Book Reveals McCartney Walked Out Of ‘Revolver’ Sessions

Robert Rodriguez's latest book, the groundbreaking, Revolver - How The Beatles Reimagined Rock 'N' Roll, touches upon the fact that the seeds of the "Fab Four's" split happened well before Yoko Ono's arrival. Rodriguez, who's best known for his two groundbreaking Beatles FAQ books, sheds light on the fact that Paul McCartney walked out on the band during their June 21st, 1966 recording session at Abbey Road Studios, which produced the John Lennon classic, "She Said, She Said" -- presumably leaving George Harrison to supply the bass work for the track.

Rodriguez told us that in recent years, who exactly the bassist is on "She Said, She Said" -- and more importantly why Paul McCartney isn't the bassist -- has been one of the biggest unanswered questions in all of "Beatledom:" "It's been this question mark hanging out there. In (McCartney's musical memoir) Many Years From Now, he tosses that out there as an aside -- 'Yeah, I didn't play bass on that. . . I don't know what happened. . . We had a barney and I said 'F - you' and stormed off and they said, 'We'll do it without you. . .' and it's like, what?! (Beatles author Mark) Lewisohn does his book -- and he's got more coming -- and you sort of expect the insider's secret research perspective, but nobody touched it. It doesn't even get mentioned in (The) Beatles Recording Sessions."

Rodriguez explains that although the band briefly mention the walk-out during January 1969's Let It Be sessions, the mere thought of McCartney abandoning the Beatles at work is inconceivable: "Y'know, the most satisfying aspect of the whole story was coming up with that quote from the Twickenham sessions where they actually speak to it when it was still a relatively recent event. That's like wow! Y'know, that was a really cool revelation, y'know, actually acknowledging that it actually happened. And just within the context of their career, y'know, Paul -- Mr. Type-A ambitious, driven-Beatle -- really, you're gonna walk off the session just as the album, the most ambitious thing you've ever done is coming to a close? In their career there's nothing to compare it to, it's just unbelievable."