How the Beatles Anthology documentary came to be…as the Beatles said it

Editor’s note: This the first in a series of articles marking the 30th anniversary of the Beatles Anthology.

The Beatles Anthology in 1995 did more than finish a project discussed for 25+ years.

The Beatles Anthology TV documentary celebrates its 30th anniversary this fall. However, the genesis of the project dates back considerably further. In fact, even in the early ‘90s, it was still a long and winding road to get to the 1995 documentary and to the ‘Threetles’ reuniting to record the first new Beatles music in 25 years. The Anthology also accomplished so much more.

Here, we look at a chronology of how the documentary came to be, as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr said it.

Early talk of the documentary

As early as 1969, the Beatles planned to have a self-made documentary. Long-time Beatle employee Neil Aspinall was put in charge of it.

“In ’69, in all the chaos, the traumas – things were falling apart but they were still making Abbey Road – Paul called me saying, ‘You should collect as much of the material that’s out there, get it together before it disappears,’” Aspinall explained in 1996. “So I started to do that, got in touch with all the TV stations around the world, checked what we had in our own library.”[1]

Word about the documentary first appeared in the New York Times in February of 1970. “We will soon be treated to two new Beatles flicks, Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road,” the article stated. It described the latter as “a record of [the Beatles] travels and adventures.”[2]

Aspinall went so far as to make a rough cut of what was then envisioned as a theatrical film. “I did collect quite a bit of stuff, and just sort of edited it down to like an hour and 45 minutes, put the credits from Magical Mystery Tour on the end so people knew it was the end, and really just sent it to everybody in like a rough cut form,” Aspinall said.[3] The documentary was stated to be set for a pre-Christmas release in 1970.[4]

Film put on back burner

There was just one problem. A rough draft of the movie might have been finished, but so were the Beatles.

“The Beatles had split up by then, so there was really no chance of anything happening with it,” Aspinall said. “I sent them a copy of it each, which they all quite liked, then I put it on the shelf.”[1]

Equally importantly, McCartney was suing Lennon, Harrison, and Starr. The documentary was put on hold.

Some of the Beatles’ legal entanglements, though hardly all, were resolved February 25, 1974. A lawyer involved in the case told the judge, “They are on the point of resolving their differences.”[5]

Based on that, the following month, McCartney discussed the possibility of the group working together in some fashion. “I’m a bit cautious about saying anything, but I think, you know, once we get our business problems sorted, which are still being sorted, there’s a chance we might just feel like getting together and doing something, you know?” McCartney said. “I wouldn’t like to say what.”[6]

Lennon, meanwhile, spoke about the documentary in November, 1974. “There is a film in the offing that’s comprised of all the films we’ve collected from all the tours and all the interviews over the world that’s been put together which will be called The Long and Winding Road, no doubt.”[7]

Discussion continues in the ‘80s 

Talk of the film, at least in terms of what was said in the press, seemed to subside during Lennon’s “house husband” years. However, it’s clear the group still intended to finish the project.

On November 28, 1980, Lennon spoke about the documentary in a deposition for the Beatles’ lawsuit against Beatlemania, an unauthorized Broadway musical focused on the Beatles’ music. This was just 10 days before Lennon was killed. 

“We all know how to end it," Lennon said of the documentary. “Beatles performing and singing to round off a film of the Beatles singing throughout their career, similar to the way Let It Be ended.”[8]

Even after Lennon’s death, talk of the documentary continued. McCartney mentioned it in 1986.

“We were talking about doing a Beatles movie a couple of years ago: slinging in home movies and old outtakes, adding narration – the definitive Beatles story,” he said. “We were going to call it The Long and Winding Road.”[9] McCartney also mentioned the possibility of new music. “George and I have talked once or twice about maybe just plonking a couple of acoustics together,” he said.

However, the Beatles’ legal troubles still stood in the way. In fact, they’d grown.

McCartney had made a deal with Capitol Records giving them six of his albums. As part of the agreement, he negotiated a slightly higher royalty rate on the Beatles’ albums than Lennon’s estate, Harrison, and Starr.[10] The others sued.

