With unlimited studio time available to them at Abbey Road, The Beatles set about topping their previous efforts. By this time, Lennon was so spaced out from the acid that McCartney had taken over as de facto leader of the group, but the old tensions in their relationship were pushing each other to new heights, as could be heard on their next double A-side single, Penny Lane b/w Strawberry Fields Forever.
The single was merely a foretaste of The Beatles big statement, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band.
If ever an album perfectly summed up the times this was it. Acid-drenched from start to finish, it was the definitive crystallization of the mood of 1967s Summer of Love.
Though it had little real integrity as a concept album, bar the opening track and its reprise, the conceptual link was in the wash of echoed and reverbed sound, heavy with Harrison's Indian instrumentation and underlaid by the wet tea-towel clump of Ringo's drums to stop the whole thing levitating off the turntable.
The rest of the year was spent in a stoned reverie, although the hours of good-natured studio experimentation did produce two classics in the form of All You Need Is Love, broadcast live as Britain's contribution to the first global satellite link-up, and Lennon's remarkable I Am The Walrus, the product of a drug-twisted consciousness imploding into adolescent psycho-goo.
The recording was given extra emotional bite by being made only a few days after the suicide of Brian Epstein, a sobering shock amidst the love and peace vibes of that hot, incense-scented summer. Without his leadership, The Beatles were left to their own devices, a situation that would lead to financial crisis in the following year and the ultimate collapse of group spirit.
In the immediate aftermath of Epstein's death, The Beatles decided to press ahead with The Magical Mystery Tour, a film project inspired by the charabanc coach trips to Blackpool of their Liverpool youth.
The somewhat amateurish results were screened on Boxing Day to a hostile reception, though today it comes over as an engaging period piece. The Mystery Tour's destination turned out to be a disused airfield at West Malling in Kent, where the memorable I Am The Walrus clip was filmed with forty dwarfs and a military band (!?!).
Early in 1968 The Beatles decamped to Rishikesh, to the Maharishi's meditation centre on the banks of the Ganges.
Predictably, Ringo was the first to tire of the endless prayer, chanting and vegetarian curry, but Lennon and Harrison stuck it out for a full three months, before realizing that the Maharishi was extremely attentive to the spiritual needs of his female devotees.
Their stay might have ended in disillusionment, but it was to prove extremely productive in song writing terms. Freed from the entertainments of Swinging London, they had come up with enough material for a double album.
Back in London, they resumed work at Abbey Road and set about developing Apple Corps, a company that was to handle all their collective interests. As McCartney said, it was to be 'a controlled weirdness . . . a kind of western communism'. Apple Records launched with a bang on August 11, with Hey Jude, one of the finest Beatles singles. Yet, despite this testament to oneness, The Beatles were starting to come apart at the seams.
If the demands of running a business weren't enough to contend with, John's relationship with Yoko Ono (who was now present at most of their recording sessions) was another source of friction, which was to boil over during the making of the new album, officially called The Beatles, but more usually known as The White Album.
Weeks of tension culminated with the walkout of Ringo, who was of course persuaded to re-join, though the bad vibes refused to go away. The album however was a fascinating display of the different facets of the group, often in the form of solo performances backed by the other three.
As well as rockers such as Back In The USSR and Helter Skelter, The White Album was stuffed full of more reflective gems like Dear Prudence, Julia and Blackbird, not to mention the complete one-off, Happiness Is A Warm Gun.
The recording of The White Album was such a lengthy bad-tempered affair that it left the group completely exhausted musically and close to breaking point. When the band reconvened in January 1969 the idea of returning to live performance was seen as a panacea for the group's ills.
Various exotic venues were suggested before they settled on the idea of filming themselves rehearsing and recording a 'live' album/film, to be called Get Back, in a freezing film studio in Twickenham. The sessions were a disaster, with McCartney and Harrison at each other's throats, while the beatific John and Yoko looked on dispassionately.
Not even Ringo's good-natured humour could stop the rot.
Fed up, Harrison walked out and the sessions ended in chaos. When everyone had calmed down, they returned to their Apple headquarters at Saville Row in the hope of better vibes, but it was obvious that the magic had gone.
However, January did produce one legendary performance, on the rooftop of Apple, to the delight of passers-by. The band gave it their best shot, until the arrival of the Blue Meanies put an end to the proceedings. It was to be the last live Beatles show ever culminating in John's comment, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we've passed the audition."
The Beatles story was more or less over, but despite the aggravation they couldn't face bowing out with the shambles of Let It Be. Later in 1969, George Martin was astonished to get a phone call from McCartney asking him to produce an album 'the way we used to do it'. He responded cautiously, but the Abbey Road sessions proved to be astonishingly fruitful.
Harrison contributed two of his best songs, Something and Here Comes The Sun, and there was strong competition from Lennon's Come Together and from Paul, who contributed most of the 'Long Medley' on the second side. George Martin's immaculate touch at the controls gave a glittering sheen to the whole set.
Such a return to form made the band's final break-up, announced by Paul McCartney on April 10, 1970, seem even more like the end of an era.
All four Beatles pursued solo careers: John with the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums, followed by a marked decline and disappearance into domesticity and drink; Paul with the less acclaimed but more commercially successful Wings; George with a handful of albums followed by a steady career as sideman; and even Ringo was dragged away from the bar to bang out a few sentimental favourites.
On December 8, 1980, a blunt report was received by the NYPD: "Man shot. One West 72nd". When police arrived at New York's Dakota apartments, they found John Lennon bleeding from seven bullet wounds; Yoko Ono desperate to save his life; and murderer, Mark Chapman, 25, calmly reading Catcher in the Rye.
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