Paul McCartney has admitted that Yoko Ono‘s presence during The Beatles‘ recording sessions was “an interference in the workplace”.
Ono met John Lennon in 1966 and the couple were married from 1969 until his death in 1980.
In a new episode of his new 12-part podcast series, McCartney: A Life In Lyrics, McCartney spoke about about the group’s feelings towards Ono, when she was brought into the studio by Lennon.
“John and Yoko had got together and that was bound to have an effect on the dynamics of the group,” McCartney told poet Paul Muldoon (via The Independent).
“Things like Yoko being literally in the middle of the recording session [were] something you had to deal with. The idea was that if John wanted this to happen, then it should happen. There’s no reason why not.”
He continued: “Anything that disturbs us, is disturbing. We would allow this and not make a fuss. And yet at the same time, I don’t think any of us particularly liked it.
“It was an interference in the workplace. We had a way we worked. The four of us worked with George Martin. And that was basically it. And we’d always done it like that. So not being very confrontational, I think we just bottled it up and just got on with it.”
His latest comments are similar to his thoughts on the subject that he has previously expressed.
In a Rolling Stone interview in 2016, McCartney said that the band were “threatened” back then as Ono was “sitting on the amps” as they recorded.
“Most bands couldn’t handle that. We handled it, but not amazingly well, because we were so tight,” he continued.
“We weren’t sexist, but girls didn’t come to the studio – they tended to leave us to it. When John got with Yoko, she wasn’t in the control room or to the side. It was in the middle of the four of us.”
But he did say that their relationship now is “like mates” at the time. McCartney had also said in a previous interview that he and his fellow Beatles bandmates were “all cheesed off” when Yoko Ono first came into the studio.
During his podcast series so far, McCartney has also said that Lennon still influences his approach to writing song lyrics, The Beatles “loved the idea” that Russians secretly listened to their “forbidden” music and he broke down the creation of their classic hit ‘Eleanor Rigby’.