What do u think the boys would’ve done if the beatles had never taken off?
This is something I rotate in my mind *a lot*.
Ringo would have been a moderately successful drummer. He would eventually have either been snapped up by a band that got big, or been a session guy. All he wanted to do was play drums, and he was good at it.
George would have probably become an electrician. He had already done some of the apprenticeship, and afaik was doing ok at it. I don't think he had the ambition that John and Paul had for fame. He was a very good guitarist though, so maybe he would have kept up the playing in an amateur way.
John would have bummed around from job to job, finding ways to be creative, and piss off his boss. He was extremely charming, so there's some chance he would have found a rich woman (or man!) to marry. I couldn't really tell you why, but I don't see him ending up in jail, as he joked occasionally.
I adore AUs where Paul is a teacher or something, but I don't see that as a real possibility once he'd had a taste of fame. He once told Brian that he would want to be a solo artist if the Beatles didn't work out, and I think he had the drive and talent to make that happen. I think he might have been a much less interesting artist without the influence of his years with the Beatles (or am I just repeating tired tropes about him). He's never found another collaboration that suited his temperament quite as well as the Beatles, and yet he is a deeply collaborative artist who shines when he co-creates and elevates everything he works on.
