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John Lennon and Paul McCartney on their way to Slough, 5th November 1963 (part 3)

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PaulMcCartney.com: Is there anything in particular you hope people will get from reading your new book? What do you hope their main takeaway will be?

Paul: Well, I mainly see it as a ‘behind the scenes’ publication. After all these years, it was lovely for me to be taken backstage again. I love just looking at old pictures of the guys, for example, ones of John with his glasses; obviously it's hugely sad, because I miss him so much. But this just reminds me of growing up with him and all the pleasant memories.

Whenever I see John with these sorts of glasses, it reminds me of the way he would take him off when there were girls around. For some reason people think they look better without their glasses! And now, whenever other people do that it always reminds me of John. I’d be chatting with him, or writing a song, and he would take his glasses off and clean them. And because nobody in my family had glasses, I'd never seen someone just chatting and absent-mindedly cleaning them. So, that's what this picture and really the whole book reminds me of - it just brings back all those little memories which make up a life.

‘You Gave Me The Answer – ‘Eyes of the Storm’ Exhibition and Book Special’, 19th June 2023

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In other words…

PaulMcCartney.com: What is the main takeaway from your book?

Paul: I love John. I miss John. John looked hot in glasses. John, John, John, John, John. John.

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“Lennon and McCartney did affect each other, change each other, goad, inspire, madden, and wound each other. But they also each contributed to something that went beyond either individual, a charged, mutual space of creation—those pearls your ear probably recognizes and leans toward as much as to your parents’ voices.”

—

Two of Us, Inside the Lennon/McCartney connection 

This article is super interesting in lots of ways. Not just because of how it’s framed around their connection. It talks a lot about the power balance between them, which got me thinking about the fact they ever agreed to be Lennon/McCartney. Like. Do we talk about that enough? It’s such a wildly romantic and, frankly, optimistic thing for them to have done.

Sure, it’s also sensible and I guess takes some of the danger out of both being in the band and creating and potentially losing control of what you’ve created. But, they didn’t have to do it. They wanted to. In Lennon by Ray Coleman he called it a ‘touching manifestation of togetherness’ which is a nice way of saying it. Or you know, bonkers, but because they were so into each other they couldn’t imagine it going wrong. They wanted to be bound together and it feels very early romance, honeymoon period sort of stuff.

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a tumblr girl should have written this book.........................................

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This is a clip from the BBC interview Idris Elba did with Paul McCartney. It was produced by Mary McCartney. I just thought these were interesting visuals to put with this song.

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vice magazine really said that rpf is fine

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The funniest thing about being aroace is growing up in middle school and thinking to yourself “…you guys are too young to be dating. We’re kids right now.” And then as you get older and reach college you’re still like “…you guys are too young to get married, how do you even know you like them like that?”

Like no that’s just how allo people are.

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aphobia is not just harmful to asexual and aromantic people. it hurts everyone when society tells people they are not complete without a romantic partner. that they are aren’t a whole person if they aren’t in love and sexually desirable. people spend some of the most fulfilling parts of their lives feeling like they’re wasting that time because they aren’t in a relationship. they spend so much time looking for “the one”. time that could be spent learning, travelling, building a found family. they miss out on meaningful relationships, on soulmates, because they are told that person can’t be the most important person in their life. it devalues the support that’s found in community, it devalues the love found in friendships, it devalues the importance for living for oneself.

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Um, no, please go into detail. I'd love to hear what you think about the friend thing and the marriage thing and all that.

Oh, all right then. But I’m putting it under a tag because I can already see the anons I’m going to get about this.

Okay. So. Let’s get this straight (as it were). John and Paul loved Yoko and Linda. There is zero doubt about that. This isn’t about me trying to deny that at all. I do have thoughts about how fictionalised and romanticised both those marriages were but that’s not the point here and doesn’t affect what I’m going to say.

John and Paul loved each other at the same time as being in love with their wives. These things don’t cancel each other out, no matter how much Paul and John would have liked it to.

The thing™️ is, John and Paul were so wildly possessive, they couldn’t really cope with the strange boundaries (or lack thereof) of their relationship. I know John is the only one people seem to think was like this, but we have accounts from Dot, Jane, Linda and Heather that Paul was exactly the same.

So they wanted more than they had, because (at least at the time) they didn’t really know how to love without possessing. You see this push pull throughout the relationship (it also gets cast as competition a lot which was also at play). What they wanted, exactly, is up for interpretation but, really whether they wanted to bump uglies is besides the point. The point is, they wanted some form of exclusivity.