The Beatles 1988 Hall of Fame induction

The continuing legal squabbles led to McCartney skipping the Beatles’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January of 1988. “I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion,” McCartney said in a statement.[10] He had tried to get the trio to drop their lawsuit against him immediately in advance of the induction but was unsuccessful.

The following month, Harrison spoke tersely of McCartney missing the induction. “I think he put another nail in his own coffin, as far as him as a person,” Harrison said. “Because, you know, as Bob Dylan said at the Hall of Fame, love and peace is one thing, but we all have to have forgiveness too.”[11]

However, Harrison also indicated that his relationship with McCartney was better than it had been in a long time. “But we do, actually, we do get on. I mean, at this point in time, I'm the closest I've been with Paul now for, say, the last 10, 12 years,” Harrison said. “And that's why it seems so silly what he did. But in spite of that, I still love him, and it doesn't matter. I'm going to continue my friendship with him, regardless of his attitude, because I don't have time to screw around anymore.”[11]

More talk of a reunion – and new music 

Despite this disagreement, McCartney continued to talk about the documentary and the potential for new music. He also talked again about collaborating with Harrison.

"There are a lot of exciting possibilities,” McCartney said in 1989. “We might even write some new music. George and I have never written together, which is a staggering fact. And we could finally do The Long and Winding Road and set the story right…But if we're going to move in harmony and all that, we've got to get rid of the business shit.”[10] The statement echoed what McCartney said 15 years earlier, yet the legal troubles remained. 

Starr also talked about the impediment the legal issues caused. “We've been in court for 19 years,” he said in the fall of 1989. “That's nothing new. Sometimes we get flashes of good inspiration, even though we're in court, and we can put that behind us. Then suddenly it rears its ugly head and everything is off.”[12]

In the same interview, Starr seemed dim about the possibility of recording new music. “Paul has said that if the lawyers get out of the way there's a chance. But a chance for what?” Starr asked. “If the three of us play together, it won't be the Beatles; it'll be Ringo, George, and Paul. And I have no burning desire to do that.”[12] 

Legal problems resolve 

Finally, on November 9th, 1989, the Beatles resolved all of their various lawsuits. The mammoth settlement ended nine sets of legal disputes.

At this point, the person who kept the idea of the Anthology documentary going was the person first charged with making it: Neil Aspinall. Critically, he also pushed for it to be changed into a TV documentary. 

“Actually, it was me that called everybody and resuscitated it, if you like, or the possibility of doing, but also to do it as a series of videos, rather than as a theatrical production,” Aspinall said in 1995 in a rare interview. “I'm not sure documentary-type visuals work theatrically, but they do on a television basis.”[13]

At the end of the same month the lawsuits were resolved, as McCartney was preparing to give a concert in Los Angeles, he talked about finally finishing the Beatles documentary now that the legal disputes were resolved. He also continued to leave the door open to the group working together again.

“So maybe we could get that film finished,” McCartney said. “Maybe we could do a little bit of new music, like maybe start off with some incidental music or something, and see where we go from there. And then the other possibility is that maybe George and I could write some stuff, because we've never actually written together.”[14]

Ringo Starr dismissed the talk as a promotional stunt. “Macca always talks like that when he's on tour,” Starr said. “But there'll never be a reunion. One of us is dead.”[15]

Personal problems remain

Harrison’s response, given the same day as McCartney’s Los Angeles press conference, was pure acid. His statement read, “As far as I am concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.”[16] In the same article, Harrison told a writer he was speaking with that day that he had “no relationship” with McCartney.

That writer’s article wouldn’t come out for several months, and Harrison’s actual response was more nuanced. “We don’t have a relationship,” Harrison said of McCartney. Then, after a long pause, Harrison continued, “I think of him as a good friend really, but a friend I don’t have that much in common with anymore. You know, you meet people in your life, or you’re remarried and then you’re divorced. You wish the other person well, but life has taken you to other places. To friendlier climes.” He added, “I do wish him well. There’s always a place in my heart for Paul.”[17]

Still, Harrison was excited about the Anthology documentary and albums. He said in the same 1989 interview, “We’ve got the real versions of the [songs] that have been bootlegged, and we’ve got plans to put all that out. And the BBC has a lot of tapes. I just realized that I’ve got a really good bootleg tape, demos we made at my house on an Ampex four-track during the White Album. Mainly there’s different versions of stuff, and stuff that people know of as bootlegs from our club days.”[17]

