Paul McCartney Revolted Against The Beatles After They Ditched Him: ‘Temperamental Fool’
In The Beatles, Paul McCartney was often the most eager to get together to write and record new music. He was the driving force behind getting the band into the studio. Early in the band’s career, before they’d had much wide-scale success, McCartney decided he was tired of being in this role. Once, when the rest of the band ditched him because he was late, he rebelled against the group. This led to an argument between McCartney and Beatles manager Brian Epstein.
Paul McCartney was late to The Beatles’ meeting with Brian Epstein
McCartney was eager for success, but he nearly ruined the band’s chances of having Epstein manage them. When Epstein asked the group to meet with him, they arrived after having several drinks at a local pub. This didn’t bother Epstein as much as the fact that McCartney was missing.
Epstein was reportedly “appalled” by this rudeness and asked George Harrison to call McCartney. Per Express, he informed the rest of the group that McCartney had just woken up and was in the bath. Luckily, Harrison broke the tension with a joke: “He may be very late, but he’ll be very clean.”
When McCartney did arrive, Epstein pointed to the band’s lack of decorum as a reason why they needed a manager.
“It seems to me that with everything going on, someone ought to be looking after you,” he said.
He missed another opportunity because he was in the bath
The band hired Epstein as their manager, and he helped them on their rapid ascent to success. They all got along with him, with the exception of a minor argument with McCartney. When Epstein and the band came to pick up McCartney one night, he informed them that he was in the bath and they’d have to wait.
“I shouted to them to wait, I’d just be a few minutes,” McCartney said, per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “But when I got out, they’d all driven off with Brian. So I said, f*** them, temperamental fool that I was. If they can’t be arsed awaiting for me, I can’t be arsed going after them. So I sat down and watched telly.”
McCartney also decided to revolt against them because he felt a bit embarrassed about always being the most eager of the group.
“I’d always been the keeny, the one who was always eager, chatting up managements and making announcements,” he said. “Perhaps I was being big-headed at first, or perhaps I was better at doing it than the others. Anyway, it always seemed to be me.”
McCartney and Epstein fought about this, but the former soon realized that not putting in an effort was unnatural for him.
“It had sometimes worried me that perhaps I was false in always making an effort,” he said. “But I realized that I was being more false by not making the effort.”
Paul McCartney often had to rally The Beatles to make new music
Not long after this, The Beatles found success outside of Liverpool, and McCartney continued to push the band into the recording studio.
“We have to thank Paul that we made as many records as we did because, you know, John and I, because we lived in the same area, would be hanging out,” Ringo Starr explained in the documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World. “It’s like a beautiful day in the garden in England, and the phone would ring, and we’d always know it was him.”