Unfortunately, even had they been able to articulate that, neither was going to fully commit unless they were sure the other was going to give everything over first. They’d get close and push away, until eventually they pushed allllllll the way away.

How does any of this relate to their marriages? Well, much is made - by John most of all - about him leaving Paul specifically for Yoko. The Paul boat and the Yoko boat etc etc. He got from Yoko what he couldn’t get from Paul. A best friend you could fuck and create with (that he didn’t actually really ever create with her is neither here nor there).

But… people tend to comment less on how Paul did the same thing? Paul was terrified of commitment his whole life pre Linda. He spent years trying to balance Jane and John (with varying degrees of success). There’s stories where Paul was annoying Jane by ignoring her to mess about with John, for example. Then, the ultimate one: he picked Jane over John in India and sparked the end of The Beatles. What’s less mentioned is that… he then immediately cheated on her when he knew she’d find him, so he didn’t actually have to choose. But by then it was too late. John had decided he was not up for playing second best to Paul’s future family (totally fair).

What’s Paul’s response to this gigantic mess he’s made? Committing SO HARD to his next relationship he brings Linda into his band and never spends a night away from her. I don’t mean he did that entirely because of John or that he didn’t want to do those things. He did. He loved her and wanted her around, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he learnt a real hard lesson and maybe overcorrected a bit to it.

Annnnnyway, to the friend thing - I’d need to plot it all, but I suspect it was some form of inside joke/had significance in way other people weren’t meant to get. There are a few times it’s used that give that impression, the most awful and sad one being, “Think of me from time to time, old friend.”

That aside, there seems, to me, to be a slight tension in the way it’s used. Are they friends? More? Less? Paul especially seems to play with the tension a lot. This is very evident in Dear Friend but also This One. In Dear Friend, Paul puts Linda and John on the same level of importance. This One is him maybe having Got It and being sad. The link between the two thoughts? The Lovers That Never Were.

I always wonder if Paul was genuinely confused about what went down (haha) between them. I mean, he was certainly confused by John’s actions. But I also think he might have been confused by his own. Like, I know we joke about Paul being an emotionally dumb airhead, but he’s not that dumb. He seems to get there was something off about them, and his own feelings. He’s spent the rest of his life trying to figure out what the problem was, and what - if anything - he could have done to change it.

Part of the explanation for their confusion might lay in how shocked they seemed to be that they could respect their partners and be on an equal footing with them… Does that lead us to assume it hadn’t occurred to them to do that with each other? As in, “Who knew I could feel like I do about John but with a girl! Who I can have sex with!!” Perhaps the idea of combining the two had occurred to John (Yoko said it had) but for Paul his ‘immovable’ heterosexuality got in the way of thinking of that particular solution.

I don’t think he considered creating with a romantic partner before the end of The Beatles. Then he sort made it happen to cover the hole left by John (until he realised it didn’t work, but that’s another story). Could he have made similar recalculations for John and tried moving some other preconceptions (girls aren’t creative partners Vs boys aren’t romantic partners)? Has that ever consciously occurred to him? I think it might have, but not until he was knee deep in Wings or maybe even after John died.

So. There we are. That was their issue. Could they have worked through it? Sure, absolutely. But not without a lot of conscious work and effort. Without that they’d have been Burton and Tayloring through the decades. Compelling but sad to watch.

(Before anyone asks - This doesn’t mean they didn’t have sex. See the ask linked above for why these apparently wildly contradictory things can coexist in peace and love.)

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The Bystander, England, November 20, 1936

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John Lennon and Paul McCartney on their way to Slough, 5th November 1963 - part 1 (part 2, part 3, part 4) (x)

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Paul genuinely shocked after hearing George owns 12 guitars.

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this makes me so embarassed for him i want to hide in a dark hole

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Fantastic collation, thanks

Now and Then

1977

Now and Then: I know it's true / It's all because of you And if I make it through / It's all because of you / And now and then / If we must start again / Well, we will know for sure / That I love you

I don't wanna lose you, oh no / Abuse you or confuse you / Oh no, no, sweet darlin' / But if you have to go away / If you have to go, well you the reason [?]

Now and then / I miss you / Oh, now and then / I want you to return to me / 'Til you return to me / I know it's true / It's all because of you / And if you go away / I know you could never stay

.

