The new documentary film Man on the Run, available this weekend with a Prime Video subscription, focuses on Paul McCartney’s time with Wings, the band he formed after leaving the Beatles. Of course, you can’t talk about the post-Beatles time without discussing the actual end of the Beatles, and to say it was acrimonious is underselling it quite a bit.
Following the end of The Beatles, Paul McCartney ended up suing his former band members, as well as Allen Klein, who had taken over as business manager for the band following the untimely death of Brian Epstein. In the new documentary (via Page Six), McCartney addresses his decision to sue, as well as the fallout, which included John Lennon recording the song “How Do You Sleep?” which took a shot at McCartney’s contributions to their former band, claiming the song “Yesterday” was all he ever did.
The whole thing still clearly irks McCartney, who drops an F-bomb in response, saying:
The only thing you did was ‘Yesterday’ was apparently Allen Klein’s suggestion. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘If all I ever did was ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Let It Be,’ ‘Long and Winding Road,’ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ ‘Lady Madonna’… F–k you, John.
To be fair, “How Do You Sleep?” was seen by observers as a direct response to McCartney’s own earlier song ‘Too Many People,” which was read as an indictment of John and Yoko Ono as the people responsible for the Beatles' ending. Still, the fact that Paul uses such strong language today indicates how he felt back then.
Whatever bad blood there may have been between John and Paul, we know the two eventually reconciled. A few years later, the pair briefly considered taking up Lorne Michaels on his famous offer to reunite The Beatles on Saturday Night Live. That’s the sort of thing that we expect from two friends having fun together, not two people who are mad at each other.
It’s been a surprisingly great time to be a Beatles fan, considering the band hasn’t existed for decades. In just the last few years, we’ve seen new and remastered documentaries about the Beatles, and in a couple of years, we’re going to get not one, but four biopics about the Fab Four. Paul Mescal will portray Paul McCartney. Harris Dickinson will take the role of Lennon. Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan round out the band as George Harrison and Ringo Starr, respectively.
Each movie will give us the story of The Beatles from the perspective of each of the members. The breakup of the band may end up being the most interesting part of the four movies, as each member likely had a very different perspective on what transpired.
