's internal warfare, their debauchery on tour, their manager's homosexuality and their individual failings. He raged against the way that Harrison and McCartney had treated Ono, dismissed George Martin's claim to any credit for the Beatles' music and attacked his most loyal friends at Apple for not realising that they weren't Beatles, merely hangers-on.

'That was a pity, ' Derek Taylor noted years later,

because the one thing Neil Aspinall and I did know was that there was a difference between us and them. At that time John was very oppressed by fame, and he was a terrific one for lashing out. We at Apple weren't feeling good anyway, because Apple had failed, and here was one of our friends telling everyone who reads Rolling Stone that we were cunts. In the end we had to say, 'Well, we're not. ' John later retracted some of it, and we became friends again. And I forgave him. He would forget he'd said it, and expect to be forgiven, as he always was.

During his final meeting with Lennon, George Martin also confronted him about the Rolling Stone confessional.

We spent an evening together, and I said, 'You know, you were pretty rough in that interview, John. ' He said, 'Oh Christ, I was stoned out of my fucking mind. ' He said, 'You didn't take any notice of that, did you? ' I said, 'Well, I did, and it hurt. ' I was very incensed about that interview. I think everybody was. I think he slagged off everybody, including the Queen of England. I don't think anyone escaped his attention.

Lennon's account of his final years in the Beatles was profoundly shocking for anyone still clinging to the image of the four buccaneers who had captured the world's hearts. Layer by layer, he exposed the frail humanity beneath their fame. 'We took H [heroin] because of what the Beatles and their pals were doing to us, ' he alleged. Asked to pinpoint the reason for the split, he identified a familiar target: 'We got fed up with being sidemen for Paul. . . Paul took over and supposedly led us, you know. But what is leading us when we went round in circles? ' But McCartney was not the sole culprit, he claimed. 'I presumed I would just be able to carry on and just bring Yoko into our life, but it seemed that I either had to be married to them or Yoko. I chose Yoko, you know? And I was right. '

His denial of the Beatles was devastating enough for his audience, but Lennon was only just beginning. In the magazine that prided itself on being the voice of the counterculture, read by the people who had grown up with the Beatles and followed them into expanded consciousness, spiritual exploration and political idealism, he delivered the death knell for the whole fantasy that would become known as the Sixties. 'The dream's over, ' he repeated. 'I'm not just talking about the Beatles is over. I'm talking about the generation thing. The dream's over, and I have personally got to get down to so-called reality. ' None of that utopian spirit was relevant any longer; all that mattered was the pain that stretched back to his childhood, when his teachers and guardians failed to notice the genius that was sitting in front of them. 'Fuck youall! ' Lennon screamed as if he were still in the therapy room. 'If nobody can recognise what I am, fuck them! '

Lennon still adhered to the concept of art as life and life as art. 'That's the way the genius shows through any media, ' he explained. And on those terms the Rolling Stone interview, a sustained barrage of invective, profanity, humour and compulsive truth-telling, was as fully realised and uncompromising as the album he had just released. Indeed, it had claims to being his last great piece of concept art, the final occasion on which he would focus every ounce of his being onto a single purpose without losing concentration or lapsing into self-parody. At last, John Lennon was fully John Lennon; and in the process he destroyed almost every close relationship in his life. From now on Yoko Ono would have to carry the weight of being Lennon's companion, co-creator and saviour, a burden that left precious little space for her own artistic ambition and ego.

The Rolling Stone interview stood as his testament, for the next decade at least, defining his attitude to his fellow Beatles long after he had mellowed his views. For Paul McCartney, who had already endured the loss of Lennon as musical partner and friend, the interview represented the end of the affair. 'It's just like divorce. It's that you were so close and so in love that if anyone decides to start talking dirty – great, then Pandora's box is open. That's what happened with us. In the end it was like, " Oh, you want to know the truth about him? Right, I'll tell you. " ' As McCartney reviewed this trauma in 1987, he revealed how the episode had haunted him. 'Obviously, I go over this ground in my mind. I was one of the biggest friends in his life, one of the closest people to him. I can't claim to be the closest, although it's possible. It's contentious, but I wouldn't. . . I don't need that credit. But I was certainly among the three or four people who were closest to him in his life, I would have thought, and obviously it was very hurtful. ' He might not have needed the 'credit', but his answers revealed how deeply he needed the acknowledgement – a moment, in private or public, when Lennon could drop his guard and confirm an obvious truth, that McCartney had occupied a key role in his life.

McCartney later conceded that there was 'one good thing' about the Rolling Stone interview: 'I'm glad I never answered a lot of John's stuff. I thought, No, I can't handle a big battle in the media with John. I think part of it was that I knew he'd do me in. ' Yet he hated the sense of powerlessness, of being assaulted without the freedom to retaliate. He took the unwise step of replying in a medium in which Lennon had already proved himself a master of aggression. Hidden in a song entitled 'Too Many People', was a reference to 'too many people preaching practices'. 'He'd been doing a lot of preaching, ' McCartney explained later, 'and it got up my nose a little bit. ' It was hardly character assassination, but it briefly made McCartney feel empowered. For the moment though, 'Too Many People' remained a private joke.

