#however absurd

[wefortunatefew-blog]

Did anyone else listen to He Said, He Said, Ep 5 of Beautiful Possibility on the Abbey podcast by Faith Current?

I'm like violently ill over it and Faith isn't even holding my hair, so rude. It's a masterpiece. The kick to my non existent balls that was the However Absurd drop, even though I could see it coming.

IL could NEVER this series is fantasticI hope you are all listening and enjoying as much as I am. Faith, you beautiful flying squirrel I hope your pillow is always cool and your tea is always warm.

[thewalrusespublicist]

hello！It seems rare to see your opinion on Paul's songs. I would like to know your thoughts on "However Absurd," a song that constantly lingers in my mind, both for its lyrics and the way Paul sings it. Honestly, whenever I find myself doubting whether they had sexual relationships, I always revert to the moment when Paul clearly mentioned John and their relationship while explaining those lyrics：Something special between us,When we made love the game was over.I couldn't say the words,so I keep talking to you.

Hi anon!

I've never thought about it before but you're right I don't talk about his songs much, even though I love them and have a lot of opinions (shocker lol). To be honest, a big reason is I just haven't been asked!

Saying that, of all the ones to ask about...

However Absurd is like the one ring from LOTR to me. I keep that thing hidden in a drawer in the back of my mind despite its always there lurking: an enigma, a puzzle, an unresolvable question. I take it out sometimes to stare at it and it stares back at me, mocking me with its bloody egg dish. It knows that my take on their dynamic is 'queerplatonic but blurry' and it knows that it raises so many questions that make me doubt everything. It does not care, it delights in toying with me.

But as with all questions from my lovely anons, I'll try my best to give some form of coherent thought! The one good thing about the Pound is Sinking's eviler twin is that Paul did give us something to go off:

“‘Absurd’ was another thing you start off and think ‘Ooh no, that’s too Beatley, so I won’t do it.’ So I resisted it for a little while, but… it was a good system then, why ignore it now?.. .There’s a sort of ‘Walrus’ intro to this track… It’s a style I know and love. The lyrics on this one are a bit bizarre, but then again they make a kind of sense… In the middle it explains itself a bit… ‘Something special between us… Words wouldn’t get my feelings through’. That’s taking off into The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran – there’s a line of his that always used to attract me and John, which was ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.’”

Paul McCartney, 1986

So, just from the quote alone, we have the following information:

The lyrics are meant to make sense, even if done in a surrealist style

The middle section is the key to everything

The feelings and emotion connect to the phrase that both he and John enjoyed. This phrase is about trying to reach someone even if you can't express yourself properly

The music and theming is nostalgic to late 60s Beatles

Looking at the lyrics with these points in mind, I'm pretty certain one can decipher a basic outline or meaning to the song, however the following is just my interpretation:

However Absurd - Analysis

Ears twitch, like a dog, Breaking eggs in a dish. Do not mock me when I say This is not a lie.

From the off, we are introduced to the themes of unclear communication and vulnerability. If you've seen a dog at dinnertime, they perk up at any suggestion of food. The scrape and crack of eggs against a dish is a sharp sound that a dog's hearing would pick up on. Whatever's being said is enough to grab the attention of the person, but they, like the dog, cannot fully comprehend the meaning. Does the sound mean something for them? Is it for their owner? All they know is the sound is there.

Then the core vulnerability of the song, the fear that the person they are trying to open up to won't take it seriously. This indicates that the person might not accept that the singers feelings are possible or true. The denial suggests either the subject's dim view of the singers emotional depth towards them, or that the singers feelings are out of the ordinary/unexpected.

It's funny thing, half serious, With our hands on our ears. Living dreams with mouths ajar, Wide awake, we go to sleep.

Again, the joke that isn't a joke, the thing that the singer can't outright say.

Now we move to the seemingly current state of play. Our hands on our ears' is reminiscent of the 'speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil' monkeys. Is this a western or eastern interpretation of the monkeys? Is the singer and the subject (or general society?) refusing to let negative thoughts in, or refusing to hear the truth? Then the 'living dreams' vs 'wide awake' going to sleep dichotomy. There is something absurd and dreamlike about the life both lead that leaves them a little slack-jawed, overwhelmed perhaps by the insanity of their lives. If we were to put Paul into the narrative for a moment, the wide-awake dreaming would makes sense for someone whose dreams are so vivid and waking life so strange, perhaps there's a sense of escapism there. If the first stanza introduces us to the situation of uncertain communication, the second stanza gives us the context of a strange dreamlike existence wherein the singer and the subject avoid the uncomfortable truth, whatever that truth may be.

However absurd, however absurd It may seem. However absurd, however absurd It may seem.

Something special between us, When we made love the game was over. I couldn't say the words, Words wouldn't get my feelings through, So I keep talking to you

This section is supposedly the key and it's quite a bombshell key. This section reveals that the song is nonsensical to reflect that the singer cannot express themselves properly. They keep trying but what they feel is beyond words, or at least, beyond what the singer is able to express in words because crucially, they 'couldn't say them'. Another key point is that this is the only section where the past tense is used. In this framing, the making love was the inciting incident that lead to the current stalemate. What's intriguing to me is if you were to take this in any way autobiographical is that in other songs like Let Me Roll It and in interviews/general anecdotes, Paul expresses that he uses sex as a cover for real emotions and it's his easiest and potentially meaningless (?) form of expressing affection. Paul is very much a sex-first ask and talk about anything later (or never). So why would the game be up if he had sex with someone? It's Paul, he flirts with literally every woman that moves. Why would it even have taken a while to have sex or it be a crossing the threshold moment if its his first port-of-call? These are questions that I will come back to at the end.

However absurd, however absurd It may seem. However absurd, however absurd It may seem.

