Creative Environments: The Beatles

I have always marveled at how much the quality of the individual Beatles members’ musical output suffered after they broke up and went solo. The most striking cases were those of Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

George Harrison was, of the three members who wrote songs, the one consigned to obscurity with usually only one or two tracks per album attributed to him. But as the band grew in fame, Harrison also grew in his songwriting ability, producing an ever-increasing quantity and quality of music. Most of it remained unheard during the Beatles’ span as an intact band. But in late 1970, many of Harrison’s works came together on his blockbuster solo triple-album release All Things Must Pass. Beatles fans marveled at how talented Harrison was, and looked forward to his future releases. But afterward, nothing of his came close to the level of music from that first album. His fall was so complete that some of his subsequent albums actually went “out of print”. And my favorite George Harrison solo song, You, from his 1976 Extra Texture album, was actually originally a 1970 piece rejected from All Things Must Pass (there was just only so much space, even on three discs). What happened?

Paul McCartney underwent a similar change. His music with the Beatles was incredible with its beauty and simple appeal. But once he went solo and became comfortable with that lifestyle, his music (at least to me) went south.

Part of the explanation for these changes in creative output may be the change in personal environments that these two artists experienced. When they were together as the Beatles, there was much more creative tension, with more opportunities for collaboration, competition, and immediate critical feedback regarding compositions. Once alone, though, surrounded by adoring family members and “yes” people, McCartney and Harrison lost those elements that had refined their music into such great works during the Beatles era (and with Harrison, his first solo work following their breakup). When McCartney collaborated with Elvis Costello on an album, the latter chided McCartney on not having been willing in the past to accept criticisms in a constructive, collaborative spirit on his previous solo albums (I tend to regard McCartney’s Wings albums as solo works).

Now you may note that I didn’t mention John Lennon in this. And there’s a good reason: Lennon never (well, at least for the first few years after the Beatles breakup) got away from that state of creative tension by living in a creatively-insulated bubble. Both his personal and creative life were in a more or less constant state of turmoil from the Beatles time until 1976, when he decided to retire from music to raise his son Sean full-time. Ironically, once Lennon did return to music in 1980, many were critical of his album Double Fantasy as having lost that earlier edge to his sound.

The point to all of this is that a good, working creative environment may be just the opposite of what the artist envisions as being ideal. Often it is very uncomfortable, cramped conditions with often disagreeable, hypercritical people that can be an incubator of great works. And when these artists finally get some control of their creative environment, their output also may suffer.