Harrison's contemptuous dismissal of McCartney's plea for freedom had decimated his options. He hated to imagine the other Beatles as his enemies and would have preferred to target Allen Klein. But Klein wasn't his manager and so couldn't be fired. Likewise, Klein couldn't release McCartney's earnings from the Beatles partnership. This wasn't about money; if it was, then McCartney could have read the sales figures for Harrison's new records and relished the unearned 25 per cent that would soon be added to his account. What he wanted was to be a Beatle, and if that wasn't possible, then he wanted not to be in the Beatles, rather than being lost in this no-man's-land of phoney partnership. And it was the legal enactment of that partnership that fenced him in. The only valid escape routes from the agreement were expulsion by his colleagues or death. One was not available to him, the other not an attractive option. He was no longer prepared to go through the contortions required by the contract that all four Beatles had signed in April 1967, which bound them as business partners if not friends. It was, he said later, the most difficult decision he had ever made.

On 31 December 1970 McCartney's legal advisers filed a writ at the London High Court, 'A declaration that the partnership business carried on by the plaintiff and the defendants under the name of The Beatles and Co., and constituted by a deed of partnership dated 19 April 1967 and made between the parties hereto, ought to be dissolved and that accordingly the same be dissolved. ' The plaintiff also wanted Klein's control over the partnership's affairs to be restricted, and an official receiver appointed to safeguard the Beatles' collective earnings. The plaintiff in case M 6315 of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice was James Paul McCartney; the defendants were John Ono Lennon, George Harrison, Richard Starkey and the company that McCartney had conceived and once controlled, Apple Corps Ltd. Though the basis of the case was financial, the symbolism was unmistakable. McCartney, already regarded as the protagonist in the break-up of the Beatles, was now suing his three closest friends.

In an affidavit lodged on the same day, McCartney laid out his case:

I have been driven to make this application because (a) The Beatles have long since ceased to perform as a group, (b) the defendants have sought to impose upon me a manager who is unacceptable to me, (c) my artistic freedom is liable to be interfered with so long as the partnership continues, and (d) no partnership accounts have been prepared since the Deed of Partnership was entered into.

As he told the press, 'We've split, and everything that we've ever earned should now be split. They don't agree. They think it should continue exactly as planned. But if the three of them want to, they could sit down today and write a little bit of paper saying I'll be released. ' McCartney made that 'little bit of paper' sound so simple, but for Klein it signified 'horrendous tax problems', as it would expose to the taxman a set of massive individual payments that could no longer be offset against Apple expenses. Klein presented himself as the voice of reason: 'It doesn't accomplish anything, except bringing out into the public a lot of dirty laundry within the life that they live. ' He also pointed out that McCartney had been happy to share the money that the Beatles earned from the song 'Yesterday' despite the fact that he had written it alone and performed it without the help of his colleagues. But Klein's argument undermined itself: in 1965, when they released 'Yesterday', the Beatles had been a unit; in 1970 they were four individuals with starkly different agendas.

The three defendants received their first notification of the impending writ (a 'letter before action') four days before Christmas. 'I just could not believe it, ' Harrison testified a few weeks later. 'I still cannot understand why Paul acted as he did. ' Starkey concurred, adding that he had been under the impression that all four Beatles would meet in London during January 1971 for the first time in almost eighteen months. 'I know Paul, ' Starkey said, 'and I know we would not lightly disregard his promise [to meet]. Something serious, about which I have no knowledge, must have happened between Paul's meeting with George in New York, and the end of December. ' Neither man understood that it might have been the confrontation between McCartney and Harrison that had tipped the plaintiff 's hand.

Three days before the court case became public knowledge, the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night was broadcast on British TV for the first time. Among the audience was John Lennon, freshly returned from New York. To him, the movie felt like a postcard from a previous century: there he was, acting out the role that had become his life, effortlessly confident and happily ensconced with the musicians whose reputations he had just undermined in Rolling Stone. Clearly shaken by what he'd seen, he began to sketch out a song with the sarcastic title 'I'm the Greatest'. Captured on tape in embryonic form a few days later alongside a painful revision of the Beatles' 1965 hit 'Help! ', it provided little evidence of the arrogance that Lennon had displayed to Wenner. His therapy had uncovered a storehouse of pain that he had been able to channel into song, but where was his inspiration when the past ran dry? One answer came in another partially completed lyric, 'I Promise', the first in a long series of uncomfortably revealing ballads that spelled out the depth of his dependence on Yoko Ono.

Anxious to escape the court case, Lennon and Ono fled to Japan. 'I didn't tell anybody I'd arrived, ' Lennon recalled. 'We just pissed off up in the hills and nobody could find us. Then suddenly I get these calls from the lawyer, fucking idiot. I didn't like his voice as soon as I heard him, you know. A sort of upper-class Irish–English voice. Fuck! And then he insisted I come home. I could have done it all on the fucking phone. '

Meanwhile, the McCartneys returned to work on their album in America. In their absence the first court hearing took place in London before Mr Justice Stamp. McCartney's chief lawyer, Queen's Counsel David Hurst, presented the fundamentals of his client's case. Although Allen Klein was not a party to the action, it soon became clear that he would be at the heart of the dispute. Hurst told the court that Klein 'is a man of bad commercial reputation. Mr McCartney has never either accepted him or trusted him, and on the evidence his attitude has been fully justified'. He reflected McCartney's complaint that Klein had never supplied him with accurate accounts for Apple or the Beatles' partnership. A bewildering array of figures was thrown at the court: $7 million of record royalties here, £ 1. 56 million of assets there, a tax deficiency of £ 450, 000, the suggestion that Klein had so reduced the group's corporate finances that they would be unable to meet their tax liabilities. The judge heard the initial evidence and ruled that the action should proceed. In the meantime, both sides agreed that the Beatles' current and recent income should be frozen for the duration of the case, tying up almost four million pounds.

