Paul McCartney Once Said The Beatles Had Very Few Real Friends
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr endured unprecedented levels of fame while they were in The Beatles. They became the biggest band in the world, ripping any shred of normalcy from the Fab Four’s lives. McCartney said that while they were constantly surrounded by people, it was difficult to tell who their real friends were. He said Starr struggled to count his genuine friends on one hand.
Paul McCartney said Ringo Starr and the rest of the Beatles struggled to find real friends
When The Beatles became famous, they found themselves feeling isolated despite being constantly surrounded by people.
“I remember Ringo saying at the time ‘How many friends have I got?’ and he couldn’t count them on one hand,” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “And that’s what it boils down to, really. You can have millions of friends, but when someone asks you how many friends you’ve got, it depends on how honestly you’re going to answer. Because I don’t think I have that many.”
He pointed to times of difficulty in his life, like when he faced public backlash for marrying Linda McCartney. He wasn’t sure if the isolation was his own doing, or if he didn’t have many true friends.
“No one went against me or anything, I think I isolated myself a bit,” he said. “It’s just one of those things.”
John Lennon admitted the band didn’t like many of the people they met after fame
By the mid-1960s, people were trying desperately to get close to The Beatles.
“Everybody wanted to be The Beatles’ friend,” road manager Neil Aspinall said in The Beatles Anthology. “That’s showbusiness. I’ve always found it very transient. You meet people when you’re doing a gig and you might not meet them again for another six months or a year.”
According to Lennon, the band didn’t consider most of these people to be friends. In fact, they disliked many of them, preferring each other’s company instead.
“We have met some new people since we’ve become famous, but we’ve never been able to stand them for more than two days. Some hang on a bit longer, perhaps a few weeks, but that’s all. Most people don’t get across to us,” Lennon said, adding, “We can’t go around with anybody for a long time unless they are a friend, because we’re so closely knit. We talk in code to each other. We always did when we had strangers around us…”
The Beatles kept each other sane
According to Starr, the constant presence of vague acquaintances and hangers-on was enough to drive the band to insanity. He believed that this happened with artists like Elvis Presley. He was grateful that he had his bandmates to keep him grounded.
“We’d get in the car. I’d look over at John and say, ‘Christ. Look at you. You’re a bloody phenomenon!’ And just laugh because it was only him,” he said, per the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr. “Elvis went downhill because he seemed to have no friends, just a load of sycophants. Whereas with us, individually, we all went mad, but the other three always brought us back. That’s what saved us. I remember being totally bananas thinking, I am the one, and the other three would look at me and say, ‘Scuse me, what are you doing?’ I remember each of us getting into that state.”