Coming from a different angle

While Harrison was excited about the Anthology documentary, he threw cold water on the idea of collaborating with McCartney. Promoting the Traveling Wilbury’s Volume 3 in late 1990, Harrison said of McCartney, “He's had 30 years of my life to write a tune with me. He's left it a bit late now.”[18]

Starr also discussed the documentary in 1990. “I just did an interview about the early days...for a series of videos that we're calling The Long and Winding Road,” he said. Starr continued, “In that way you could say that we’re really getting together.”[19] He said that, five years previously, the group had sent a working copy of the film to several directors to consider.

“Basically, we did the film five years ago,” Starr said. “Neil Aspinall put it together from what we had in the archives, and then we sent copies to several directors. And a lot of them got uptight, because we actually sent it to somebody else. So it sort of faded into the blue. But that won’t happen now, because we’re breaking it up into the videos.”[19]

Harrison continued talking about the documentary in the summer of 1992. “We’ve approached it from a totally different angle, because the only people who really know the Beatles story is the four of us,” he said. Harrison later continued, “We’re talking about maybe a ten-cassette kind of show.”[20]

Telling their own story 

For the documentary, Aspinall determined that there would be no narrator. “What I’d decided right from the very beginning – not just now, but twenty years ago, when I did the original one – was not have some mid-Atlantic voice commentator telling The Beatles' story,” Aspinall said. “It was better for them to tell their own story.”[21]

The Beatles music and other content had been, and continues to be, bootlegged relentlessly. Here, however, Aspinall had an advantage. That would not apply if the documentary had new content. 

“I realized that the one thing that we had that nobody else had, no third party had, was access to interviews with the surviving Beatles and all John's interviews, with Yoko's consent,” Aspinall said.[21]

At first, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr had some hesitancy in the interviews. “Then over a period of time they got into it,” Aspinall said. “By the time they got to the third interview, that's noticeable, because you'll find that if you ask one of them a question (whichever one it is), if they don' know the answer, they'll say, ‘Oh, maybe Paul knows the answer or maybe Ringo knows the answer or maybe George knows the answer.’ So then you can cut to the other individual, and he doesn't know the answer, so he'll say maybe somebody else knows the answer! That came from watching what they'd done in their first interviews.”[21]

A name change in the offing 

Harrison revealed in November of 1992 that the name of the documentary would be changed. “We’re still only just putting it together, finally now, as the Beatles documentary,” he said. “But we’ve had a lot of this footage on a thing that was tentatively called The Long and Winding Road, but we’re not having it called that anymore, I’m glad to say, because in a way that title’s been haunting us for years.”[22]

Aspinall described how the final name came about. “Somebody said, ‘Oh it’s like an anthology that you’re doing?’ Okay, then it became The Beatles Anthology.”[1]

In December or 1992, McCartney continued to dangle the idea of new music. “I saw George yesterday in California, and we're getting together for this thing – so it's bringing us together,” he said. “And there's a chance that we might write a little bit of music for it.”[23]

McCartney did, however, try to dampen expectations. “Rather than put a big pressure on us and say, the Beatles are re-forming, probably it will happen a bit more naturally and we'll get together for this [series] and that will just be the three of us probably,” he said.[24]

Producer George Martin offered his thoughts on the possibility of new music. “I don't suppose they'll do more than one or two songs, but it makes sense,” Martin said. “It's just a pity John's not around to be part of it, too.”[25]

Reunion plans heat up

Ringo Starr said on the radio in mid-October of 1993 that the three had gotten together at a London meeting earlier in the month and worked out reunion plans.[26] Harrison, meanwhile, confirmed in November, 1993 while in Australia that the trio would try to make new music.