Custom made dinosaurs, Too late now, for a change. Everything is under the sun, But nothing is for keeps

'Custom made dinosaurs' is an unusual phrase, who are the dinosaurs and who made them? Did they turn themselves into has-been dinosaurs through their own personal issues or are the dinosaurs the people around them? That dinosaurs are perhaps best known for being extinct lends yet another meaning to 'nothing is for keeps'; it's too late to change things between them either because the dinosaurs are too set in their ways ... or because they're dead. The singer and the subject could have had it all, everything under the sun, but they couldn't keep it, either because what they had or the other person is no longer here.

However absurd, however absurd It may seem. However absurd, however absurd It may seem.

The final refrain. Normally the chorus connects a song together but here its doing double duty by reinforcing the central meaning of the song. The singer will keep talking to the subject; no matter how nonsensical, no matter how meaningless, they will never stop trying to reach them.

Overview of the song

So in a rough translation of the song: The singer keeps trying to reach someone, to tell them something that the singer feels too afraid to speak of and that the subject might not believe to be true. Whatever the truth is is either preposterous to the subject or is framed in a funny/light-hearted way that gives the singer an 'out' emotionally. The pair lived/live in a half dream-like reality which renders them unable to communicate their feelings or allows them to avoid them. Whatever the situation, this fragile peace/ignorance was ruined when the pair consummated their relationship and things were never the same, exacerbated by the continued difficulty of the singer to convey their feeling. The last two stanzas are a sad contradiction. They had the potential to have everything and they squandered it and it's now too late to go back or change anything BUT the singer will keep trying, no matter how absurd the attempt is.

So, what the hell to make of it?

Well, I mean...well. Like I mean ... it's the timing of the mid 1980s, it's the similar theming to another song confirmed to be at least partially about John ('This One') as well as the sentiments expressed about John in several interviews/'Broad Street', the nostalgic reminisces to the late 60s and most of the presentation of the relationship and living in a dream-like world. I mean come ON. And yh, if this song was taken to be entirely autobiographical and entirely about John then yes, the middle section is explosive. There's no two ways about it. Hidden in the last track of one of Paul's albums is the revelation he and John had a romantic relationship and that they slept together.

But there are a few problems with this viewpoint that make me hesitate. The first is the fundamental issue of taking songs as a 1-1 autobiographical account of events as that's just not how songwriting works, especially not how Paul's writing works. Songwriting is often autobiographical but not necessarily in an 'this is x from my real life, I love x. Here's a song entirely about x. Yay for x'. A lot of songs are like that true, but in many cases it's more a 'this is x from my real life that has inspired feelings. I'm writing a song about those feelings and inserting them into a song about a fantasy relationship with y. As it's a fantasy I can also pull feelings from my other real life relationships with Z and Q. Therefore the song is inspired by X but contains elements not applicable to X as the relationship has been fictionalised.' A perfect example is 'Don't go jumping into waterfalls' which started out as feelings of protectiveness Paul had towards his children but then morphed into a romantic song. Even if he was heavily inspired by John and their late Beatles work, it doesen't rule out the relationship depicted in the song being made-up or based on other relationships throw in as well.

Adding on to this is Paul's own words in interviews and general response. This is probably better in another post but, hell its my blog and I'm just going to say it: to my mind there has been nothing Paul has ever said that has indicated that his relationship with John ever got to having sex. Have some of his interviews, comments and song lyrics about John come across as blurring the boundary between platonic and romantic? Yeah, especially the 'if I was a girl' and 'confessing all our past affairs' and 'last mistake' malarkey. But most of these come across as Paul grappling with something he himself does not quite understand/has yet to come to terms with. Paul has also been quite emphatic about his love for John being brotherly and there have been no rumours of Paul being bisexual outside of his relationship with John. Am I willing and open to believe Paul is perhaps concealing something? Yes in theory, but I would need a lot more evidence than what has currently been laid out.

It's this contradiction that has me in such a bind about However Absurd. For my reading of the current evidence to work, I have to believe that the song was only partially inspired by John or by something else we don't know about (which itself is plausible, we read into songs what we know, especially if we don't have the full picture). In addition, I also have to believe that the weirdness of sex as a 'no turning back' moment despite that not being how Paul works at all in his relationship with women is due to it being a made up circumstance. In that reading, I have to ignore how confessional and weirdly specific it all seems and the sense that the emotions and circumstances are being concealed. Then there's the feeling that whoever the middle section of the Pound is Sinking is about is also the subject of this song. That's nothing but my gut talking but this feels like a continuation of that song and if that is the case, then there was a real life muse for both.

On the other hand, if I just throw caution to the wind and say 'yep, this is a confession' I have to chuck out most of what Paul has said in both public and what we know he said privately over the past 50 or so years. Am I willing to do that for a line in an highly ambiguous, potentially at least partially fictional song? No, that would be poor reasoning. But that doesen't mean everything sits right with me.

I'm really sorry anon I usually can come up with better than this but this song is like a kill-switch for my brain. There just isn't enough information and context available for me to come up with a better take on However Absurd. Weirdly, I think that was the point, I'm not sure we as listeners were ever meant to. There are some things that Paul wants to keep under wraps, and I personally believe However Absurd might be one of them.

[i-am-the-oyster]

Ok how have I never noticed the general similarities between Walrus and However Absurd before? Play them back to back!

But first, listen to this ham-fisted attempt to record the "woo" sound (Walrus first, then HA)

[eloeloanna]

Hello! Thanks for your reading! I want to know something about "However absurd".How did Paul feel about the song?

Thanks for your ask dear Anon!

I asked:

What did Paul feel when he wrote “However Absurd”?

He felt he was a liar.

So much time lying, so much time with the words in his throat, but unable to saying them.

It was a way of “saying it”, but still being prideful about it. He didn’t want it to say it all at once. But he needed some redemption about it. He thought that this relationship wasn’t 100% fair or fulfilling. He felt that this was almost fake - unreal. He wanted some truth of it. This was his way of offering a “solution”, even if it wasn’t the best. But I think, writing this some was very relieving for him. He NEEDED to write something like this.

+ my question:

Could this song be about his relationship with John?