Klein defended himself in New York. 'I wish to make it clear that the partnership is solvent, ' he told a news conference, 'and has more than sufficient net current assets to meet all income tax and surtax liabilities. ' But he knew that fate was working against him. A local court was about to convict Klein of ten offences of 'unlawfully failing to make and file returns of Federal income taxes and FICA taxes withheld from employees' wages'. He immediately appealed but knew that the verdict was bound to shadow the London court hearings. As David Hurst noted with typical legal irony, the convictions had 'obviously not enhanced Mr McCartney's confidence in Mr Klein'.

For the next few weeks the Beatles existed simultaneously on two parallel but utterly distinct planes. In London the court case that would determine their future rumbled slowly through late February and early March, before halting for Mr Justice Stamp to reach his verdict. All four Beatles searched for distraction in the comfort of work. McCartney continued to wrestle with his second solo album, having been disappointed by the reaction of friends to the rough mixes he had played them. On 19 February 1971, the day the court case resumed, he issued his first single since leaving the Beatles, the charmingly lightweight 'Another Day'. Symbolically, it was credited to 'Paul and Linda McCartney'.

Starkey was preparing to issue his own single, 'It Don't Come Easy'. The song was co-written by

Harrison, who spent much of February in the studio with Phil Spector, while his records continued to dominate the world's sales charts. Lennon was an occasional visitor to those sessions, and recorded several blues-inflected songs of his own. His priority, however, was 'Power to the People', a radical political anthem far removed from the non-violent philosophy of his peace campaign. On his return from Japan he had arranged a lengthy interview with two activists from the Trotskyist newspaper Red Mole. The pair approached him as a potential sponsor and benefactor, recognising that they might have found a kindred spirit in the self-confessed 'Working Class Hero'. Lennon kept silent about his distinctly bourgeois background and engaged in a righteous debate with the Trotskyists about the class struggle, racism and the workers' route to power. Perhaps he felt guilty about his conspicuous wealth, as immediately after the interview he composed his simplistic but undeniably rousing chant as a gesture of political commitment. As with the Maharishi and Janov, he had found a crusade, and instantly remade himself in its image. Soon he and Ono were sporting army fatigues and Japanese riot helmets, and posing for photographs with their fists raised in solidarity with the global revolution. Meanwhile lawyers argued over the most suitable distribution of his riches.

As Lennon complained later, his political subversion was interrupted by the demands of the legal system: 'We were having meetings all the time with these counsels, every other day, and it went on for weeks and weeks. George and Ringo were getting restless and didn't want to do it any more. George would say, " I've had enough. I don't want to do it. Fuck it all. I don't care if I'm poor. " ' Harrison diverted his exasperation into a song, 'Sue Me, Sue You Blues'. Money and the lure of the material world had been a constant theme of All Things MustPass, representing the ultimate distraction from the contemplation of divinity. But, as Lennon noted sarcastically, Harrison could be as materialistic as any working-class hero: 'George goes through that every now and then. " I'll give it all away. " Will he, fuck! He's got it all charted up, like Monopoly money. '

None of the three Beatles named as defendants in McCartney's action appeared in court, but John Eastman persuaded the plaintiff to attend. 'I realised it was make or break, ' McCartney recalled. 'And it was, it really was. The Beatles' fortune was on the line. Not just mine, but theirs as well. ' He strode into Court 16 on 19 February wearing a dark suit but no tie – a self-conscious throwback to teenage rebellion. As Lennon once noted, 'Paul's idea of being different is to look almost straight but to have one ear painted blue. ' He sat with his lawyers, glanced around the court and noticed only one familiar face: Allen Klein 'in a brown turtleneck sweater. . . I just looked at him, then turned away. '

As proceedings began, Klein could have been forgiven for imagining that he was in the dock. David Hurst set out to demolish the American's reputation, accentuating his convictions in New York and linking them to his handling of the Beatles' corporate finances. He alleged that Klein had claimed commissions on projects with which he was not involved, including the McCartney album, and that these claims were not only erroneous but also excessive. The following day Apple's QC, Morris Finer, defended Klein. 'He inherited a situation, ' Finer insisted, 'and rightly or wrongly – we say rightly – took the view that the vital thing from his point of view, having regard to the total mess – almost total bankruptcy – of their affairs, was to generate income. ' Then he reeled off the ways in which Klein had maximised that income.

