burningmatches-liftinglatches - Tumblr blog

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

Happy Crimble from everyone at apple! 🌲✨🎅

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

Even though John is under-powered in this period we still see what made him so magnetic to Paul and to others around him. There is a scene early in Part Two that I find riveting. It takes place a couple of days after George has left. The status of everything - the project, the band - remains uncertain, but they are ploughing on for now. John, Yoko, Ringo, Paul and some of the crew are sitting in a semi-circle. Paul looks pensive. Ringo looks tired. John is speaking only in deadpan comic riffs, to which Paul responds now and again. Peter Sellers comes in and sits down, looks ill-at-ease, and leaves having barely said a word, unable to penetrate the Beatle bubble. At some point they’re joined by Lindsay-Hogg, and the conversation dribbles on. John mentions that he had to leave an interview that morning in order to throw up (he and Yoko had taken heroin the night before). Paul, looking into space rather than addressing anyone in particular, attempts to turn the conversation towards what they’re meant to be doing:

Paul: See, what we need is a serious program of work. Not an endless rambling among the canyons of your mind.

John: Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores… We’re all together, boy.

Paul: To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip.

John: And when I touch you, I feel happy inside. I can’t hide, I can’t hide. [pause] Ask me why, I’ll say I love you.

Paul: What we need is a schedule.

John: A garden schedule.

I mean first of all, who is writing this incredible dialogue? Samuel Beckett?

Let’s break it down a little. The first thing to note is that John and Paul are talking to each other without talking to each other. This is partly because they’re aware of the cameras and also because they’re just not sure how to communicate with each other at the moment. John’s contributions are oblique, gnomic, riddling, comprised only of songs and jokes, like the Fool in King Lear. Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores sounds like a Lennonised version of a line from Dylan’s Tambourine Man (“take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship”). “We’re altogether, boy”? I have no idea. Does Paul? I think John expects Paul to understand him because he has such faith in what they used to call their “heightened awareness”, a dreamlike, automatic connection to each other’s minds. But right now, Paul is not much in the mood for it. His speech is more direct, though he too adopts a quasi-poetic mode (“canyons of your mind” is borrowed from a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) and he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. “To wander aimlessly is very unswinging,” he says (another great line, I will pin it above my writing desk). Then John does something amazing: he starts talking in Beatle, dropping in lyrics from the early years of the band, I Want To Hold Your Hand and Ask Me Why. (To appreciate John’s response to Paul’s mention of a schedule, American readers may need reminding that English people pronounce it “shed - dule”.)

What’s going on throughout this exchange? Maybe Lennon is just filling dead air, or playing to the gallery, but I think he is (also) attempting to communicate to Paul in their shared code - something like he loves him, he loves The Beatles, they’re still in this together. Of course, we can’t know. I can’t hide, John says, hiding behind his wordplay.

— Ian Leslie, "The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back" (January 26, 2022).

[I was curious to read more of Ian Leslie's approach to the Beatles in general and Lennon-McCartney in particular, since he's currently writing a book about John and Paul's relationship: “John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs". He's also the author of that New York Times opinion piece that came out today.]

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

And somebody spoke and I went into a dream

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

BRIAN EPSTEIN | Manager of The Beatles September 19, 1934 - August 27, 1967 “Whatever happens tomorrow, one thing is certain; it must not be allowed to look after itself.”

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

John and Paul during “I Wanna Be Your Man” in Paris (1965)

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

“John said that they have been told that girls masturbate when they are on stage. ‘We’re still at the masturbating stage, ourselves,’ interrupted Paul. ‘You just can’t get any on stage. I’m joking, of course. Seriously, anybody that gets as much publicity as we are and who are idols, I hate saying that because we don’t feel like idols particularly but obviously we must be by now…’ John starts to laugh, and Paul protests. ‘No, I really don’t feel like one… I really don’t… that is I don’t feel like I imagine an idol is supposed to feel; however, anybody who gets this amount of publicity is in ordinary people’s eyes a fantastic being; he always was in my eyes, anyway—you know, Presley…’”

— Michael Braun, Love Me Do!: The Beatles’ Progress. (1964)

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

JOHN, THE BIG BROTHER

"I remember during one recording session my sister Lynn who was aged about eight wouldn’t keep quiet. John asked her several times to ‘please’ keep quiet because up to that point she had succeeded in spoiling every recording we were trying to make. Try as she may Lynn just couldn’t stay quiet long enough. John had been very patient and very gentle in the way he spoke to her but finally enough was enough. Without raising his voice he told her, ‘That’s enough – you are going out!’ He put down his guitar, walked over and very carefully gathered her in his arms and – accompanied by her girlfriend who was in the room with her – carried her into the hallway to deposit her on the bottom step where he instructed her to ‘stay’ and ‘keep quiet!’ He didn’t close the door on her, we could still see her, but it worked, she and her friend did keep quiet. It was done in such a gentle way we all smiled to see John in this unfamiliar role of ‘big brother’.” "

HANTON, Colin and HALL, Colin: PRE-FAB!, The Book Guild Ltd., 2018

Would he be like this with his sisters Julia and Jackie? 😂😂😂😂

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

obsessed with the idea of the other three thinking Paul is deliberately being shit just to annoy them....... what a Machiavellian genius

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

plaid and bread

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

John Lennon smile.... ❤️

*Credit to gif owners xx*

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

Even if he hadn’t received honors from Queen Elizabeth, Paul McCartney says he’d still have admiration for her.

“She must like you, Paul.”

“Could be. I like her.”

Stream “Her Majesty The Queen: A Gayle King Special” LIVE NOW on CBS News

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

Ringo, John, and George: Appropriate poses

Paul: Scarlett O’Hara

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

The Beatles after arriving in Sydney, Australia | June 11, 1964

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

pls enjoy this clip of paul mccartney trying to kick something for martha and almost eating shit instead

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]

Sara and Bob Dylan with George Harrison and Olivia Arias at Paul Venus & Mars recording wrap party in March of 1975

[burningmatches-liftinglatches]