This song was a song that Paul wrote to feel relief. Something/someone that he lost was lingering in his mind in the most twisted ways. He couldn’t have any objective opinion of it. It could be the most beautiful thing or the worst. For him, having any opinion of this situation was difficult. The love that he had, was something that he couldn’t stand, it was horrible, but at least, “he had it”. I think, probably Linda (very much her, I can’t see somebody else suggesting this) told him the truth of it all: he needed to face his feelings, whatever they were. It was something that he didn’t know if he could do, but he tried to do it, no matter how much horrible they were.

Based on this reading I can say that there is a very big chance that it was about John.

Thanks Anon, sorry for taking so much time 😞. I hope you like this. I did. I love “However absurd”. I love everything about it.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

In Paul’s song However Absurd there’s a chord sequence that comes in when Paul sings “I couldn’t say the words” that sounds familiar. Is it used in one of John’s songs? (I don’t know how familiar you are with John’s solo work, but you seem knowledgeable about music theory).

Yes hello anon, sorry I took so long to get to this! I hadn't actually listened to However Absurd before (and I still haven't lol, I just listened to this bit because I prefer listening to songs the first time in their album context).

So I can't think of any John song it parallels musically but I do think if someone showed me that melody (and also the arrangement) I'd sooner guess John wrote it than Paul, though I can't exactly tell you what features made me think that. It sort of had a Rock 'N' Roll (the album) vibe, I feel?

Sorry, hope this is helpful!

[helenoftroy23]

Amazing and thought-provoking

I just came across your analysis of However Absurd and thought it was lovely. I'm curious, as someone who thinks John and Paul had some kind of romantic or sexual relationship, what is your take on The Lovers That Never Were? Is he using the word "lovers" to mean "partners"? I have always interpreted it to mean that Paul knows there was something there but it never happened. Every time I start to be convinced that they were together in some way I think of this song and the devastating way Paul sings it in the demo and the heartbreaking fact that he still felt it that intensely 13 years after John's death.

Oh wow thank you! The server had a lot of fun discussing that, if it's good it's because I had a little help from my friends heheh (─‿‿─) ♡

I ended up writing a massive novel in response to all this so I hope you enjoy reading it heheh. For server members, I've pulled some quotes from my previous Discord essays on this topic so you'll see some stuff that you've read.

tl;dr - I don't think "The Lovers That Never Were" contradicts the secret relationship theory at all! I think it compliments it very well actually.

In order to get into All That, I will outline how I perceive what their relationship was built on and how they reacted to it. I should note that I don't consider this definitive. It's important to remember that we all have unique interpretations of John and Paul because of our experiences and our personal POVs. There is no single answer until Paul decides to tell us what happened and/or Sean publishes John's diaries (written and audio). Until that happens, we are all forced to look at the same material and draw our own conclusions which will naturally be shaped through our personal perceptions. Some of us are older and are much closer to the original culture that John and Paul were raised in; some of us are younger and grew up in a much more LGBT+ positive environment. This naturally has an impact on how we interpret John and Paul's relationship.

I say this because I know my POV on John and Paul is a bit different from everyone else's. I'm a historian by training but part of being a historian is the understanding that you will never fully understand the events as they happened because your personal viewpoint and inherent bias is simply too strong. But that's okay because this is a part of humanity that we all share, yeah? With that understanding LET'S GO!

Paul My view on Paul is that he's always understood that he's different from other men. I doubt he could put a name to it until very recently. Paul has synesthesia, he's bisexual, he connects to music in a savant-like way, he's neurodivergent which is why he takes criticism so hard, and all of that would still be true even if he didn't have left over emotional issues from his mother dying the way she did + his fraught relationship with his father.

Keep in mind that circumstantial evidence points to the idea that Paul orchestrated the meeting at the fête! He realized he had a mutual friend with John in Ivan (who is to say that he did not meet Ivan at a QM performance and had that mental realization there?) He went through Hot Girl Summer before and after the fête, wanting to be fucking fit so that he wasn't embarrassed to meet John! I did the same thing when I had a crush as a teenager!

So with all that in mind, imagine this: you're Paul McCartney. You met John Lennon barely a year after Mary died. You turned 15 on June 18th, 1957 and met John at the fête on July 6, 1957. At some undetermined point before this garden party you saw a beautiful boy on the bus and began riding it obsessively hoping the Teddie boy would get on it. You followed him to the chippie and stood in line behind him…allegedly because you thought "oh wow he looks so cool." Marky Mark thinks (and I agree) that you may have even followed John to at least one Quarry Man show before the fête. Is this 'normal' behavior? Or is this the unhinged behavior of a teenager with a massive crush? The kind that comes about when you see a cute boy with red hair, and red is the color you associate with happiness, and then you find out that he plays guitar just like you and you follow him around until you see one of his performances and he's so good he knocks you back and then someone says "hi Paul, I didn't know you liked music!" behind you. And you realize that it's your friend and that you can meet the boy you have a crush on through this friend. You just need to lose weight and grow your hair out first.

When did Paul first see John, anyway? Before he turned 15 I'd wager.

I submit the idea that Paul has been in love John Lennon for his entire life. It will be 67 years of love when this July 6th rolls around. John was making a name for himself, he was known around town as "that Lennon." A minor celebrity like we’ve all had in our hometowns. Paul loved music. Before the internet you would go to the town square to hear a band.

Paul did that. Saw John. Pursued him with intent. When John went to Gambier Terrace to be with Stuart, Paul made a nuisance of himself showing up at their parties and playing the proto-version of "Michelle" in front of the girls…and John.

I love you, I love you, I love you That's all I want to say Until I find a way I will say the only words I know that You'll understand

I don't think that a 15 year old Paul McCartney would explicitly label his feelings for John as 'love' or a 'crush' but I do think that's what happened. When you're a teenager, a crush can express itself in many different ways. I used to have a big crush on a girl who was a volleyball player at my junior high school…that expressed itself as intense admiration. I even told one of my friends that I thought she was 'really cool.' It wasn't until later that I realized that I had a crush on her.