All four Beatles gave written evidence, which ensured that they were saved the potential embarrassment of cross-examination. Lennon's affidavit expressed his horror at the way Apple had been besieged by 'hustlers' and 'spongers', and his gratitude that Klein had imposed financial order on the company. Far from hiding information, 'Klein told me, George and Ringo almost daily what he was doing or trying to do, to the point almost of boring us. ' And he insisted that, as far as he knew, Klein had never attempted to extract any money from the Beatles and Apple to which he was not fully entitled.

His most revealing testimony concerned the group's internal democracy. He admitted that there had been regular arguments since they stopped touring in 1966, particularly between McCartney and Harrison. 'From time to time we all gave displays of temperament and threatened to walk out. Of necessity, we developed a pattern for sorting out our differences, by doing what any three of us decided. ' This was a crucial point, hotly contested by McCartney, who insisted that had only happened once, when Klein was appointed. Lennon continued, 'It sometimes took a long time and sometimes there was deadlock and nothing was done, but generally that was the rule we followed, and until recent events, it worked quite well. ' Only two issues had been contentious: McCartney's enthusiasm for appointing the Eastmans as the Beatles' managers, to which Lennon objected because they were 'related to one of the group', and the group's music. 'From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I on the one hand and Paul on the other had different musical tastes. Paul preferred " pop type" music and we preferred what is now called " underground". This may have led to arguments, particularly between Paul and George, but the contrast in our tastes, I am sure, did more good than harm, musically speaking, and contributed to our success. ' The truth was being stretched beyond the laws of physics. The contrast of 'musical tastes' was not only inaccurate and intended to denigrate McCartney's work, but Lennon's claim that he welcomed the mix of styles was sharply at odds with his scathing comments about his partner in his recent Rolling Stone interview. Fortunately for Lennon, the magazine's distribution network did not extend to the High Court.

The affidavits from his colleagues were less contentious. Harrison focused on 'the superior attitude which for years past Paul had shown towards me musically' and reprised the story of his walk-out during the January 1969 sessions. 'Since Paul agreed that he would not try to interfere or teach me how to play, ' Harrison testified, his sarcasm evident even in this legal statement, 'I went back. Since the row Paul has treated me more as a musical equal; I think this whole episode shows how a disagreement could be worked out so that we all benefited. ' Starkey praised McCartney as 'the greatest bass player in the world', echoing a postcard he had received from his colleague at the end of the January 1969 filming: 'You are the greatest drummer in the world. Really. ' He continued, 'He is also very determined. He goes on and on to see if he can get his own way. While that may be a virtue, it did mean that musical disagreements inevitably arose from time to time. But such disagreements contributed to really great products. ' Starkey may have concluded by claiming that 'all four of us together could even yet work out everything satisfactorily' but his testimony, like those of Harrison and Lennon, consolidated the view that within the Beatles there was a unified trio, and then there was McCartney – ego-driven, spiky, difficult to please and ultimately divisive. By defending Klein, they had accentuated the gulf between them and McCartney and inadvertently aided his case for dissolution.

Unable to testify in person as he was not named as a participant in the case, Klein still made his presence felt. First Apple's QC, Morris Finer, read into court an affidavit by an accountant who testified that Klein had increased the Beatles' income by a factor of five in two years, and that Apple was finally solvent. 'This is why my clients don't want the man interfered with, ' Finer added, 'and would not have thought that Mr McCartney would either. ' This was merely a warm-up for the main event: Finer's recitation of an epic 46-page affidavit from Klein, which commanded several hours of the court's time. Klein introduced himself as a 'record manufacturer, music publisher and entertainment business manager', and set out to defend himself against McCartney's attacks on 'my commercial integrity', and 'to demonstrate that the assets of The Beatles' partnership are not in any sense now in jeopardy'. He rebuffed allegations about the legality of his trading activities in the United States, his recent tax convictions and his handling of the Apple empire. He claimed that his priority was always 'to sort out the confusion which I found at Apple and to negotiate commercial arrangements for The Beatles much more advantageous to them than those previously subsisting'. He viewed the possible appointment of an official receiver to handle the Beatles' partnership as being likely to 'undermine the financial and commercial status of The Beatle companies. It will make it impossible to recruit new artists, and it will create enormous confusion in the minds of companies and individuals having dealings with Apple as to whom they should account and with whom they should deal. ' Apple, he concluded, would be 'gravely damaged' by such a move.

Throughout, Klein presented himself as a man of great patience and understanding who had withstood a barrage of opposition and invective from the Eastmans and McCartney. At every point of conflict he had been proven right; even McCartney, Klein claimed, had been forced to recognise the logic of his arguments and actions. Yet there was one gaping hole in his testimony: at no point did he acknowledge that the Beatles had broken up. He presumably knew that the central arch of McCartney's case was unanswerable: the partnership was dead. By ignoring that fact, he was effectively acknowledging that he had lost the battle. Klein's best hope was that he might emerge from the debris with his integrity intact.

Finer consolidated Klein's affidavit with another wash of figures designed to demonstrate that the manager had not only restricted his share of the Beatles' income to that laid down in his contract, but that he had actually chosen to forgo some potential earnings. He also reminded the judge of the disparity in earnings between the recent McCartney and Harrison albums, under which McCartney would benefit at Harrison's expense. 'No one is getting at Mr McCartney in this, ' he noted.