“The three of us are doing some new songs to go at the end of the Anthology," Harrison said. “It's an experiment; we are going to try to write some new material together and do them. It might not work, we might not be able to write together anymore. We'll just have to wait and see.” Harrison said of the Anthology documentary, “It's something we're all happy about.”[27]

McCartney stated at a November 25th 1993 press conference in Mexico City that the three would get together in January of 1994. “There is a chance that we might actually do a little bit of music for it. I shouldn't think that we'll re-form as a band, but we'll do a bit of work together.”[28]

By the end of 1993 into early 1994, things began to move at a swift pace. Goldmine magazine reported in its January 21st 1994 issue, released several weeks prior, that McCartney, Harrison, and Starr had, in fact, already met the prior August and recorded music.[29] (This report was subsequently discredited.) The news was picked up by Newsday.[30]

Lennon’s Hall of Fame induction

In January 1994, Martin talked as if he expected to produce the new music. (Jeff Lynne eventually would). Martin said, “What will happen is that George and Paul will work out material. I never go into the studio without knowing what I'm going to do beforehand. And before they go into the studio, I make sure the songs are going to be pretty good.”[31]

The New Yorker laid out the details in its January 24th 1994 issue. (The article came out January 17th 1994.) It said that McCartney, Harrison, and Starr would be meeting in February to record music. Better still, it said that it would be new music.

“They will be recording new compositions, not remakes of old Beatles songs,” the article stated.[32] The story was picked up by major news outlets.

Two days later, on January 19th 1994, McCartney made things official at John Lennon’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said that the Beatles would work together again.

“The alternative is that we don't go back into the studio,” McCartney said. “We just say, oh we can't do it, you know, that's probably true, but for old time's sake, we're going to give it a whirl. We're not trying to better anything that The Beatles did. We know we can't do that, but just for a bit of fun for this documentary, we're going to try and do something.”[33]

“Just please give the three of them a chance," Yoko Ono implored at McCartney’s side.[34] 

Looking at every frame

Unbeknownst to anyone then, McCartney went to the Dakota the same night as Lennon’s Hall of Fame induction. Ono played him a series of John Lennon home demos to consider as reunion songs. McCartney left with the cassettes.

Ono later said that giving McCartney, Harrison, and Starr the tapes was “'a very, very big decision.” She said she struggled with the idea of giving away Lennon’s private tapes but also appreciated the significance of doing so.

“I felt that for me to stand in the way of that reunion would be wrong,” Ono said. “So I decided to go with the flow.”[35]

Come the spring of 1995, the final name of the documentary still didn’t seem to be officially settled. “It may be called The Beatles By The Beatles, or it could just be called The Beatles Anthology,” Harrison said.[36] Shortly thereafter, the documentary was officially announced as The Beatles Anthology.[37]

That summer, Starr said that he, Harrison, and McCartney were heavily involved in the creation of the documentary. “We look at it all,” Starr said. “I've seen every frame, actually, and the edits. We sit in the editing room with the director and the producer and say, ‘We'd like that changed, we want that lengthened, or we want that cut out.' We are totally involved with it.”[38]

Finally, come November, 1995, the Beatles Anthology documentary aired on TV along with two reunion songs. The project that started as The Long and Winding Road had come full-circle.

And in the end…

Overall, the Beatles Anthology documentary took more than 25 years to come to fruition. The project also greatly expanded from a short documentary to a multi-day TV series, reunion songs, albums, a book, and an expanded VHS version of the documentary.

But The Beatles Anthology accomplished much more. The Beatles, of course, were more than a soundtrack for a generation. They were also more than “just a band that made it very, very big,” as John Lennon once said. They were more than cultural icons, as the enduring love of their music across generations has shown.

The Beatles represented something else. Something much deeper that became imbued into people’s psyche.

In that way, the years of acrimony and legal wrangling always left the impression of something unresolved. How could a band that created and inspired so much love have dissolved into such bitterness? How could it really end that way?

It could not. The Anthology ended the story differently, not just for fans, but more importantly for McCartney, Harrison, and Starr. Harrison said it best in a summer 1995 interview that was just released earlier this year.

“The thing that's the most pleasing is that we're all friendly again,” Harrison said. “I mean, we had some turbulent, turbulent years in the meantime, but it's just fun to have your old friends back again.”[39]

REFERENCES 

[1] Interview with Neil Aspinall by Paul DuNoyer. Mojo, October, 1996.

