Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ Breakup Secrets Revealed 50 Years On

New revelations are emerging on how the Beatles broke up after the Abbey Road album 50 years ago.

A definitive new book, with publication to coincide with the new Abbey Road 50^th anniversary album, shatters myths about the end of the quartet. As reported, the 11^th studio album by the group is out on September 27 with dozens of extra tracks and unheard outtakes.

The Beatles have sold more than 800 million albums worldwide, the most successful band in history. John Lennon’s heroin addiction, which sometimes kept him out of the studio, was far more of an issue than Yoko Ono’s constant presence when the couple was there, according to the Beatles historian Kenneth Womack. Contrary to many reports, Lennon did not hate the long Abbey Road Medley that was created mainly by Paul McCartney and the producer George Martin. Far from ending in total acrimony, Lennon even suggested another album offering four songs each to himself, McCartney and George Harrison, and even two to Ringo Starr “if he wants them.”

Solid State: The Story Of Abbey Road And The End Of The Beatles, out on October 15, the fullest account yet of the writing, recording, mixing, and reception of Abbey Road.

With new interviews, the book focuses on the dynamics between the musicians and production team who for the most part set aside the tensions and conflicts of the Get Back project to create songs such as “Come Together,” “Something” and “Here Comes The Sun.”

It was the culmination of the ingenuous production techniques that Martin had developed since the group’s early days in the same London studio seven years before.

In an interview, Womack said: “The end of the group is often unfairly blamed on Yoko Ono, but from what I found, she had no issue at all with their existence. She was there all the time in the studio, which was confusing for the other Beatles. They were from a kind of patriarchal culture. But John’s heroin addiction was key. What the group was dealing with was a person with an opioid addiction. They were a quasi-family, like many families suffering today in the world from our opioid crisis. It was a serious problem and a distressing part of the story. There was a suffocating sadness that all of this was on its way.

“Heroin was a major contributor. It was hard enough to work through their interpersonal problems, and when a person has an addictive behavior that was not treated as it was, that only makes it double, tenfold, really the kind of problem to deal with.

“Lennon was never hiding his difficulties. The thing we have refused to accept, or not understood, is that it took hold of him in such a strong way that it greatly slowed his production. The kind of prolificness he had before has gone. It’s really quite harrowing. He has moments of lucidity but this was a full blown addiction, even in doing cold turkey that failed and he went back to it for a time.

“John may have had a rough summer of 1969. When he came in, he did ‘Come Together’ and participated in the construction of the medley. He complained a lot about ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,’ but he worked on that song.

“One of the biggest myths is that somehow, John did not sanction the Medley. While Paul and George Martin do the lion’s share of the work, John was all for creating a longer suite. He was very excited about it. Perhaps the addiction took the wind out of his sails. A myth that developed even in the weeks and months after the record was completed was that it was a ‘Paul versus John’ thing as oppositional forces. The evidence shows that the idea is ridiculous. They come from a largely homogeneous North Country culture, even with different strengths and weaknesses. John being a no-show on the medley was no different than on some George Harrison songs. John is either barely a part of them, or, in the case of ‘Here Comes The Sun,’ completely absent.”

The most important part of the book is the meticulously researched timeline. Womack says it “explains the chess moves that went into the Beatles’ disintegration in September 1969, their attempts to, to forestall it if they could, and ultimately their failure. You can never discount the destructiveness of the one meeting they had in May 1969. Paul dug in his heels over the role of the businessman Allen Klein. Years later, he would say that was the moment that broke the Liberty Bell of the Beatles. In one tape-recorded conversation that McCartney has with Lennon and Harrison, he admits that even he doesn’t like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.’ So he’s having trouble answering for some of these artistic choices. In one meeting, John asks for a divorce, and in the second meeting, he’s literally trying to undivorce them. And yet they still can’t find their way clear.”

Womack also has revelations from Abbey Road engineers who were using new Moog synthesizer technology. Alan Parsons details the making of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” with its abrupt ending. John Kurlander describes how he moved “Her Majesty” from the medley to the end of the master tape – he did not want to get fired for deleting a Beatles song, and the band loved it as a final hidden track. Geoff Emerick explains how the sound changed by the use of a solid-state transistor mixing desk at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio. It was the only Beatles album to be recorded in this way.

Womack says: “Abbey Road has them concluding their career in fine style. So much depends upon beginnings and endings. The Beatles began really well in the U.K. and the U.S. with breakout Beatlemania, and on Abbey Road, they walk off the stage with incredible songs and saying goodbye to the world at the end. You might liken it to Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. There’s this mystique about it, it grows up and becomes bigger than the thing itself.”

There have been many books on the quartet’s demise, such as And In the End: The Last Days Of The Beatles by Ken McNab and You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle For The Soul Of The Beatles by Peter Doggett. It is impressive how new facts are still emerging five decades on.

Womack is looking forward to the new edition of Abbey Road, out on September 27: “The material that George Martin scored on August 15 1969, which was orchestration day in Studio One, Something and Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight, is just phenomenal. People are going to be amazed when they hear this new remix, which also includes a beautiful sound resolution on those scores so that you can hear them by themselves with all the beauty that they provide.”

Womack’s books about the Beatles include Long and Winding Roads, The Beatles Encyclopedia and a two-volume biography of Sir George Martin.

Solid State: The Story Of Abbey Road And The End Of The Beatles, with a foreword by Alan Parsons, will be published by Cornell University Press. It is entirely independent of the group, though is said to have the blessing of Abbey Road for publication with the album’s 50th anniversary.

The Abbey Road album will come in various formats, including a Super Deluxe with 3 CDs and one Blu-Ray, a vinyl box set, a 2CD set with demo recordings, sequenced to match the album’s running order, and single CD and vinyl versions of new mix.