The Beatles reunion rumours

Throughout the seventies, the press reported upcoming Beatles reunions every now and then, reunions that were never planned, and never happened.

Reunion rumours were strongest whenever two of the band members were seen together, and the first rumours got started around the Concert for Bangladesh. With two members participating, it’s now known that Lennon was invited along too, but backed out.

The next time was probably in 1973, when three of them performed on Ringo’s “I’m The Greatest” track on his Ringo album, with the fourth member, Paul McCartney appearing on a couple of other tracks on the album.

There were also rumours about a Beatles reunion in 1974, not because of Lennon and McCartney’s jam session in Los Angeles in March, because that was not publicly known at the time, but on April 20, the rumours said that John, Paul, George and Ringo were all at the Beverly Wiltshire Hotel in LA for a business meeting.

The closest they ever got, was when Paul McCartney was visiting John Lennon in New York City in 1976, and they were contemplating going to the Saturday Night Live studios for a laugh, as the show had offered $3,000 for a Beatles reunion as a joke. This offer came just after promoter Bill Sargent had offered the Beatles $50 million for one reunion show.

Lennon later told Playboy, “Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag … He and Linda walked in, and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, ‘Ha-ha, wouldn’t it be funny if we went down?’” 

McCartney later recalled, “[John] said, ‘We should go down there. We should go down now and just do it.’ It was one of those moments where we said, ‘Let’s not and say we did.’ “

Lennon said, “We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired …”