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It's been hours and I'm still laughing my head off at this. I just keep picturing him standing in the garden like🧍‍♂️

Bonus points if it was raining 🌧️

NOT John being put in time out in the garden by someone's mum, for ruining her lino LMAAOOOOO

And he just obeyed BAHAHHA this is absolutely a foreshadowing of Yoko ordering him on a vow of silence for two weeks bc she was sick of his yapping lololol

Source: McCartney by Chris Salewicz

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NOT John being put in time out in the garden by someone's mum, for ruining her lino LMAAOOOOO

And he just obeyed BAHAHHA this is absolutely a foreshadowing of Yoko ordering him on a vow of silence for two weeks bc she was sick of his yapping lololol

Source: McCartney by Chris Salewicz

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1967/January 1968? (Kenwood, Weybridge, Surrey): John plays the piano as he listens to the radio and old records (noticeably, ‘Girl Of My Dreams’). 

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Although John enjoyed debunking older music, particularly show tunes, which he told Paul he hated, buried deep in him was a sweeter person than he wanted to exhibit, particularly in the Beatles years. ‘The thing about John was that he was all upfront,’ Paul says. ‘Most people stayed up late and got drunk with him and thought they were seeing John. You never saw John! Only through a few chinks in his armour did I ever see him because the armour was so tough. John was always on the surface tough, tough, tough.’

There were contradictions in Paul’s partner that gave him away, however. ‘He didn’t like many musicals, although he enjoyed West Side Story. Yet one of his favourite songs was “Girl of My Dreams”. And he loved “Little White Lies”. He also went on to write the lullaby “Good Night”, which Ringo sang. That side of John he’d never dare show, except in very rare moments.’

— Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1996)

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Wendy Hanson, Brian Epstein & The Beatles at the Colombo Hotel in Genoa, Italy | 25 June 1965 © John Howard

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I am so tickled by this description of Ivan Vaughn (both himself as a character and vis-à-vis John) because it is so unlike anything I have read about him, or John, before! Granted, it's just one guy's opinion, but it raises so many interesting possibilities - like, could later fame influence the memories of some people who knew these guys growing up, causing them to retrospectively ascribe them superhuman qualities (natural leader, creative genius etc etc), while more level-headed others could be like "sure he was interesting, but he was also Just Another Guy, and he could've been influenced by this other cool guy we all knew that you've never heard of!"

Text and source below the cut

But it was Ivan Vaughan who stood out even more to [Peter] Sissons and, he claims, to the school in general. "He was the only other key figure there at the time who I would have thought would make it as some sort of creative personality. He stood out head and shoulders above everybody." The dominating feature of Vaughan's life was "an entirely distinctive sense of humor." This, in turn, was influenced by "The Goon Show," the British radio humor program starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, and Michael Bentine to which every schoolboy would avidly tune in. But Vaughan's surreal originality extended even beyond that, being, according to Sissons, "some ten or fifteen years ahead of his time." A fatherless boy, one of the many members of the cast surrounding Paul McCartney who had lost a parent, Vaughan one day painted his name in three-foot-high letters across the front of the house while his mother was out. Another time, he arrived at school with, for no apparent reason, the dull appearance of his regulation black shoes having been altered by a thick, vivid coat of canary yellow paint. Later Vaughan employed a more subtle creativity with regard to his footwear: playing truant for days at a time, he would reappear at the Institute with an explanatory note, in his own carefully disguised handwriting, declaring his absence to have been caused by "shoes gone to the menders" —an absolute masterstroke, for what member of the staff would dare question the undreamt tales of poverty and hardship that lay behind such circumstances?

"John Lennon was a highly original character," sums up Peter Sissons. "But in my opinion, much of the outrageousness and unpredictability he displayed later in life came from Ivan Vaughan, and not the other way round."

Source: McCartney by Chris Salewicz (1986)

Notes:

This book doesn't have citations (grr) so it's unclear if this is an interview Salewicz carried out or sourced from elsewhere, but either way the presence of quotation marks indicates that it is the interviewee's original words.

Peter Sisson (d. 2019) is familiar to UK people of a certain age as a BBC News presenter from the 1990s-2000s. He also turned into a bit of a rightwing slime in later life so I wouldn't blame anyone for giving side-eye to his credibility based on that. Fwiw, he doesn't appear to have been completely on this path in the early 80s when this interview was presumably carried out.

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Gen Z calling The Beatles ugly while having the most objectively hideous group of men as sex symbols is so funny.

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Fic: objet petit a

Summary:

Dr Ivana Radovanović is an experienced psychoanalyst based in the respected Lowes and Buchanan Psychoanalysis Clinic in London. There's nothing unusual about her latest client - a man in his fifties struggling to come to terms with the recent death of his wife.

Except he happens to be one of the most famous people in the world.

Characters:

Paul McCartney • Original Female Character(s) • Mary Anna McCartney • Stella McCartney • Original Male Character(s)

Tags:

Character Study • Psychoanalysis • Psychology • Therapy • Grief/Mourning • POV Outsider • you know that tumblr meme about putting paul in a petri dish and examining him • here it happens

Notes:

This story came to me after finishing my Linda fic Under his carpet and is mostly written. It will be updated weekly on Mondays, and while it's being posted I'll be working on my Mary McCartney AU which should come out after.