1978

Love Awake: Love awake to the day / When we can make our love awake / Lord knows we need it any time we can get it / But we forget it every now and then / But if you don't feel it, later on, you'll regret it / And if we let it we could set it free, you and me

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1981

My Old Friend: If I told you how I feel / Oh, it wouldn’t sound so real / ‘Cause emotions, they are just now settin’ in / But it sure is great to know / That wherever we may go / We can always be the best of friends

My old friend, / Thanks for inviting me in / My old friend, / May this goodbye never mean the end / If we never meet again this side of life / In a little while, over yonder, / Where it’s peace and quiet / My old friend, / Won’t you think about me every now and then

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Well, it was something that I’ll never live long enough to forget. It happened in February of 1981 and as the world all knows, and never will forget, in December of 1980 when John Lennon was taken away from us, and so this was the following year, in February. I wrote the song about and for Paul McCartney. I did it because he was so kind to invite me down to this beautiful island of Montserrat with Stevie Wonder. Ringo was there, just had a wonderful time. I flew down by myself. Paul and Linda met me with a jeep on the (center) airfield with a little single engine plane and took me across the mountains we were like kids again, and it was a wonderful time, and I wanted to do… I didn’t want to cry when I left after staying down there, and I’m a big crybaby! If something moves me, I’ll just choke up… I talk about it. I thought that would happen, so the night before, I just wrote how I felt on the isle of Montserrat on every shell, forget a country boy with a guitar and a song you invited me, and you treated me like kin, and you’ve given me a reason to go on. So my old friend, think about me every now and then. I sang it for Paul, at about 10:00 the next morning. I was scheduled to leave flying again in the little single engine aircraft to the island of Antigua where I was flying commercial back to Atlanta and on to Nashville and back to Jackson, where I live here. I sang it, he said “Carl, it’s beautiful… would you sing it again?” and I said. “Sure, man.” He said “wait just a minute,” and he got Linda in there, and they sat on the floor, I sat on his old Fender twin reverb amplifier, with a guitar, I did however notice a microphone over there. I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but George Martin recorded it and after I finished singing the song to Paul, he was crying, tears were rolling down his pretty cheeks, and they’re pretty to me just like they are to the rest of the world. I think he’s a very handsome boy and always did. He’s even handsomer when he’s crying. And Linda said, “Carl, thank you so much.” I said, “Linda, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you cry.” She said, “But he’s crying and he needed to. He hasn’t been able to really break down since that happened to John.” I mean he stepped outside of the room, out by the pool, and he just had his handkerchief out, and he was going at it. And she put her arm around me and said, “But how did you know?” I said, “Know what, Linda? I don’t know what you’re talking about?” She said “There’s two people in the world that know what John Lennon said to Paul, the last thing he said to him. Me and Paul are the only two that know that, but now there’s three and one of you… you know it. I said, “Girl, you’re freaking me out! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She said the last words that John Lennon said to Paul in the hallway of the Dakota building were… he patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘Think about me every now and then, old friend.’ Q: That’s just amazing… And she said, here you are, that’s what you just sang, and how did you know? And I said I didn’t know it, gosh, I didn’t know it. But McCartney really feels that Lennon sent me that song, he really does.

— Carl Perkins, interviewed for Goldmine (September 26, 1986).

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1994

Paul had gone to Yoko to ask if she had any of John’s songs kicking around. The deal was that Paul would induct John into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in return. Yoko’s a generous person in that respect, so she actually gave him three songs – 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love' were worked up and released, the last one wasn’t.

— Source close to the Anthology project, quoted in the Sunday Express (April 29, 2007).

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1995

It was one day – one afternoon, really – messing with it. The song had a chorus but is almost totally lacking in verses. We did the backing track, a rough go that we really didn’t finish. It was sort of a bluesy sort of ballad, I suppose, in A minor. It was a very sweet song. I liked it a lot. Should it ever be completed it would probably end up as either ‘Now And Then’ or ‘Miss You’. I wished we could have finished it.

— Jeff Lynne, quoted in the Sunday Express (April 29, 2007).

It didn’t have a very good title, it needed a bit of reworking, but it had a beautiful verse and it had John singing it. [But] George didn’t like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn’t do it.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for Q Magazine (November 2006).

