The Beatles’ rooftop performance arrest ‘was a bluff’ – ‘I should have resigned’ | Music | Entertainment
On January 30, 1969, The Beatles played together for the final time on the rooftop of their building at Apple HQ in London, UK. The performance was filmed by their documentarians, who were filming the Let It Be movie to coincide with the release of their final album of the same name. Although they were threatened when they started playing, the police officer who was there that day has now laid down the truth.
PC Ray Dagg was just 19-years-old when he attempted to stop The Beatles’ performance on the building’s rooftop. At the time, a number of noise complaints had been submitted, potentially ruining their final public gig.
Footage of the gig showed a few police officers – including Dagg – threatening to arrest the band. However, the man himself has now claimed his words were nothing more than empty threats.
He said he was “running a bluff”, noting he could not arrest The Beatles because they were on “private property”.
He added: “At 19, I was pretty gung-ho and I think I probably might have, and taken the flak afterwards for wrongful arrest.”
Dagg said: “If I knew then what I know now, I’d have resigned and taken the money.” He went on to quit the police force six years later in 1975, and went on to have a successful career in sales.
McCartney even started poking fun at the officers during the performance. He changed the lyrics to one of the songs to hit out at the police trying to do their jobs.
He improvised some of the lyrics after he locked eyes with Dagg and his fellow police officers.
He reportedly crooned: “You’ve been playing on the roofs again / And you know your momma doesn’t like it / She’s going to have you arrested.”
Ringo Starr later reminisced about how the band was struggling to decide where to play on that fateful day. At one point, they were not even going to play at all.
The directors of the documentary urged the band to find somewhere to play.
Eventually, they had a brainstorming session. Ringo recalled: “There was a plan to play live somewhere. We were wondering where we could go. [We said:] ‘Oh, the Palladium or the Sahara.’ But we would have had to take all the stuff, so we decided ‘let’s get up on the roof.'”
