Three Big Mistakes the Beatles Made

John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—it seems the Beatles are always listed in that order—traversed a long and winding road between their formation in 1960 and their “divorce” in 1970; they did not wrap up their legal affairs until December 1974. In terms of popularity and artistic achievement, no other rock & roll group comes close. I just wish they could have kept it going for more than a decade, and they might have done so if they had avoided the following three mistakes.

The first pertains to having a wise and reliable manager. Brian Epstein, the man justifiably credited with having discovered them and putting them on the path to stardom, was adequate just those first three years or so. The Beatles had already named themselves and paid their dues with a stint in Hamburg, Germany and dates throughout England before he came on the scene. He helped them get a recording contract, put them in snazzy Edwardian suits, saw their first album (Please Please Me) released and had them make their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. By then, they were already touring Europe and America and dealing with “Beatlemania.” Epstein passed away in August 1967, but he had been out of his depth for quite a while before then. Had he known the realities of the big-time entertainment industry and had a grasp of the most basic accounting principles, he would have precluded “the boys” as he called them from losing countless millions of dollars apiece. With his death, Allen Klein (previously the Rolling Stones’ manager) strode in, looked at the financials and stated loudly that Epstein was a hopeless schmuck. This is not to say Klein should have or even could have managed the band since by then, McCartney had decided that Lee Eastman—father of his soon-to-be wife Linda Eastman—was the man. But Lennon, Harrison and Starr feeling otherwise, the atmosphere in those last few years of the Beatles’ existence grew increasingly poisonous. If a strong, visionary manager such as Peter Grant, who later handled Led Zeppelin, had been available, the story might have gone quite differently. Grant never exploited his musicians and made their increasingly wide-ranging tours both enjoyable and remunerative.

That brings us to mistake number two—the Beatles’ decision to stop touring after a concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. It was the last of more than 1,400 public gigs they played beginning with their days at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr had become increasingly frustrated with the screaming girls, the lack of security before, during and after concerts, the poor amplification of their voices and instruments and the tedium of going from airport to hotel to stadium again and again. Yes, their music was becoming more complex, which required time in the studio. They made some great albums—like Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be, but there were tradeoffs. Whereas the aforementioned Rolling Stones and Led Zep were riding the wave and savoring it, John, Paul, George and Ringo were operating in insular studios in London with not a single female teenager yelling like a banshee and pulling her hair. I acknowledge that all the Beatlemania stuff was too much, but they could have just taken a hiatus instead of saying, “never again.” Six months or even a year away from the road would have allowed them to reflect on who they were individually and as a group, recharge their batteries so to speak and tour again in a manner that left them in control. There is something to be said for directly connecting with your fans. Doing only studio work left these four young men staring at each other, producer George Martin, hired session musicians and a few sound engineers. Truthfully, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were getting on each other’s nerves in the late 1960s. Boredom and resentment festered. I surmise that the Beatles’ collaboration would have gone on much longer than a decade if they had resumed touring along with making albums. Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page et al. combined the two very well and may have encouraged Lennon, McCartney et al. to do the same.

The third and final point I would like to make is that Harrison deserved more recognition and support than he got. He was the youngest of the four, and was sort of the junior partner in the band. It had been McCartney who first invited him to join, and Lennon—after some hesitation—agreed. (Starr had yet to replace Pete Best as the Beatles’ drummer and is of even less consequence.) McCartney generously switched to bass guitar even though his guitar skills were much superior to those of Harrison—and Lennon, for that matter. Not only were Lennon and McCartney, who had known each other since 1956, older and somewhat musically advanced, but both were strong personalities. While I do not mean to paint with an overly broad brush, this intra-band dynamic was there from start to finish. Harrison grew as a person, as a guitarist and as a songwriter during those stormy years. Consider that he wrote such classics as “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “It’s All Too Much” and “If I Needed Someone.” While there is no gainsaying the fabulous songs that came from the Lennon/McCartney collaboration, Harrison proved that he could rock too. The two senior Beatles should have been more willing to encourage Harrison’s songwriting skills. McCartney was particularly irksome to Harrison, such that almost to the day he died (of metastatic lung cancer; he burned an average of 30 cigarettes per day and as many as 80 when feeling stressed) on November 29, 2001, Harrison had harsh words to say about his long-ago bandmate. Among many other things, he felt that McCartney wallowed in the Beatles heyday far too much. This is not to say he lacked pride in what they had achieved, but he probably rolled his eyes when he thought of McCartney, in one of his many tours (the most recent went from April 2022 to November 2025) playing “Can’t Buy Me Love” or “A Hard Day’s Night.”

At the Cavern Club in Liverpool; McCartney, Lennon, Pete Best and Harrison…

Rubber Soul, released on December 3, 1965…

Getting toward the end, although they seem happy enough here…