Beatles book reveals John Lennon encounter that made Mick Jagger ‘very uncomfortable’

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Kelly Rissman

US News Reporter

A controversial book about The Beatles is shining a light on the band’s most contentious years.

The Love You Make was first published in 1983, having been written by Steven Gaines and Peter Brown, who was the personal assistant to the band’s manager Brian Epstein and stepped in to oversee the band’s affairs when Epstein died.

But the band were left “furious” by the revelations made in the book, with Gaines recalling: “Paul and Linda [McCartney] tore the book apart and burned it in the fireplace, page by page.

“There was an omerta, a code of silence around the Beatles, and they didn’t think anyone would come forward to tell the truth.

Now, inspired by Peter Jackson’s acclaimed documentary Get Back, Gaines and Brown are releasing a follow-up book filled with interview transcripts from which The Love You Make was written.

One moment in the book reveals an encounter The Beatles had with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger that left the musician feeling “very uncomfortable”.

It concerned Allen Klein, the shady accountant who came in to manage The Beatles and eventually sacked everyone the band had been working with at the time. Lennon was a big fan of Klein, with Gaines suggesting to The Times it was due to the businessman offering Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono “a million dollars for her movie project”.

At the time, Brown, attempting to steer the band away from Klein, set up a meeting with Jagger so he could “explain who this Allen Klein was”.

However, Brown recalled that Lennon, “in his wonderful way, had Klein turn up to the same meeting, which was deeply embarrassing”.

He said that this ploy from Lennon “made Mick very uncomfortable”.

It was previously revealed that McCartney passed up the opportunity to play on a certain Beatles song due to a fight he’d had with some of his bandmates.

Reminiscing on the time the band recorded Revolver track “She Said, She Said”, McCartney, 81, told Many Years from Now: “I’m not sure, but I think it was one of the only Beatle records I never played on.”

He continued: “I think we’d had a barney or something and I said, ‘Oh, f*** you!’ and they said, ‘Well, we’ll do it’.”

McCartney said he believed George Harrison played bass on the track instead.