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2007

There are a couple of things which may surface at some point. You see, with the Beatles, there’s always a surprise somewhere along the line. We did ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’, those two songs of John’s, and that was very exciting, very moving for me and very comfortable having his voice in my headphones in the studio again. And there was a third track, another song we had our eyes on called ‘Now And Then’. l actually wanted to do it on Anthology 3, but we didn’t all agree. But things change and the thing is that it might not go away. There was only one of us who didn’t want to do it. lt would have meant a lot of hard work, the song would have needed a lot of re-writing and people would have had to be very patient with us. But there are these one or two things lurking in the bushes. The Beatles might just raise their ugly little heads again…

— Paul McCartney, quoted in the Sunday Express (April 29, 2007).

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2012

And there was another one we started working on, but George went off it. We were like, ‘No George, this is John’. He said, ‘It’s still rubbish’. ‘Ok, then’. So that one is still lingering around. I’m gonna nick it with Jeff and do it. Finish it, one of these days.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the “Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO” documentary (2012).

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2018

Get Enough: It was a time when we walked by the docks / I told you, "I need you all of my life" / And watching the tugs rolling by together / Do you remember? / Do you remember the lights on the shore? / How they reflected the rain on the road? / I believed that you love me alone / It was real / Do you remember? / Now and then I see your face / I've been wanting a lovin’ embrace / I've been looking for love, but it gets me nowhere / Oh, yeah, yeah

Get enough, get enough, get enough of (Your love) (x2) / I can't get enough of / Of you

It was a time we were all full of hope / Saw the future burning bright / As we watched the moon rollin’ out to sea / Do you remember? / But those days are erased from my mind / Yeah, I've left all those old days behind / But still I remember your face forever, forever

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If I'm going to see a face in a painting, it's highly likely to be his.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Diane Sawyer for ABC News (November 2, 2000).

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2022

And then 'Now and Then’ just kind of languished in a cupboard and we didn’t do anything with it. I kept saying, “You know, maybe we should do something with this, seems a bit—” “Hm, I don’t know…” There wasn’t a great desire to do anything with it. So it hung around for a while. Years! And every so often, I’d kind of go to the cupboard and think, “There’s a new song in there! We should do it! We gotta do it!” But it’d go back in the cupboard.

— Paul McCartney, in BBC Sounds Eras: The Beatles (November 2, 2023).

I got a phone call from Paul saying, “Is it possible to use that [MAL] technology for another project I’ve been thinking about? […] Would it be possible to take John’s vocal and clean it up and get rid of everything else? Because that would allow us to finish this Beatles song.” And absolutely, it didn’t take me more than about a second to get back to him and say, “Of course we can do it!”

— Peter Jackson, in BBC Sounds Eras: The Beatles (November 2, 2023).

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2023

Now and Then: I know it’s true / It’s all because of you / And if I make it through / It’s all because of you

And now and then / If we must start again / Well we will know for sure / That I will love you

Now and then / I miss you / Oh now and then / I want you to be there for me / Always to return to me

I know it’s true / It’s all because of you / And if you go away / I know you’ll never stay

Now and then / I miss you / Oh now and then / I want you to be there for me

I know it’s true / It’s all because of you / And if I make it through / It’s all because of you

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I do feel as though ‘Now and Then’ is a love letter to Paul written by John. I mean, I've never really asked Paul about it, and I'm not sure whether Paul would say, ‘Oh, that's definitely it,' because he wouldn't want to second guess John. But that's the sense I get. And I get the feeling that's why Paul was so determined to finish it.

— Giles Martin, interviewed for PEOPLE magazine (October 26, 2023).

When you say you enjoy 'Now and Then', that’s really nice, because that’s why we do it. We do it so people can listen to stuff and not just hear it. 'Now and Then' sounds like a love song. It sounds like a song that John wrote for Paul, and the other Beatles: “I miss you/ Now and then.” It sounds like Paul has gone there, which I think he did. You know, no one told Paul to go and do it, and Paul didn’t go, This would be a great exercise for the Red and Blue Album. He was at home in the studio. He dug on the record and started working on it, because it’s his mate. And he really misses John. I mean, that’s the truth. They broke up, and John died nine years later. It really isn’t very long.

— Giles Martin, interviewed for GRAMMYS (October 26, 2023).

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When I remember the Beatles, I remember the joy, the talent, the humor, the love. And I think, if people remembered us for that — for those things — I’d be very happy.

— Paul McCartney, in BBC Sounds Eras: The Beatles (November 2, 2023).

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Here’s to us

man I hope all the OG johnheartpaul girlies are out there somewhere poppin bottles