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The Beatles: Get Back (2021) Part 2: Days 8-16
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John Lennon & Paul McCartney in Plymouth, England | 13 November 1963 © Jeff Hochberg
Let me change my words
Show me where it hurts
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Paul on The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman
The Lives of John Lennon was published in 1988. According to Wikipedia, it presents John as a manipulative, schizophrenic, dyslexic, abusive, antisemitic drug addict. Of course, the only thing Paul McCartney (and most others) had a problem with here was that Goldman also said John was bi.
Entertainment Tonight (5-16-89)
Albert Goldman has written a piece of trash. It is disgusting that someone like Goldman can make up any old bunch of lies he sees fit and can be allowed to publish them without fear of repudiation. The book claims that there was a long-running affair between John and Brian Epstein but there was never even the slightest hint of this, in fact quite the opposite. John was very attracted to women. John was a great man, at times wild and wacky but always deep down a wonderful human being. I urge people to boycott this book, which in my opinion is nothing more than a piece of trash.
Paul in The Beatles: Off the Record
#just found this – thank you for sharing OP#I always think that Paul's explanation for his stance makes sense.#although I have no clue if he actually was speaking from experience with people who were closeted and later came out to him#like – he had out gay friends!#but did he have a friend who was initially not out to him?#(in a meaningful way – not just Brian not telling him the moment they meet)#did he have someone close to him like John (interrupting answer: probably not) who truly *confided* in him?#I don't know. it doesn't seem like Robert Fraser ever hid his sexuality from Paul. but maybe my read on that is wrong#and my point is#I think that might be part of the mistake he's making here.#the other part is that when you are just living life with your best friend you aren't looking for clues about them#and yeah – I think there's a lot you can miss. but I also think John was often probably hiding#(in that inconsistent way of his. his facade does seem to have easily cracked.)#but I don't think the idea of compensatory homophobia/machoness was a super well-known phenomenon at the time#:(#jp#john speculation#video#89#ref
Anonymous asked:
Why do you think John was so negatively obsessed with Paul? If his incessant mentions of him in his diary are true. And almost all in tone are erm disparaging to say the least lol It kind of contrasts his more casual remarks about him to others (usually an acknowledgment of their history together and affirmation of their separate lives). Perhaps the acrimonious financial mess was enough of a pain to leave a lasting bitterness in John where Paul was concerned? Sometimes I think because their relationship was characterized by competition that John couldn’t help but continue to measure himself against Paul to the point where it wasn’t actually about Paul and more John using him as a proxy for all the ‘bad things’ (sort of a mirror to Yoko being a proxy for everything ‘good’). Idk it seems like Paul’s innate enthusiasm and confidence was why he and John became fast friends but tbh even without the band it seems like John and Paul were always kind of bound to be adults with very little in common aside from the same love of music.
On the whole, I do agree with you concerning Paul becoming a proxy for "bad things" (and the above ask elaborates on why Paul was that person).
I'm not sure I agree with you on John and Paul being bound to be adults with very little in common. I think Paul found John's interest in the occult off-putting and difficult to navigate, but I don't think that was always going to be as pronounced as it ended up under Yoko's influence. And as elaborated above, I agree with you that John was negatively fixated on Paul to the detriment of their relationship, and while that would have been difficult to resolve, I don't think it was impossible.
I also struggle with the idea they necessarily needed to have more in common than their love of music to be friends – that's already a lot IMO! And clearly they always shared a sense of humour and were able to have conversations about bread and babies. I know some think that was worthless, but tbh, a lot of parent-aged adults like talking about what they cook and their kids.
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John Lennon & Paul McCartney on the set of television special The Music of Lennon & McCartney at Granada Studios in Manchester, England | 2 November 1965
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"John learned to play upside down too because of me"
Photo showing George playing Paul’s bass upside down. The photo is from the Cavern on April 5, 1962. Pete is singing, Paul is on drums and George is on Paul’s Hofner bass.
I had to learn (to play guitar) backwards. I can play a right-handed guitar a bit, just enough for parties when people are hopefully drunk,” said Paul talking about the early days of the Beatles.
He explained that the other guys wouldn’t let him restring their guitars so he had to learn to play their guitars upside down.
“It’s funny. John learned to play upside down too because of me – mine was the only other guitar around for him if he broke a string or didn’t have his and he got pretty good playing mine,” said Paul.
“And when John wasn’t there, I’d pick up his guitar and play it upside down.”
- Paul McCartney, interview w/ Tom Mulhern. (July, 1990)
#I knew that Paul learned to play upside down #but I didn't know John did too #that's really sweet #effort goes a long way
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John and I did run into some trouble in Frankfurt, Germany… Somehow, the desk clerk at the airport hotel couldn’t find our reservations, and no amount of my pleading could convince him to give us some rooms. I reported the bad news to John, who’d been “hiding” in the hotel lobby by using his old disguise of staring close up at a wall.
“They have no rooms,” I said.
“They have rooms!” he said. “They always have rooms!”
“Maybe you can try?” I asked. “I mean, you are John Lennon. If anybody can get us rooms, you can.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I can’t say, ‘I’m a Beatle: give us rooms.’ ”
“John, it’s raining outside. We can’t walk around Frankfurt in the rain all night.”
John sighed and headed towards the front desk to reluctantly play the Beatle card. For the next few minutes, I watched as he and the clerk chatted, occasionally smiled, and at one point even laughed. And then, for some reason, John pointed at me. The clerk stared in my direction, nodding furiously. A few moments later, John came over with two keys.
“I told him you were Paul McCartney,” John said. “That seemed to work.”
