The first and last group photos of John, Paul, George, and Ringo: August 22, 1962 and 1969. Photos by Bill Connell or Les Chadwick, and Ethan Russell.
“Well, I suppose officially it was about ‘69, but we were splitting up for years before that, since we left touring really. […] Being together for so long, one of the problems became that we pigeon-holed each other, we had preconceived ideas what each other wants and we limited each other too much. And it had to happen.” - George Harrison, BBC Radio, February 1977
“Well, it was mainly the sadness because we’d been so close for so long, I mean, as Mick Jagger said at the Hall of Fame, ‘the four-headed monster.’ We never went anywhere without each other. We shared all the miseries and the isolation of being in limos and hotels and planes and concert halls, which is all we ever saw really. And that was the saddest thing, it was actually getting fed up with each other.” - George Harrison, Off The Record, February 1988
“For years after The Beatles I didn’t want to talk about it. It was all too close, the pain and the suffering, ‘cos that was what was in my mind at the time. Then after the years away from it, I thought ‘no — we had fun, and had a good little band, and had more laughs than misery.’ It’s just that the misery got broadcast more than the fun.” - George Harrison, The Guardian, November 1988 (x)