But I think that Paul has always known that he's 'different' and that he wasn't like other boys while growing up. Part of his touchiness about his looks comes from being bullied but I also think that he's a lot more self aware than he pretends to be. I think he realized relatively fast how he felt about John (maybe once John picked up with Stuart and Cynthia at art college.) I think he carried that with him for years hence his anguished response to being jilted in Hamburg and how furious he was at John for running off to Spain with Brian. He didn't realize it immediately but once it sticks to you then it fucking sticks. I think that Paul has done a lot internal wrestling with being a bisexual man and what that means for him and that he has been wrestling with it for decades. I think he was fully in the grip of that wrestling as he and John's friendship began growing and Paul realized what was happening to him. He does enjoy women but I also think that he felt it was necessary to pursue them heavily as a young man to camouflage himself.

I don't think a day has gone by since 1957 where Paul has not known what he was. What exactly that means for him…is up for interpretation. That's where the gray area is. But IMO Paul has almost always known that he's sexually attracted to other men and that John woke this in him. The big question for Paul is what he should do about it.

John There's been a lot written about John and his sexuality that I won't rehash here but truthfully I think John was in a similar place to Paul in knowing that he's always had a sexual preference for other men. John was a lot less comfortable about it though. Having unprotected sex with his girlfriends was, IMO, John trying to subconsciously engineer a situation that would "fix" him via an accidental pregnancy necessitating a marriage.

Of course that didn't do anything because it never does. John still felt chemistry with Paul when they met at the fête, with that quote about them "circling each other like cats." IMO John felt something immediately -- it's not entirely clear what -- though I don't think it "love at first sight" like with Paul. IMO their friendship, while still rooted in that chemistry, developed very naturally for John and he got to enjoy a platonic relationship with Paul before he put it all together. I say this because John saw Paul as a kid, not a peer, and that this endured for their lives in Liverpool pre-Hamburg. I struggle to imagine John or Paul deliberately inciting sexual or romantic contact during that time period aside from the group wank sessions (which were really trolling sessions from John.) Like, when Julia died, John went out and sought peers at art college like Cynthia and Stuart, other students his age. John and Paul bonded over losing their mothers and Paul has that quote about pranking people with the "oh yeah…my mum's dead thanks <3" bit but it also seems like John didn't want to be around that all the time. He lost his Uncle George and then his mother, he was starting to think that he was a death-curse on men in his family and that he brought suffering with him. He wanted to be away from that so he took a vacation from music to get a chance of scenery. Which meant putting Paul in a place of competition with Stuart and Cyn but I don't think John was thinking of that initially (though he exploited the situation later.)

Then Hamburg happens and they run wild. I have an entire meta about this that you can read here but I genuinely think John did not see Paul as a full fledged adult and potential sexual partner until they were in Hamburg in the red light district. I think that something happened there that we don't know about, that it's tied up in Stuart deciding to be with Astrid, John jilting Paul, Paul saying "fuck you I'm done" and getting a job at the coil winding factory in Liverpool after being deported, John tracking Paul down and spending weeks (probably) groveling and then giving Paul an ultimatum to come back to the Beatles. All of that screams 'I just realized I'm in love with my best friend and I'm freaking the fuck out' to me lmao.

John and Paul Of course something else changed after that too and John and Paul ended up becoming so close that even the Liverpool squares around them noticed. I think that whatever was going in their relationship, it started here. In the place where John and Paul were equally distraught with each other, the future of the band was uncertain, and Paul wanted a sign of commitment from John so that he didn't feel like he wasted years of his life. And of course John always felt compelled to be the man Paul wanted him to be so he treated Paul to a vacation in Paris which was so life affirming for them that it stayed with them for the rest of their lives. IMO the Paris vacation was explicitly romantic for them.

I think a switch flipped in 1961 and they went from "messing around" to "there's something there." It erupted in Paris and they showed each other more understanding and care then they expected from each other. John did sexy pin up poses for Paul in a bed that they shared; John remembers how the French held each other in their arms and just kissed each other, lovingly; Paul felt that he discovered the answer and that all those big name philosophers had nothing on the self realization he came to inside himself. Paul even took a photo of John that high lighted his package! Thanks to @louiselux for pointing this one out:

The thing was all the kissing and the holding that was going on in Paris. And it was so romantic, just to be there and see them, even though I was twenty-one and sort of not romantic. But I really loved it, the way the people would just stand under a tree kissing; and they weren’t mauling at each other, they were just kissing. — John Lennon, Playboy interview 1980

“We were like Paris existentialists. Jean-Paul Sartre had nothing on us. Sod ‘em all - I could write a novel… It was all inside me. I could do anything now.”

Paul McCartney, Anthology

Something happened in Paris and it wasn't just them getting haircuts and John buying Paul milkshakes. There was commitment there. And then the spell comes over them again when they return in January 1964:

The first night, John and Paul stayed in their suite, listening to records and reading fan mail. George, who had been signed for 100 pounds a day by the Daily Express to write of his experiences in Paris, went to a nightclub in the Place Pigalle.

Back in the City of Light, John and Paul slept till three o'clock in the afternoon. That much everybody agreed on.

Quote by Vincent Mulchrone from Daily Mail: George Harrison was astir early, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney slumbered on until frantic photographers forced them at lens point into the Champs-Élysées.

Derek Taylor (a British journalist) wanted to know why the Beatles slept so much. "My office wants to know what they're doing in Paris, so they'd better be doing something."

Love Me Do by Michael Braun

But I know what you're thinking. "What the hell does this all have to do with these two songs?"

And my reply is to keep a few things in mind:

Paul takes criticism and slights incredibly hard, possibly overreacting in some places and letting them overwhelm him mentally.

He never got over Barcelona, he never stopped resenting Stuart and Brian, he never got over John pulling the rug out from under him regarding the order of their names in the song credits. He contemplated committing suicide by smothering himself while he was in Scotland recovering from John leaving him.