That, however, was exactly what McCartney had experienced for more than two years: sniping, insinuations, kidney punches while the referee's back was turned, a full repertoire of snide remarks from Lennon and Harrison, from Klein, and more recently from the fans who didn't want their dream to end and were searching for a convenient scapegoat.

On 26 February his response to his colleagues' claims and accusations was read in court. For the first time the court picked up a flavour of the American's character, as McCartney recalled how Klein would exaggerate his power. Faced with the challenge of obtaining control of NEMS, he remembered Klein boasting, 'I'll get it for nothing. ' It was swagger, bluster, ego, and it wasn't the McCartney way. 'I became more and more determined that Klein was not the right man to be appointed manager, ' he declared.

The Beatles' relationships dominated his testimony. He denied the claim in Lennon's affidavit that 'We always thought of ourselves as Beatles, ' reminding the court of Lennon's outright rejection of the group in the song 'God'. 'One has only to look at recent recordings by John or George to see that neither thinks of himself as a Beatle, ' he insisted. He rejected another Lennon suggestion, that quarrels within the group had always been solved on the basis of a majority verdict. Nonsense, he said. Nothing was done unless the group was unanimous. 'I know of no decision taken on a three-to-one basis. '

Aware that Klein would be watching, McCartney couldn't resist the opportunity to twist the knife. Lennon had denied his original claim that Klein had instigated much of the personal conflict within the Beatles. McCartney remembered a phone conversation in which Klein had told him, 'You know why John is angry with you? It is because you came off better than he did on Let It Be. ' He also alleged that Klein had told him, 'The real trouble is Yoko. She is the one with ambition. ' He added, 'I often wonder what John would have said if he had heard the remark. ' It was designed to suggest that Klein's apparent loyalty to the Lennons was only a negotiating tactic.

McCartney deserved his moment of public retaliation. He landed his firmest blow when he recounted that Harrison had once told him, 'If I could have my bit [of Apple] in an envelope, I'd love it. ' What else, McCartney might have added, was he trying to achieve? His closing comments were poignant and decisive. He admitted that none of the other Beatles appeared to know why he had taken the drastic step of launching this court action; after two years of arguments and explanations, they still didn't understand him. So he repeated the reasons he had stated in his original affidavit: there were no more Beatles, merely four solo artists; Apple's accounts were in disarray; and none of the group knew what his tax liability might be. These were the issues that underlined his case, he said, and none of the others had attempted to answer them.

McCartney's testimony closed the first full week of hearings. The rest was lawyers, secure in their fees, arguing for their pride. But there were occasional sunbursts across the legal landscape – such as the moment when Morris Finer, for Apple, said dryly, 'Mr McCartney, through his counsel, seems to live in a world where everyone is either a seraphim or angel, or ape or viper – where there is precious little room for the intermediate atmosphere in which most people live. ' He complained that McCartney's entire case boiled down to a simple instruction: 'You must appoint a receiver because of this wicked man. ' Finer continued, 'The whole object of this operation is to poison the court against Mr Klein and say that he is dangerous, and it is for the benefit of everybody to get him out. '

His opponent, David Hurst, did little to refute Finer's claim, devoting much of his final summary to Klein's iniquities: 'Having regard to his record and his performance since he became manager, and what we now know of what has happened in America, and having regard to his evidence, we say he is not a suitable person to bear these responsibilities. ' The key phrase was 'what we now know': Klein's tax convictions were like the tragic flaw afflicting a Shakespearean hero. The manager must have wondered how this case might have proceeded if he had taken better care of his bookkeeping a decade earlier.

On Friday 5 March, Mr Justice Stamp adjourned hearings for a week to consider his initial judgment. The following Wednesday there was a late-night meeting at Richard Starkey's house in Highgate, attended by all the Beatles except McCartney, plus Klein, Ono, Maureen Starkey and lawyers Peter Howard and Raymond Skilling. The conference would not have been called had Apple's legal team enjoyed any hope of victory: this was a summit of the soon-to-be-defeated. The verdict was delivered on 12 March, the day, ironically, on which Lennon's political anthem 'Power to the People' was released. In this instance, however, the power rested entirely with McCartney. The judge appointed Mr James Douglas Spooner, a partner in a London firm of accountants, as the official receiver and manager of the Beatles' assets until such a time as the partnership should be legally dissolved. Apple's lawyers had one week to lodge an appeal.

Mr Justice Stamp confirmed what David Hurst had hoped: the deciding factor in the case was the judgement and behaviour of Allen Klein. He stated the reality that Klein had refused to acknowledge: 'The Beatles have long since ceased to perform as a group. ' He remarked, 'Apple is not, as it were, a Frankenstein set-up to control the individual partners'; it would be unjust for McCartney to be forced to remain in such a restrictive situation. The condition of their accounts was 'quite intolerable'; of their business affairs in general he said simply, 'Confidence has gone. ' Equally intolerable was the idea that McCartney should submit to Klein's management, especially as the American had received 'grossly in excess' of what his work deserved. That this was a moral verdict as well as a financial one was emphasised by Stamp's reaction to Klein's statement that he had actually taken less commission than he was owed. This, Stamp said, 'reads to me like the irresponsible patter of a second-rate salesman'. (Even Morris Finer was forced to admit that his client's claim was 'a silly paragraph'. ) Klein's testimony carried 'the flavour of dishonesty' and was in part 'untrue'. The judge stooped to offer a brief word of consolation to Klein, recognising that he had been forced to listen to his opponents' allegations without the legal right of reply. But he negated the gesture by declaring that nobody at Apple – even Klein, he might have added – had the financial knowledge and dexterity to manage the Beatles' affairs. It was a damning conclusion.

