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John to Paul: 'You’re Daft, I Want a Divorce'

New interview tapes reveal Lennon as engineer of Beatles' break up

By Mat Probasco, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 6, 2009 8:33 AM CDT

(Newser) – Long-forgotten interviews with the Beatles emerged today when rock journalist Ray Connelly dug out reels of tape he'd stored away in a forgotten suitcase. On the 40th anniversary of the band's descent into dissolution, Connelly reveals new information upending some impressions that Paul McCartney was responsible for the split.

John blurted out to Connelly that he was the one who killed the world's favorite band. At a meeting between the two, "Paul just kept mithering on about what we were going to do, so in the end I just said, ‘I think you’re daft. I want a divorce,'" Connelly quotes him in the Times of London. Lennon also admits that McCartney wrote more of the Beatles' early material "because he was quite competent on guitar—Paul taught me quite a lot of guitar, really."

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (1)]

The Beatles perform their last live public concert on the rooftop of the Apple Organization building in 1969. (Getty Images)

John Lennon. (AP Photo, file)

John Lennon during a 1969 press conference after he returned his Most Excellent Award of the British Empire to the queen to protest the war in Biafra and British support of the US war in Vietnam. (Getty Images)

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The Beatles were a monument that had to be either changed or scrapped. As it happens, it was scrapped. The Beatles were supposed to be this and supposed to be that, but really all we were was a band that got very big. - John Lennon

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John to Paul: 'You’re Daft, I Want a Divorce'