John Lennon had a baby with a woman in the middle of all this. Julian Lennon was born April 8, 1963, conceived in July 1962, less than a year after Paris.

However Absurd & The Lovers That Never Were I listened to "However Absurd" and "The Lovers That Never Were" in that order. My immediate reaction is that these are both the same kind of song: they are both expressing sadness and frustration with John. This is a common theme with Paul's post-1980 John songs. What I find interesting is that they depict different though related gripes regarding John. In "However Absurd" Paul is expressing his longing for a cottagecore fantasy romance with John and then expressing frustration at John mocking him for it:

Ears twitch, like a dog Breaking eggs in a dish Do not mock me when I say This is not a lie

But in "The Lovers That Never Were" Paul expresses a different gripe: frustration that John won't commit to him and "anticipating" the break up that he secretly knew was coming ever since 1963 when John abandoned him and his own son to play patty-cake with Brian in Spain:

I hang patiently on every word you send Will we ever be much more than just friends? As for you, you sit there playing this game You keep me waiting

When all of the clocks have run down All over the world We'll be the lovers that never were

For as long as the sun shines in somebody's eyes I believe in you baby, so don't tell me lies For as long as the trees throw down blossoms and leaves I know there will be a parade of unpainted dreams

And I know dear, how much it's going to hurt If you still refuse to get your hands dirty So you, you must tell me something… I love you Say goodbye or anything

All of the clocks have run down Time's at an end If we can't be lovers we'll never be friends

John's penchant for disregarding Paul's feelings and even weaponizing them against Paul; the dashing of Paul's cottagecore dreams that were made and solidified in Paris; the fact that John, no matter what his intentions, could not get his shit together and commit to Paul no matter what he may have felt. These two songs are not contradictory to one another. Paul's idea of "commitment" looks very much like what he had with Linda and John in 1967: sharing a home, sharing a bed, being together every day, preferably somewhere green and remote. Exclusivity. Remember that Paul deliberately sabotaged his relationship with Jane Asher by nailing a woman in their bed when Jane came home, knowing perfectly well that he was breaking their exclusivity agreement.

That IMO, is what makes someone a lover and not just a friend you have sex with and secretly pine for. No cheating, or at least your agreed version of it. No disrespecting the relationship. Continuously being together. What did John do instead of this?

I think that Paul started out his "relationship" with John carrying high hopes and then watched them crumble to dust, over and over, because John simply did not take him seriously. He got Cynthia pregnant, he ran around on Paul with Brian, he had the nerve to flip out on Jane Asher when Paul brought her around when he was the one who couldn't stay faithful to Cynthia.

My hot take is that these songs demonstrate that Paul simply could not imagine John ever truly committing to him and treating him as a true partner. The homophobia and yes ~society~ is in there too but Paul was happy to flout this when it came to just about anyone else, traipsing all over France with Fraser and Mal. The difference is that he flat out didn't trust John. Being jilted for Stuart in Hamburg loomed too big in his head. Cynthia and Julian loomed too big in his head. Brian and Barcelona, realizing that John would happily betray whatever agreements or understandings he had with Paul simply to screw Paul out of a deal, loomed too big in his head. I think in particular its Barcelona that made Paul think John didn't value any of their professed ideals. John broke Paul's heart years before Yoko came along.

He didn't trust John. Fatalism is easier than taking control of your own life sometimes, and in Paul's mind there was no reason to believe John was genuine. Like, Paul knew John very well! He had very good reason to think that John was simply not serious about him. And John, no matter what his intentions were, proved that correct over and over and over and over.

So ultimately, I think that's what these songs are about. The melodies don't necessarily reflect this when I listened to them but I think that "The Lovers That Never Were" in particular is juxtaposing bitter wink-and-nod lyrics with an oddly perky tune. It's Paul laughing at himself for ever thinking John was willing to commit. He's mocking himself because while he allowed himself to get swept up in the dream of a possible genuine relationship with John, he knew deep down that it would go the way it did. That John would find a reason to get tired of him and abandon him. And then when Yoko came along, that's exactly what John did. Paul fatalistically accepted that the time had come and John met Paul's low expectations of him.

The Weight I don't think John and Paul necessarily planned to have a secret relationship. It seems more like they bundled the sexual/romantic stuff into their "thing" where it was just part and parcel of who they were and what they did. "It's only gay if the balls touch" etc. At some point that changed but Paul became convinced early on that it wouldn't work out so he didn't acknowledge his own secret desires and dreams. There was no roadmap between him and John about where they were taking this exactly and how they were going to make it work. He had sex with John and even engaged with romantic actions with John, hoping against hope that something would change and he would be proven wrong, but then John would be careless and Paul would collapse into hurt.

And oh yeah: Paul never, ever discussed any of this with John Lennon. He never told John how hurt he was because he didn't want to put up with John's derision. He felt devalued and lost and in typical Paul fashion he chose to ignore this for years and never bring it up, forcing it to come out in bizarre nonsensical actions when he inevitably boiled over. Why would he choose to confront it? He made sure to set up several safety nets to catch him! Jane and the Ashers, striking out on his own with "The Family Way" score, rubbing John's face in his escapades with other males as a way to go 'see, I don't need you just like you don't need me. How about THAT?'

I don't think John ever intended to hurt Paul as badly as he did. He thought that if Paul was upset about something then he would know via their ~telepathic connection.~ I think that he deliberately overlooked warning signs because he felt intensely guilty about certain actions he took (God only knows which ones) and that he helped himself not see Paul's hurt. I do think if he had the slightest idea of what was going on in Paul's head then he would have changed tactics immediately out of fear of losing Paul forever. But at heart John was a coward and if he didn't want to see something was wrong then he wouldn't see it unless something forced his hand. Like say, having his former best friend/ex-lover look him in the eye and go "I can write new songs" and kill The Beatles in a court of law. (And of course once he realized what he had done, years after the fact, it was too little too late. He couldn't take it back. How do you make up for inflicting that much hurt on someone that you supposedly care for? This paralyzed John for years.)