There have been lurid accounts of what happened next – of Lennon, Harrison and Starkey storming out of the court, brushing past reporters and driving immediately to McCartney's house, where Lennon allegedly took two bricks from his car and threw them through the nearest window. Then they are supposed to have returned to Apple to face the press. But none of the Beatles, victor or loser, was in court that day; there was no press conference; and the bricks remain an urban myth. Challenged on a similar tale, McCartney said, 'I recently read that I was supposed to have given John a painting, and he was supposed to have come around to my house and put his foot through it. I never did give John a painting, and if I did he never put his foot through it. ' Even in the more reserved media climate of 1971 it seems unlikely that three of the Beatles could have vandalised the home of the fourth without a hint of the incident reaching the press.

As Lennon told his friend Kenny Everett two weeks later, 'We see more of each other now with the court case going on, so in a way it has brought Ringo, George and I closely together again. ' Lennon also confirmed, 'It's like 90 per cent [probable] that George, Ringo and I would record together again, but maybe not as the Beatles. ' Confusion between enforced and voluntary reunions sparked a press story that the three ex-Beatles had gathered at Apple with Klaus Voormann to discuss the formation of a new band. In fact, the Apple meeting was a legal conference, after which it was announced that Lennon, Harrison and Starkey were appealing the recent verdict. News that Paul McCartney had just attended the Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles to collect a trophy for Let It Be, the album he hated, must have entrenched their position.

McCartney chose the US news magazine Life as the vehicle for his public defence. For the first time he revealed his reaction to Lennon's decision to quit the band, his rage at Klein's decision to slap the ABKCO logo on the adverts for his album and the misgivings he'd felt about suing the other Beatles. 'All summer long in Scotland I was fighting with myself as to whether I should do anything like that. It was murderous. I had a knot in my stomach all summer. ' In vague, almost inarticulate terms he came close to thanking Lennon for forcing him to exist outside the Beatles: 'I've changed. The funny thing about it is that I think a lot of my change has been helped by John Lennon. I sort of picked up on his lead. John had said, " Look, I don't want to be that any more. I'm going to be this. " And I thought, That's great. I liked the fact he'd done it, and so I'll do it with my thing. He's given the OK. '

He was asked how he had reacted to Lennon's already infamous interview with Rolling Stone. For once in his life McCartney found an adult persona in himself that held no hint of victim or persecutor – an acceptance of the entirety of Lennon's personality, from cruelty to love. 'I ignored John's interview, ' he said.

I looked at it and dug him for saying what he thought. But to me, short of getting it off his chest, I think he blows it with that kind of thing. I think it makes people wonder why John needs to do that. I did think there were an awful lot of inconsistencies, because on one page you find John talking about how Dylan changed his name from Zimmerman and how that's hypocritical. But John changed his name to John Ono Lennon. And people looking at that just begin to think, Come on, what is this? But the interview didn't bug me. It was so far out that I enjoyed it, actually. I know there are elements of truth in what he said. And this open hostility, that didn't hurt me. That's cool. That's John.

To emphasise the point, he wrote a song entitled 'Dear Friend', a pained but still affectionate acceptance of their emotional divide.

For the first time one of the Beatles recognised that the group now existed beyond the four individuals who had brought it to life. 'Of course, we aren't just four fellows, ' McCartney told Life. 'We are part of a big business machine. Even though the Beatles have really stopped, the Beatle thing goes on – repackaging the albums, putting the tracks together in different forms, and the video coming in. ' It was a premonition of the decades to come, as the story was told and retold, and the myth hardened into false memory. 'I like fairy tales, ' McCartney admitted.

The battle seemed to be over. 'My clients now consider, in the unhappy circumstances which have arisen, ' Morris Finer told the High Court on 26 April, 'that it is in the common interest to proceed to explore as a matter of urgency a means whereby the plaintiff may disengage himself from the partnership by agreement. My clients feel that the continuance of this appeal would be inimical to establishing an atmosphere best suited to negotiation of this kind. They have therefore decided not to prosecute this appeal and ask for it to be dismissed. ' The judge concurred: 'I can only express the court's hope that the parties will come to some amicable and sensible arrangement. ' The hearing was over in five minutes. As a pledge of good faith towards his clients, Klein asked for ABKCO to be added to the official list of defendants, which ensured that he would share in the costs of the proceedings.

'My friend Johnny Eastman won the first round, ' Allen Klein conceded later that summer. ^*22

But it was a victory in PR. The trouble was the establishment was against us. The establishment, the fucking courts, the government, they can all exercise what's known as direction, when they don't wanna face the facts. I knew the partnership would be dissolved. I know the English law. The only reason for opposing it was the horrendous tax consequences that could result. But that old judge, Stamp, he didn't understand what it was all about. He got lost. He got Beatlemania.