It worked, all right. I was given a gorgeous suite with a feather bed and a sauna. A little later, the desk manager sent up a tray of delicious snacks and a bottle of wine. Life as Paul McCartney was clearly good.
But then, early in the morning, John was at my door, looking tired and miserable. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “This place is such a dive. They gave me a bloody closet.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “This place is great!”
John stepped into the suite, surveyed its opulence, and his jaw practically hit the floor.
“I guess the desk manager liked the “fact that I wrote ‘Yesterday,’ ” I joked.
John didn’t laugh.
Excerpt From ‘We All Shine On’, Elliot Mintz
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JOHN: But I think you—
PAUL: You have—
JOHN: I feel it’s you.
PAUL: Whatever it is, you have. Yeah, I know. Well, I’ve had [inaudible]—
JOHN: Because you – ’cause you’ve suddenly got it all, you see.
PAUL: Mm.
JOHN: I know that, because of the way I am, like when we were in Mendips, like I said, “Do you like me?” or whatever it is. I’ve always – uh, played that one.
PAUL: [laughs nervously] Yes.
Get Back session, January 1969
An overheard dialogue between John and Paul just after John and Yoko had first slept together and recorded Two Virgins in May 1968.
‘Do you hate me?’ John asked repeatedly. ‘I’m crazy, you know.’
'No, I don’t hate you.’ McCartney spoke with his face partly averted from Lennon’s rapt gaze.
'Aren’t you pissed at me now, Paul? Not even a little bit?’
'I’m very proud of you.’
John eased off. 'Maybe I won’t split.’
McCartney, by Christopher Standford
Y’ALL WHY IS JOHN ALWAYS ASKING PAUL THIS, IT BREAKS MY HEART.
AND NOW IM THINKING ABOUT JOHN’S LYRIC “I WAS FEELING INSECURE, YOU MIGHT NOT LOVE ME ANYMORE.” This is too much.
idontwanttospoiltheparty reblogged
Enter Paul McCartney. I can’t tell you how many conversations I had with John about Paul over the years. Dozens at least, likely many more. John’s feelings about his former bandmate were as complicated as they were expansive, and they changed not just from year to year but from minute to minute. Next to Yoko, Paul was the single most important relationship of John’s life. They had grown up together, been teenage bandmates before The Beatles were even born, and then found themselves thrust into the biggest pop cultural phenomenon of all time, a wholly unique experience that bonded all four Beatles—but especially John and Paul, the group’s front men—for life.
“I loved Paul,” John declared to me. “He was my brother. I remember in the early years, before we were called The Beatles, being in the back of the van with him, going from gig to gig. And then, next thing we knew, we were in a limousine going from the airport to the Plaza Hotel the day The Beatles landed in America. You can’t believe the thrill of that moment of us being together. We knew we had made it even before we did The Ed Sullivan Show. We knew we had conquered America. “When we sang together,” John went on, “Paul and I would share the same microphone. I’d be close enough to kiss him. Back then, I didn’t wear me specs onstage—Brian Epstein said they made me look old. So we’d be playing these concerts, in front of thousands of people, but the only thing I could see was Paul’s face. He was always there next to me—I could always feel his presence. It’s what I remember most about those concerts.“
“Paul and I had our differences early on, mostly creative ones, but we always got over them. Then I met Yoko and we fell in love. When I invited her to the recording studio during the Let It Be sessions, none of them took it well. This was a men’s club, and no women were allowed in the recording room. But Paul seemed the most bothered about Yoko, and part of me felt it was because he was jealous. Because up till then, he had all me attention, all me love when we were recording. And now there was another. Now there was Yoko.“
We All Shine On - Elliot Mintz
#a sibling comparison; “close enough to kiss”; a suspicion of jealousy (basically explicitly tied to creativity btw)#my favourite thing about them is how you can't pigeonhole them#it is incredibly funny to me when people get actively annoyed about anyone comparing john and paul to brothers when they did that themselves#they always did BOTH. the marriage metaphors AND the sibling ones#you can make it weird (even if it's so obviously Not That Deep) or you can think “hm. it's complicated isn't it”#and of course: let's all remember this is a recollection of a quote many years after the fact#(unless it says somewhere that this is taken out of mintz' contemporaneous journal?)#ref#john#jp#mintz
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#“close enough to kiss him” is cool but I also wish we sometimes were a little sceptical about verbatim quotes fifty-ish years after the fact#also. methinks the New McLennon Narrative™ has started to affect the sources#but that's just my personal take#based on vibes#it's just very: uh. why now?#anyways#meta#jp
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“When we sang together,” Lennon told Mintz in one of their conversations, “Paul and I would share the same microphone. I’d be close enough to kiss him. Back then, I didn’t wear me specs onstage – Brian Epstein said they made me look old. So we’d be playing these concerts, in front of thousands of people, but the only thing I could see was Paul’s face. He was always there next to me – I could always feel his presence. It’s what I remember most about those concerts.”
(x)
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John Lennon & Paul McCartney at the Playhouse Theatre in London, England | 16 October 1963
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“I do occasionally think it would have been really nice to have sorted things out with him, be mellow together, get together with the kids. But what are you going to do? We drifted apart. John went to live in New York and became different. It was hard to relate after a while.
It just got crazy with all the business thing. What happened was there came a point when we didn’t trust each other. The worst. It got very bad, very heavy. But if John and I ever talked about kids, he remembered who we were again, that we were nice people.
The great blessing of it all for me was that the last time I ever spoke to him in a phone call was really warm. Some of the best communication we ever had. It wasn’t an argument. We had plenty of hangups on eath other.”