This was obviously a huge mistake and I think it was one of the landmines that blew their relationship up. Paul allowed his distrust and bitterness to overwhelm him. He should have been honest with John about his feelings; maybe not immediately but when they were able to look back with some perspective. Paul should have realized that their relationship could take heat. He should have trusted John more and if he had then John could have risen to the occasion. Everything could have been different. No more "I believe in you baby, so don't tell me lies." No more "Do not mock me when I say/This is not a lie."

He even expresses this in a third song, one that IMO puts this entire thing into perspective and ties these three songs together with a neat bow. "This One":

Did I ever take you in my arms, look you in the eye Tell you that 'I do?' Did I ever open up my heart And let you look inside?…

Did I ever touch you on the cheek Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile? Did I ever knock upon your door Try to get inside?…

Please take note of the bolded "Tell you that 'I do'!" Paul's deepest regret with regards to John is not trusting him more. He wishes that he had opened up to John about his hurt and how he angry he was that John was devaluing their relationship. That he wanted to commit to John but that he was scared John wouldn't say 'I do' back.

From John's POV he's just being John; he's looking out for the band. God knows he tried to be what Paul needed him to be but he got mixed signals and inconsistent behavior and Paul's ice queen behavior frustrated him to no end. This resulted in an endless circle of "fuck you/no no no, fuck YOU/well fuck you then!/fuck you" that ended up killing what they had.

But John is guilty in this too. He never made himself accountable to Paul. He didn't explain his actions. He acted rashly and selfishly and then was shocked when it blew up in his face. He didn't consistently act like he loved Paul. He took Paul for granted and told himself that he was doing the right thing, because changing your behavior is very very hard. He didn't let Paul in when it mattered.

Did you ever take me in your arms Look me in the eye, tell me that 'you do?'

As Paul grew up and he started to come to grips with the "What happened" of it all, maybe he realized that he had procrastinated. That he put off what mattered most because he couldn't bear to make himself vulnerable as a young man. Maybe he was waiting for a perfect moment to open himself up to John knowing perfectly well it would never arrive, a common delaying tactic for insecure and avoidant people. Not admitting that the perfect moment would never come and that he had to extend trust to receive it in return.

If I never did it, I was only waiting For a better moment that didn't come There never could be a better moment Than this one, this one

I think he's still angry at John for multiple betrayals, slaps to the face, and devaluing the specialness of their relationship and their affection for each other. But I also think that Paul is angry at himself for not trusting John, for not working harder at their relationship. He also delivered multiple betrayals and slaps to the face to John, feeding John's insecurity and fears of abandonment. Making a mockery of their relationship and how special it was. Paul has been doing public penance for this ever since John died, which snapped everything into perspective and he finally realized the full scope of his own screw ups.

Because it took two to destroy a relationship this intense and this special. If Paul did not know that before...

Well. He does now.

[shy-writer-999]

tonight's entree: zoro smut! barely proof read. make sure to read the cw! 🍁 🍽️ ❤️

cw: pure smut, afab reader. fingering. dacryphilia. pet names ("girl"). minors don't interact, please!! nsfw content!

when zoro's fingers draw slow, mindless circles around your clit, you lose touch with reality. you can't focus on anything other than the zaps and tingles of pleasure that the swordsman (and your crew mate) is ruthlessly pulling from your core.

"you're just so sweet, i can't stop," he purrs in your ear and you shudder. "you gonna give me another, baby?"

a tear traces a pattern down your cheek as you writhe and moan under his touch. "c-can't zoro," you sob. "it's too much."

he tuts, fingers still moving around your sensitive, inflamed bud.

"you can, though. c'mon, sweetheart. just one more."

his fingers move faster, passing downwards for some of your sticky arousal, which he brings up to your clit and swirls around. it feels ridiculously good, ecstatic and euphoric pleasure ricocheting from your aching core to every limb.

one more delicate circle around your sweet spot and you arch your back. two more and your eyes roll back in your head. three more and your toes curl. four more and zoro pushes his fingers downwards forcefully, like he's pressing a button. a guttural moan—or was that a sob?—escapes your lips inadvertently.

moments later, you give zoro what he asks for—your orgasm. your whole body seizes up and your mind goes blank. white hot pleasure washes over you, so intense that your mouth hangs open and rivulets of tears and drool threaten to cascade over your face.

every tense of your thighs and sweet whine that graces his ears makes zoro smile harder. he loves to see you writhe for him. to see you come undone by something as simple as his fingers on your clit. he watches you climax with greedy eyes.

"thereeee you go," zoro hums, right in your ear, and the deep noise gives you goosebumps. "dirty fucking girl."

dividers courtesy of @issysh3ll

thanks for reading! i hope you have a nice evening tonight, regardless of whatever you get up to! ❤️

[kusuokisser]

saiki sometimes forgets hes autistic AND a psychic. its so easy for him to attribute his symptoms to just being from his powers but then he'll go through a phase where all food is sensory hell except for coffee jelly (safe food) and he is reminded of his ailment

[tavolgisvist]

Something special between us, When we made love the game was over. I couldn't say the words, Words wouldn't get my feelings through, So I keep talking to you…

(However Absurd, 1985/86, Press To Play)

'But I keep wanting to send him postcards saying The wars over if you want it' (PM)

If When we made love came from Make love not war, so it - When we made love the game was over - can be something like that: when our fight ended (and we started our relationship over) you was dead.

I couldn't say the words / Words wouldn't get my feelings through is '‘cause growing up in Liverpool, you never said that… you never told a guy you loved him' theme.

So I keep talking to you…

-since Here Today and to Now and Then he really keep talking to him about it

Dress Me Up As A Robber

I wrote this, I think, in the summer of 1980, possibly up in Scotland. And for some reason I just thought, ‘You could dress me up as a robber, but it’s not gonna change my feelings for you’; that was the basic thing. ‘You can dress me up as a soldier / But I wouldn’t know what for / I was the one that told you he loved you / Don’t wanna go to another war’.