Another version of Beatlemania was apparent that spring, as singles by all four of the group competed for sales. In Britain and America Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord' easily outsold its competitors, with the McCartneys' 'Another Day' and Starkey's 'It Don't Come Easy' close together behind, and Lennon's less mellifluous 'Power to the People' trailing in fourth. With Harrison's All Things Must Pass already having outstripped Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, a decisive shift in power was under way. Admirers of the group could console themselves with a future in which the struggle for commercial supremacy might provoke the quartet to new creative heights. Optimists could taste the scent of reconciliation too, as Starkey and Harrison performed on each other's hits and played separately on Lennon's sessions, while a gulf was bridged at Mick Jagger's wedding in May, when McCartney and Starkey met for the first time since March 1970. 'That was a bit strange, ' Starkey explained, 'but we both knew that everything was OK. We had to get warm together. ' EMI Records, whose profits had sagged alarmingly over the previous year, hoped that eventually the temperature might rise enough for a four-man reunion.

The resolution of McCartney's case against the other three offered only a brief respite in the schedule of consultations, briefings and court appearances. Debates about the detail of ABKCO's earnings from the Beatles would continue well into 1972, for example. The day after Jagger's wedding McCartney's legal team were scheduled to meet representatives of Apple to discuss the ongoing dilemma of how to break up the Beatles' partnership without incurring massive tax liabilities. When Apple's lawyers failed to show up, McCartney's representatives continued without them but effectively endorsed what Klein had been saying for the previous year: if McCartney sold his share of Apple, the taxman would take almost all of the proceeds. 'Paul's probably cost us a million since he started this thing, ' Lennon commented, 'and his tax counsel's just come up and given us exactly the tax advice we gave him two years ago, to tell him exactly not to do all that he's done. ' Klein had suggested that the Beatles sell Apple to ABKCO; now the McCartney camp proposed that EMI take over the company. They would then be free from each other, but have no more control over their work than any other recording artists – scant reward for their bold attempt to remodel the music business three years earlier.

Other legal matters required more urgent consideration. Lennon and Ono were in hot pursuit of her ex-husband Tony Cox and their daughter Kyoko Cox. The search led them to Majorca, where the Lennons found Kyoko at a meditation camp and took her away without her father's knowledge. Cox told the police that the girl had been kidnapped, and the Lennons were brought in for questioning. In the mid-1940s Lennon had been placed in the appalling position of having to choose between his parents. Now nine-year-old Kyoko faced the same dilemma. Scared by the police intervention and the chaos caused by the Lennons' arrival, she declared that she wanted to be with her father. To secure right of access, the Lennons flew to the US Virgin Islands, where Ono and Cox's divorce had been registered, and back to Majorca, where the two sides reached a short-lived truce. Within a couple of weeks, however, Cox had slipped back to the USA, which is where the Lennons headed in June. Lennon would never see his stepdaughter again.

Two plagiarism suits continued to run, the first concerning two lines of lyric from Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me' that reappeared in John Lennon's 'Come Together'. The second was the problem surrounding Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord' and 'He's So Fine', handled by the US firm Bright Tunes. Klein met the company's president and suggested Harrison buy the entire Bright Tunes catalogue, including the song he was accused of plagiarising. Bright's president declined, and said that his company and Harrison's music publisher Harrisongs should share all the income from 'My Sweet Lord'. With neither side willing to concede, the legal machine began to gather evidence for another courtroom battle.

Publishing was at the heart of another case that June, filed in the Supreme Court of New York County. At stake were the potentially lucrative publishing royalties from Ram, the Paul and Linda McCartney album released in mid-May. Lennon and McCartney's deals with Northern Songs stated that the company would retain 100 per cent ownership of every song they wrote, regardless of whether they were composed with any other party. McCartney had decided to list his wife as co-writer of more than half the songs on Ram, plus the hit single 'Another Day'. Despite her lack of musical pedigree, he insisted that Linda had been an active collaborator, making valuable suggestions about lyrics and melodies. Northern Songs, however, believed he was effectively robbing them of half their potential income. Lennon was an amused observer. 'The thing with Paul is, he wants all the action. ' Another set of lawyers prepared to prosper at the Beatles' expense.

Briefly it appeared that the album would be delayed until the dispute was resolved, but the warring sides recognised that they would both suffer from this decision. After his unassuming debut album, Ram demonstrated that McCartney had lost none of his skill as a melodist since the demise of the Beatles. Lushly orchestrated and full of the playful verve that had long been his trademark, it was a richly enjoyable record, culminating in a mini-suite ('Back Seat of my Car') that was a triumph of pop arrangement. Yet alongside the emotional honesty of Lennon and Harrison's work, Ram appeared lightweight, empty, meaningless.