[2] Beatles to return to the big screen. New York Times News Service. The Day (New London, CT). February 20, 1970.

[3] Allan Kozinn's NY Times interview with Neil Aspinall October 11, 1995. Buskin With The Beatles, #29. 6 minutes 58 seconds.  

[4] Hello Goodbye: Twenty-five years of loving and loathing the path to the Beatles reunion. Record Collector. November, 1995. p.26.

[5] Beatles about to make up, QC tells judge. Evening Standard. February 25, 1974. p.5.

[6] Paul McCartney interview. Today, March 13, 1974. 2 minutes 57 seconds.

[7] John Lennon interview. Today, November 16, 1974. 1 minute 15 seconds.

[8] $10 Million To Beatles. Washington Post, June 4, 1986.

[9] Paul McCartney interview. Rolling Stone, September 11, 1986.

[10] Henke, James. Can Paul McCartney Get Back? Rolling Stone. June 15, 1989, #554.

[11] Harrison interview by Ray Martin. The Midday Show (Australia). February 10, 1988.

[12] A Starr is reborn. Interview by Gary Graff. WKSG. Fall, 1989.

[13] Allan Kozinn's NY Times interview with Neil Aspinall October 11, 1995. Buskin With The Beatles, #29. 8 minutes 47 seconds.  

[14] Press Conference. Great Western Forum, Los Angeles. November 27, 1989. 4 minutes 26 seconds.

[15] Robert Sandall. The Reunion. Arena. November 1995. p.94

[16] Morning Report. Los Angeles Times. November 29, 1989, p.F4.

[17] Rowland, Mark. The quiet Wilbury. Musician, March 1990, Issue #137.

[18] The Wilbury’s: Almost Kin. Detroit Free Press. October 28, 1990. p.7P.

[19] Wild, David. Ringo Starr. Rolling Stone. July 9-23, 1992. p.87.

[20] Kahn, Ashley. George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters (Musicians in Their Own Words Book 17) (p.474). Chicago Review Press. Kindle Edition. Originally from Rockline, August 1992.

[21] Apple interviews. Good Day Sunshine, #79, Winter 1995. (No page numbers.)

[22] Kahn, Ashley. George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters (p.501). Chicago Review Press. Kindle Edition. From Timothy White Interview. November 15, 1992.

[23] Hello Goodbye: Twenty-five years of loving and loathing the path to the Beatles reunion. Record Collector. November, 1995. p.28.

[24] Surviving member of Beatles will reunite. Fresno Bee (AP). December 11, 1992. p.A12.

[25] The keeper of the flame, George Martin watches over Beatles CD catalogue. Grand Forks Herald. October 8, 1993.

[26] Beatlenews Roundup. Beatlefan. #86. 1994. p4.

[27] George just loves it here. Sunday Mail (Adelaide). November 7, 1993. p.E.

[28] Beatles television. Reno Gazette-Journal. November 29, 1993, p2A.

[29] Berkenstadt, Jim. The Fab Three Come Together for New Recordings Goldmine, January 21, 1994, Vol. 20 No. 2 Issue 352, page 8.

[30] The Beatles are back in the studio, says music mag. Newsday (New York). December 28, 1993. p10.

[31] Don’t let it be just yet. London Evening Standard. January 14, 1994. p.45.

[32] Hertsgaard, Mark. Letting It Be. The New Yorker. January 24, 1994. p.78.

[33] Paul McCartney Macca Archives 1994 Vol. 1.1, Disc 1 Chapter 12. Fox News January 20, 1994.

[34] Beatlenews Roundup. Beatlefan. Mar/Apr 1994, #87. p.4.

[35] Norman, Philip. Why John was wrong to block a Beatles reunion. Daily Mail. November 13, 1995.

[36] The Beat by Melinda Newman. Billboard, May 6, 1995. p.10.

[37] Badman, Keith. The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001 (pp.1310-1311). Omnibus Press. Kindle Edition.

[38] Sharp, Ken. Ringo talks! The Beatles Book. July 1995, No. 231. p.20.

[39] Mo Foster interview of George Harrison. British Music Vault. July 11, 1995. (Released July 11, 2025) 7 minutes 39 seconds.