George suggested The Beatles stop touring as the 3rd USA tour grinded on, as he (and Ringo) didn’t think they were playing as well as they once had. They didn’t even have stage monitors, to be able hear their vocals! I therefore don’t fault them for the often out-of-tune harmonies of their live shows.
They never again performed together live on stage until on the rooftop in Get Back (with Billy Preston on electric piano). In that performance, they sound pretty rusty imo. Having not played night after night on stage for many years, they were not exactly firing on all 8 cylinders! But that’s immaterial; it was their songs that made them what they were, and their personalities, humour, style, and cultural influence.
When I said arrangements, I was talking about the charts George Martin wrote for the strings, horns, and other instruments The Beatles themselves didn’t play. The "arrangements" of the songs themselves, the song construction---verse/chorus/refrain or middle 8 (no offense, but that’s not what "arrangement" means), THAT John, George, and Paul did, with some suggestions from Martin. In contrast, Brian Wilson DID write all the parts for the strings, horns, percussion, tuned percussion (tympani), keyboards (piano and organ), celeste and harp, bass harmonica, basses (up to three on any given song: upright acoustic, 4-string electric played by Carol Kaye, and Fender or Danelectro 6-string), and complex harmonies and counterpoint he started using long before did The Beatles. I can’t overstate in what high esteem Paul McCartney holds Brian Wilson.
During the recording of Smile (an album scheduled to be released before Sgt. Pepper. It ended up not being released at all---at least not fully finished, but is truly and astonishingly musically revolutionary. Sgt. Pepper---a vastly over-rated album imo, pales in comparison), Brian and his brother Carl were floating in Brian's pool, a Beethoven symphony playing on the outdoor speakers. As the symphony ended, Brian turned to Carl and said: "It's nice to know you're a musical midget" ;-) . I love humility.
