Beatles discussed follow up to Abbey Road (Sept 8 1969 tape) | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

In a new interview with BBC 6 Music, following the attention drawn to the 8 September meeting, Ringo has commented on the idea that AR was intended to be their last album:

We did do Abbey Road and we was like, ‘Okay that’s pretty good,’ but none of us said, ‘OK, that’s the last time we’ll ever play together’. Nobody said that. I never felt that.

We’d made this record, and then we would go off and do whatever we wanted to do. And then Paul would call us and say, ‘Hey, you want to go in the studio lads?’ and we’d do another one.

So it was not the end – because in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. So I never felt it [the end of the band] was in stone.

Also, hooked out the Fawcett book referenced by @Richard in post 19:

John, Paul and George discussed this problem at Apple in the autumn of 1969, on one of the rare occasions when they got together. John glared at Paul and said, sarcastically: “It seemed mad for us to put a song on an album that nobody really dug, including the guy who wrote it, just because it was going to be popular, ’cause the LP doesn’t have to be that. Wouldn’t it be better, because we didn’t really dig them, yer know, for you to do the songs you dug, and Ob-La-Di, Ob- La-Da and Maxwell to be given to people who like music like that, yer know, like Mary [Hopkin] or whoever it is needs a song. Why don’t you give them to them? The only time we need anything vaguely near that quality is for a single. For an album we could just do only stuff that we really dug.”

“We always carved the singles up between us,” he told Paul. “We have the singles market, [George and Ringo] don’t get anything! I mean, we’ve never offered George ‘B’ sides; we could have given him a lot of ‘B’ sides, but because we were two people you had the ‘A’ side and I had the ‘B’ side.”

“Well the thing is,” Paul answered, without even looking at George who sat a few feet away, “I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George’s. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours.”

George was quick to correct Paul: “Now that’s a myth, ’cause most of the songs this year I wrote about last year or the year before, anyway. Maybe now I just don’t care whether you are going to like them or not, I just do ’em… If I didn’t get a break I wouldn’t push it. I’d just forget about it. Now for the last two years, at any rate, I’ve pushed it a bit more.”

“I know what he’s saying,” John said, “’cause people have said to me you’re coming through a lot stronger now than you had.”

“I don’t particularly seek acclaim,” George said. “That’s not the thing. It’s just to get out whatever is there to make way for whatever else is there. You know, ’cause it’s only to get ’em out, and also I might as well make a bit of money, seeing as I’m spending as much as the rest of you, and I don’t earn as much as the rest of you!”

Like the others, George was now out on his own musically. “Most of my tunes,” he said, “I never had the Beatles backing me.”

“Oh! C’mon, George!” John shouted. “We put a lot of work in your songs, even down to Don’t Bother Me ; we spent a lot of time doing all that and we grooved. I can remember the riff you were playing, and in the last two years there was a period where you went Indian and we weren’t needed!”

“That was only one tune,” George said. “On the last album [White Album ] I don’t think you appeared on any of my songs–I don’t mind.”

“Well, you had Eric [Clapton], or somebody like that,” John replied, in a hurt tone of voice.

There was a long pause as each Beatle seemed lost in contemplation, wondering. Not wanting to admit that they were becoming individual musicians, Paul grasped at the remnants of truth and spoke slowly, almost whispering. “When we get in a studio, even on the worst day, I’m still playing bass, Ringo’s still drumming, and we’re still there, you know.”