(Paul McCartney about Dress Me Up as a Robber (1980/1982), The Lyrics, 2021)

See, I said [to them], “Look, the thing is, we’ve got all these advisors and all this sort of stuff. I think what would be good to do is the four of us just get a document – we don’t even have to meet for long, we just get some kind of document – and sit down and say, without even asking Klein, Eastmans, anybody, without saying to anyone, we’ll just write a little thing saying, ‘We hereby split up, and everything’s got to be shared by four,’ and then just lay it out on them. Say, ‘Here, now, sort it out.’” And I was saying that would be good. But John’s saying, “Oh, yeah, but that’s like asking us to stop the bombing in Vietnam.” What do you mean? Don’t put me – don’t call me the bloody American, I’m not the aggressor. That’s what I mean. They think I’m like – ’cause I’ve done the High Court action, ’cause I look like the aggressor, they’re sort of thinking of me in terms of America. But really, I’m Vietnam! I’m the one getting screwed, you know! I mean, they’re – I’m not… you know. We eventually decided we were all Vietnamese. [laughs] <…> They don’t believe – they don’t think what I’m saying is true. They think that I’m just pulling a fast one. Klein’s told them I’m trying to get control of the company and everything.

(Paul McCartney, Nov 1971, interview with Chris Charlesworth)

“But I keep wanting to send him postcards saying The wars over if you want it” – tell him what hes saying. Its just crazy, I'm sure the truths a whole lot more simple than it`s made out.”

(Paul McCartney, Nov 1971, interview with Steve Peacock)

I spoke to the Eastmans. I said, “If we all think he’s not going to have a tax consequence, let’s give [the indemnity] to him.”’Cause, you know, if all sides are that smart, let’s all offer it. Break the deadlock. I went to New York, feeling like the bringer of good news. I rang him up. “Hello, John, how are you? Hello, how’s the kids? Oh, great. What’s all this about publishing? Yeah, great”—laugh laugh laugh—“What about Apple?” Tense. You know, that was the unfortunate thing in the last ten years. The moment you mention the word Apple, all of us go, eeeeep! Dread and horror and shock goes through all our systems. I said, “Look, as I understand it, you need this indemnity.” John said, “Fucking indemnity. Fucking this, fucking that. You don’t need to give me fucking indemnity, you fucking—” I think we ended up just sort of swearing at each other. I said, “Fuck you, ya big cunt,” ’cause I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t be sweet and reasonable anymore. I was shaking for an hour after that. Of course, the funniest thing was, I then meant to ring John Eastman and say to him, “No, no, it’s not gonna work, this whole thing. I tried to do the indemnity, it’s not gonna work.” Of course, I got the phone numbers wrong. I rang John Lennon back instead. [When the phone was answered, I said,] “Hello, John? Yeah, listen, I just—oh—yeah well…” But it was Yoko this time, and then I said, “Look, I didn’t mean for it to get like that—but, shit, you know, it seems to have got…” The funny thing was, they knew I was trying to ring John Eastman immediately after, so that would have reinforced their little feelings about me double-dealing…

(Paul McCartney, 1980, in All You Need Is Love by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines)

The interviews were conducted for the book The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines. Except for Yoko Ono’s interview, they were conducted in England and New York in the fall of 1980, just a few weeks prior to John Lennon’s death on December 8 of that year.

(Peter Brown, 2023, All You Need Is Love, Introduction)

[darkkbluee]

L for Minister AU

Light Yagami is desperate to know L's name and face. To know everything about his nemesis ("So I can kill him! Ryuk, stop laughing!"). And so, he turns on the TV, sees the promo video for the upcoming elections and thinks...

L would have to show up in person, unmasked and with his real name, if he was an elected Minister.

A few hours of paperwork filed anonymously and through a shady lawyer, a few hours of hacking and anonymous donations, and The Great Detective L is the latest minister candidate, running as an independent.

L does not know how or why he is suddenly running in the elections. Was this even legal? He wasn't even a citizen! Surely no one would vote for a candidate with no public appearances, a profile page with no photo, obviously overblown promises in propaganda -

Apparently, they would.

[mystxmomo]

Are there a lot of odd things built into the drows religion that is often a reflection of the real world biases of the largely cis male writers existing in the socio - political climate of the 80's? Yes. Do I have larger thoughts and commentary to make about that, of which I can and will do for my writing? Yeah absolutely. Am I also weaponizing it for the sake of absurdist humor on the Internet. Well.

[misstrashchan]

So. What's the opposite of a sacrifice?

With the final episode looming it's a question we've been turning in our heads, so I wanted to give my best guess/analysis as to what it might be before Jon and Muna come to tear our hearts out in the final episode.

This is the question Hayward asks Paige, and later Carpenter, and it seems to be the underlying thematic statement of the series, in response to Carpenter's exposition in the first episode of the Silt Verses that introduces us to the fundamentals of the world and system they live in:

CARPENTER:

A god must feed.

A god must be fed.

This is a fact agreed upon across every territory in the Peninsula. And so, really, the only difference between the people born to the water and the people born to the land...

...is the precise nature of the sacrifice we need to make.

There is a God for anything in their world as long as there is someone believing in it. But all Gods need human sacrifices. A god must feed. A god must be fed.

These simple rules have been used as fascinating and horrifying metaphors of our modern society, and to explore themes of faith and sacrifice throughout the story.

And so the final question the last season proposes is if we can find a way to make something better, that can exist outside of this ultimately unsustainable exploitative system and the harm it inflicts upon ourselves and the world, when it has come to define so much of the way we live and how we think. And that means figuring out the opposite of a sacrifice, if they want to kill the idea, the lie, that is at the heart of their world.

