In article
>Which brings me to a point that I have espoused many times, that the
Actual litigation was not an essential element to arouse such
ire from George. Before George initiated recording of "Not Guilty"
on 7 August 1968, Apple Corps had already been born (out of The
Beatles Ltd.) in January of that year, run from the start on idealism
and disorganization---always a bad combination. Apple was developed
partly from altruism but also from a need to invest $2 million pounds
of the Fabs' money, or face the taxman taking it away. It comprised
four divisions: Merchandising, Films, Music, and Electronics.
By March 1968 a design consultant had to be hired to stop the Apple
Boutique (part of Merchandising) from a perilous loss of revenue; by
July the Boutique was shut down entirely. By May, when John and Paul
traveled to the US to publicize their company, they'd also opened
Apple Foundation for the Arts, a no-questions-asked agency designed to
fund and support artistic ideas---another drain on resources, and
ultimately another failure. By November 1968, the Apple Films division
closed, having produced no films. This was accompanied by the
resignation of Apple accountant Stephen Maltz, who tried to warn the
Beatles that Apple was showing every sign of being (you'll pardon me
here) rotten to the Corps---unaccounted spending and poor (or
nonexistent) management contributing to its predicted demise, as was
employee theft of money and equipment. All this botheration must have
been a terrific burden for the Beatles, who had spent much of that
year writing, and later recording, The White Album. No wonder "Not
Guilty" reflected George's angst! But as no litigation had yet been
filed, it's open to question whether such action had been threatened
against the Beatles (individually or together) or whether it was just
a handy lyrical metaphor.
All this time as well, the Beatles were slowly losing control over
their publishing catalog, having lost much power when Northern Songs
became a public entity (and open to outside shareholders) in 1966. By
January 1969 the Fabs began to negotiate secretly to buy Nemperor,
formerly NEMS when under Brian Epstein's domain. Even more secretly,
John approached Allen Klein to ask him to manage his own personal
business, while the Fabs had already (apparently) agreed to hire
Paul's forthcoming in-laws, the Eastmans, to manage them. From this
point the rift over who would manage the group escalated, and caused
John, George and Ringo to side with Klein, whose lack of business
acumen wrought further havoc in their financial lives. Within the
first three months of 1969, the Fabs lost Northern Songs and their
cohesiveness as a collective entity (though the latter had been
developing for some time). Any wonder why George had been thinking
about "writs" and Paul about "funny paper"? Who needs a real suit with
all this vexation? :-)
I don't think there's any evidence of any real litigation filed by the
Fabs against each other, or against anyone else, till at least March
1969, but there was certainly plenty of personal and business-related
distress, I'll grant you. As for suggesting that the mysterious few
words at the beginning of "It's All Too Much" had anything to do with a
suit ("Sue your mother", I think you suggested, though most sources
list the lyrics as "To you mother"---equally incomprehensible), this
song was recorded in late May 1967, which predates all the initial
legal hassles of Apple, and the major ones involving Northern Songs,
by at least a good year.
--
>Beatles or Apple or both had at least informally started litigation
>at least one and a half years before it was public knowledge. I
>have always felt that George is saying something about getting
>sued in his hard-to-recognize opening lyrics to It's All Too
>Much. Also, Not Guilty (interesting title; refers to lawsuits) was
>dropped from the White Album. In the song are lyrics about
>"handing me a writ, while I'm trying to do my bit".
"They are 'The Beatles', the smash hit, refuse-all-imitations,
Number One Group in the sensational Beat craze now devastating,
if not deafening, the British Isles."
------------------------------------- saki ([email protected])
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