Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney Say the Beatles Could Have Toured Again
The Beatles famously walked away from touring in 1966, but looking back now, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr say that decision was never final.
"It wasn’t like we’d placed a wreath on the live Beatles," Starr told MOJO. Pointing out that their 1969 rooftop performance "showed that we could still do that stuff," he added, “We could maybe have gone out live again. It didn’t happen. But it was never like, 'Oh, that’s dead, the Beatles are dead. It was always a possibility that we would do it again.'"
In fact, as Starr pointed out, McCartney — who was sitting next to him during the interview — "tried one time to get us to go out again." Not that McCartney got much of anywhere with his fellow Beatles on that point. "But you didn’t listen to me!" McCartney's quoted as howling in "mock outrage" — and prompting Starr to absolve himself of responsibility. "I listened," he insisted. "It was the others!"
Starr's sentiments echo comments he recently made during an interview with Bloomberg, in which he suggested that, had the Beatles managed to find a way to stay together, they'd probably still be touring today — much like the Rolling Stones. "We would," he agreed. "We would have gotten over our difficulties and gotten on the road again."
Sadly, that didn't happen, but Beatles fans hoping to relive the band's live work have a new opportunity later this fall, when director Ron Howard's documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years debuts in theaters and on the Hulu streaming service. "It will explore their inner workings – how they made decisions, created their music and built their collective career together – all the while, exploring the Beatles’ extraordinary and unique musical gifts and their remarkable, complementary personalities," promises a press release. "The film will focus on the time period from the early Beatles’ journey in the days of the Cavern Club in Liverpool to their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966."
Beatles Albums Ranked Worst to Best