At first I thought the opposite of a sacrifice, of offering up to the gods, was about killing your gods. Starving them out. Refusing to offer up anything. And that is part of it, I think. I mean it's literally been a repeating mantra of multiple characters this season once they've reached they're breaking points. Violence in revolution as a tool to overthrow oppresive systems is sometimes needed and necessary. But what about after? What kind of future or vision for a better world can there be? There needs to be something at the heart of that movement that isn't just about violence against their opressors, because you then define yourself in relation to them.

This is even illustrated in the Many Below god Paige created having predator and prey emeshed together, a movement defined by their resistance against the predators of the world, the beasts, cannot seperate themselves to meaningfully create a better future that exists outside of that dichotomy. I think Hayward realises that even earlier in S2:

HAYWARD:

There’s a hare in the grass, half-buried and bloodied.

A barn owl has latched onto its back, its talons driving deep into the flesh of the hare.

Both animals are dead.

Familiar black stone veins protrude from the carcass of the victim, twisting like branches, driving upwards into the predator’s skin.

Hare and owl are locked together, inseparably.

The god must have struck just as the prey died.

White crocus is flowering up from the two entwined bodies.

(Unhappily)

And suddenly I begin to feel deeply afraid.

It all makes me think of a dormouse, dead in the dirt, its ribs showing. Of rabbits, teeth chattering, hungering from their cages

I kick dust up over the corpses. Nudge them aside into the long grass so they can’t be seen from the path.

Paige doesn’t need to know about this, I tell myself.

There’s no sense in worrying her. Not yet.

Which then makes sense why he's the one proposing the question of what the opposite of a sacrifice is to Paige (and Carpenter), for this very reason.

I think the answer is pretty simple and yet, like most simple truths in this world, it's forgotten and overlooked or twisted as naïve.

Preservation. The opposite of a sacrifice is preservation. To better explain this let me use an example:

If someone who cared about you tells you you're working too hard at your thankless job, sacrificing your sleep, your time, your personal relationships, your physical and mental wellbeing, far past the point considered sane, they'd tell you to stop. To make sure you take care of yourself. Instead of endlessly feeding yourself into a machine to justify your existence.

Applied to the world of the Silt Verses, it's not just self preservation and caring for yourself. It's about caring for, protecting, and preserving the lives of those around you, that is the ultimate act of rebellion and political warfare, the first steps forward towards a better world. Caring for humanity.

Whenever our characters reach a breaking point of turning against their gods, there's a common thread of wanting to save their fellow man, and realising the inadequacy of a god's ability to do that. Whether that's somebody close to them (like Faulkner and Paige):

Or humanity as a whole (VAL and Shrue):

SHRUE:

Use them, pass them on, do not forget the suffering that keeps the engines of this world turning, forget the name of your god and cherish the name of your neighbour that was swallowed up by it-

Cherish your neighbour. Be kinder to one another.

This can even go back to Carpenter's rejection of the Trawler-Man back in S1, her fury at the fact those she loved had been eaten (her family) and would continue to be eaten (Faulkner).

CARPENTER:

(Yelling to the river)

It's over between us, you twin mouthed prick!

Do you hear me?

Does that stir you from your torpor? Pry the barnacles loose from your sodden ears?

My father and mother were Gregory and Sandra Glass. My grandmother was Adalina Glass. My brother was Em.

They died for you.

Every single one of them died for you and they thought it meant something.

My name is Carpenter. And I am still alive!

I have loved you for so long. I have tried to know you for so, so much longer.

And I'm done with you. Here and now. I'm not laying down my life for you.

I'm not dying, do you hear?

The same breaking point for Faulkner at turning against his parish and finally snapping is the idea of Carpenter being offered as a sacrifice, an offering returned, begging for her to live.

I must clarify this is my own interpretation of the question and themes the story proposes. I'm

I'm not sure we'll actually get a hard answer so much as different characters offering their own answers and us as the audience encouraged to think for ourselves what it might be. I think this is what Hayward's answer might be at least, anyway, because like me he's a corny motherfucker:

If a sacrifice is the idea that the most meaningful and transformative thing you can do is to give up your life, your sense of self, to die, then the opposite of that would be to try to keep on living, and finding meaning and transformation in that, surely?

[get-back-homeward]

“It can make it difficult because if you say a thing according to the new book of the prophet, they say things in reply according to the old testament, and you find yourself saying “Well, yes, but I don’t quite mean that. I know it sounds like that but is not. What I mean is, working on a new assumption of everything being fluid,” you find yourself getting into cock-ups with words. It’s a big battle at the moment. Trying not to say too many words and if there’s a pregnant pause in the conversation, not feeling that I’ve got to fill it. But let someone else, who fears the silence, fill it. I don’t fear it anymore. Of course it will need a bit of training. But the good thing about it is that if you are prepared to accept that things aren’t just broad and wide, they’re infinitely broad and wide, then there’s a great amount to be learned. And the change over … it can be done. It just takes a bit of time, but it will be done, I think.”

“Everything I say will come out just a little bit different, I don’t mean on the transcript, but as it leaves my mind and comes through my mouth, it gets a little bit messed up just around about the mouth, where the words start….. doing it.”

— Paul McCartney, International Times, January 16, 1967

[xxplastic-cubexx]

need a hardened respectful fujo to sit down with james mcavoy and discuss cherik with him insteada this peanut gallery cause if i have to hear people laugh about a gay ship one more time i just might eat rocks

[alienoriana]

We were growing, time was going so fast Without knowing, we were growing up fast We were lying down, in the shade I remember the love we made We were lying down, on the bed I remember the tears we shared

[thegreatyin]

i went digging for a bit and stumbled across the echoes for uncle archibald's legacy- it's an old (dated 2012) fallen london story that was only available to One Person as a reward for backing the original silver tree kickstarter, and it doesn't really have much beyond a few tidbits of seeing veils' perspective via red honey dreams. i think the most notable thing about it is that it was the original source for veils being the vake, way back before BaL was finished and that was all made very evident and very publicly accessible.

anyway. i say all of this because there is one (1) echo from this story that i'm mildly obsessed with:

divorce real.