Paul wanted Fab Four to get back to where they once belonged
career,” says Norman. “People had huge disapproval of him because they thought they lost The Beatles because of him, which is not true.”
Norman says to this day Paul still wants to dispel the myths and Macca had been up for a reunion later in the 70s. “He really tried,” he says. “He was the one who believed in them as performers, he basked in what he got from an audience and felt they shouldn’t have lost that.
“He always believed they should have been a proper band and continued. And in the 70s they got such a huge offer that they were ready to re-form and do perhaps one or two reunion concerts, but the whole thing fell apart because they couldn’t agree on album rights and film rights.”
Let It Be, the last Beatles album, had been released in March 1970 but the group did not officially break up until the management row finally resulted in Paul’s lawsuit to dissolve the business partnership at the end of 1970.
A court case in 1971 was the final act of their career. “The press said they had broken up,” says Norman. “But they never officially announced it. All through the 70s everyone was waiting for them to come back again.
“But they themselves spent most of the decade completely as veterans of some awful war they could not talk about.” But Norman says Macca still has huge regard for Lennon. “He wrote a song about John on an early Wing’s album called Dear Friend that John never knew about,” he says. “And it was a lovely song, a tribute to him and if he had heard it he would never have written that horrible song How Do You Sleep? about Paul. “It was ridiculous, as he had nothing to lose sleep about at all, but these myths do die very hard.” sarah.robertson@ reachplc.com
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