Lennon's first reaction was 'Fucking hell, it was awful. In general I think the other album he did was better, in a way. At least there was some songs on it. ' Besides the people 'preaching practices' and the 'first mistake' on 'Too Many People', Lennon thought he could find sarcastic references to himself and the other Beatles throughout Ram. There was the three-legged dog who couldn't run; the 'Dear Boy' who never knew what he had found (McCartney explained later that the song was about his wife's ex-husband); the noxious friend in 'Smile Away'; and the defiant proclamation in 'Back Seat of my Car', 'we believe that we can't be wrong'. As Linda McCartney recalled, 'They thought the whole album was about them. And then they got very upset. ' The truce was over: forgetting what he had said about McCartney in Rolling Stone, Lennon treated Ram as an unprovoked attack and responded the only way he knew: openly and viciously.

Where McCartney had wielded a stiletto, Lennon opted for the axe. 'I always got angry, ' he admitted later. 'If there was a game going on between Paul and me, I was the one who would get furious and emotional about it, and he would just do it subtly. There was stuff on his previous album and we were all annoyed by it, George, Ringo and me, but I answered back. ' On 22 May 1971 Lennon began to record a song entitled 'How Do You Sleep'. Across three acerbic verses, Lennon mutilated McCartney's reputation, his lifestyle, his music and – ironically, given Lennon's own mother/lover complex – his dependence on his wife. 'I remember when he was writing, he was a bit tongue in cheek, ' Ono recalled, 'like, " Wait until they see this. " ' 'We didn't take it that seriously, ' Lennon confirmed. Other observers reported the relish with which he unleashed gratuitous insults at McCartney. George Harrison smiled indulgently as Lennon went to work, but Richard Starkey watched for a while and attempted to calm Lennon down. Underground journalist Felix Dennis watched the session. 'I remember Ringo getting more and more upset by this. . . I have a clear memory of his saying, " That's enough, John. " ' Lennon and Ono competed to come up with the most insulting lines, Dennis said. 'Some of it was absolutely puerile. Thank God a lot of it never actually got recorded because it was highly, highly personal, like a bunch of schoolboys standing in the lavatory making scatological jokes. '

'John would forgive himself, and expect Paul to forgive him, ' Derek Taylor recalled. As Lennon said later, 'I'm entitled to call Paul what I want and vice versa – it's in our family. ' But he must have calculated the impact of such lines as 'those freaks was right when they said you was dead' and 'the only thing you done was Yesterday'. Allen Klein joined in, querying Lennon's original line about 'Yesterday' ('you probably pinched that bugger anyway') and suggesting a more subtle reference to McCartney's recent single.

Amusing or sadistic, depending on one's distance from the line of fire, 'How Do You Sleep' was impassioned, armed with a string arrangement that cut as deep as the words, and more revealing than Lennon ever intended. Shortly before his death he hinted at a deeper knowledge of what lay behind the song: 'I used my resentment against Paul that I have as a kind of sibling rivalry resentment from youth. ' Felix Dennis glimpsed a different relationship: 'It's quite obvious that Paul must have been some sort of authority figure in Lennon's life, because you don't take the piss out of somebody that isn't a figure of authority. . . As I felt it, they were taking the piss out of the headmaster. ' The reference to an 'authority figure' was ironic, as that was exactly how McCartney viewed Lennon: 'It was just a bit [like] the wagging finger, and I was pissed off about it. '

By 1973 Lennon was prepared to admit, 'I'm talking about myself in that song. I just know it. ' And so he was. McCartney was the ostensible subject, but the song was actually about Lennon's psyche, not McCartney's. It would have required a tough soul to find solace in that if you were Paul McCartney, however, and although he insisted, 'I don't have any grudge whatsoever against John, ' he never claimed that he hadn't been wounded. In fact, he admitted in 1994, 'I have to say that the most hurtful stuff came from John. It was like a mate betraying me. ' Elsewhere, he added, 'I think he was a sod to hurt me. I think he knew exactly what he was doing, and because we had been so intimate he knew what would hurt me, and he used it to great effect. '

There was a sense that Lennon's emotions were running out of control. In the same month that he wrote 'How Do You Sleep' he came across a publicity booklet about the Beatles compiled by a hapless member of the Apple staff. Lennon went berserk. When he couldn't find anyone willing to claim responsibility, he grabbed a felt pen and began to deface the booklet. 'This is so prejudiced against John, [and] Yoko and slightly against Ring[o] and Mo [Maureen] and G[eorge] and P[attie] that I want to know who put it together and fire them, ' he scrawled. He added a speech bubble to a shot of the 21-year-old McCartney: 'I'm always perfect. ' Alongside a reference to a McCartney visit to Hollywood, he wrote bitterly, 'Cuts Yoko and John out of film! ' There was a line about the McCartneys' wedding, which Lennon altered to read 'funeral'. It was the work of a jealous child rather than an artist who had been freed of pain by Primal Scream Therapy. Asked incessantly about McCartney in interviews, Lennon insisted that the pair would never work together again, and couldn't become friends until their business quarrels were mended. 'Maybe about a year or two after all the money thing's settled, we might have dinner or forget about it, ' was as friendly as he was prepared to be. He was still willing to work with Harrison and Starkey, and perhaps Klaus Voormann, as Starkey conceded that summer: 'We keep having laughs about it. Not yet, though. ' But sooner than any of them realised, the opportunity would come for all four Beatles to unite for a cause greater than ego or money.