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making tapes for paul

just kiddin, but...

bermuda, june 19, 1980 (source)

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Backbeat (1994)

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Chapter 2: Ivana and Paul have their first session. Paul's not sure about this psychoanalysis lark, but he's a natural at free association.

Fic: objet petit a

Summary:

Dr Ivana Radovanović is an experienced psychoanalyst based in the respected Lowes and Buchanan Psychoanalysis Clinic in London. There's nothing unusual about her latest client - a man in his fifties struggling to come to terms with the recent death of his wife.

Except he happens to be one of the most famous people in the world.

Characters:

Paul McCartney • Original Female Character(s) • Mary Anna McCartney • Stella McCartney • Original Male Character(s)

Tags:

Character Study • Psychoanalysis • Psychology • Therapy • Grief/Mourning • POV Outsider • you know that tumblr meme about putting paul in a petri dish and examining him • here it happens

Notes:

This story came to me after finishing my Linda fic Under his carpet and is mostly written. It will be updated weekly on Mondays, and while it's being posted I'll be working on my Mary McCartney AU which should come out after.

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Paul Mccartney (& Martha) at his home in St. John's Wood in London, England | 19 June 1967

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funniest language thing in modern greek is that the word for baby/infant is “moro” which literally means “idiot.” like someone looked at a baby 1000 years ago and was like “this guy doesnt know shit.”

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I remember the first time I met him, how soft his hands were. I had interviewed lots of musicians because I was a disc jockey so I did a lot of handshaking - they had rough hands from playing guitar, calloused fingers, long nails to pull on the strings. But John’s hands weren’t working-men’s hands. Those hands never used a shovel. If you look at photos of him in a T-shirt, he had what appeared to be muscleless arms. John was close to six feet but appeared smaller. He was delicate in his ways. He prepared tea carefully. He was fastidious and neat. He didn’t like crumbs on the kitchen table or papers strewn about on a couch. There was a certain kind of civility in his interactions and in his speaking style when he did not have to deal with those who were seeking “Beatle John”.

Elliot Mintz in Memories of John Lennon (2005)

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I see you Paul's "got the horrors" at thinking Revolver was out of tune, and raise you Paul's "got the screaming heebegeebies" at being asked to sing part of "Love Me Do" solo at the band's first EMI recording session

George Martin said, Wait a minute, there's a crossover there. Someone else has got to sing "love me do" because you're going to have a song called Love Me Waahhh. So, Paul, will you sing "love me do"?' God, I got the screaming heebegeebies. We were doing it live and I was suddenly given this massive moment on our first thing, where everything stopped, no backing, the spotlight went to me and I went [in trembling tones] love me dooooo. I can still hear the shake in my voice when I listen to it.

Source: interview with Mark Lewisohn, 1987, quoted in The Beatles: Tune In by Lewisohn (2013)

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my fave dialogue is the woman eavesdropping on their conversation in the cafe and interjecting "Yes" when Stu asks "Is that good?" to John's description of Paul kissing him like a drowning man needing oxygen <3

Resident The Life of Riley stan for the ask game 🫡 : 4, 11, 12

I love that you’re my official TLoR stan!

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

This fic actually has some of my favourite dialogue, and I especially love all the conversations between John and Stu… so can I cheat and have all of those?

“I don’t know, John,” said Stu, as he sat down on a stool and placed his pint on the table. “I’m no expert, but making you watch him come sounds a little bit gay.”

“Right, that’s it,” said Stu from behind him, snapping his fingers and extending his arm over John’s shoulder. “Hand me your phone — I’m googling employment tribunal lawyers.”

“Well,” said Stu, after taking a sip of his espresso. “Just because it feels good, it doesn’t make it right.” John raised his eyebrows. “Oh, you’re taking life lessons from Skunk Anansie now, are you?

“You know,” Stu said, leaning back in his chair and looking up at John. “Even prostitutes don’t have to kiss on the mouth if they don’t want to.”

“Oh, shut up! At least none of my exes have ever climbed through the window to watch me sleep.” “That happened one time!”

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I really like the boss/employee dynamic, how John starts off all ‘yes sir, no sir’ but then they end up becoming equals as they get to know each other. And then the way it backfires again at certain points, like when Paul picks up that girl and makes John watch. I also liked that John ended up having a bit of a protective role over Paul, like supporting him with the Jane stuff and standing up for him with his dad. Drive by Cars was in my head right from the start with this, and it basically became their theme song (who’s gonna drive you home tonight/who’s gonna pay attention to your dreams etc)

Which leads me to the other thing I like, which is the playlist. It’s the soundtrack that plays to the TLoR tv series in my head 😊

12: What do you like least about this fic?

I’m annoyed with myself for putting in a Red, White & Royal Blue reference, which meant I ended up getting loads of comments assuming that loads of things were RW&RB references even when they weren’t, which ruined the experience for me slightly. And I changed quite a lot of the later chapters while I was posting (the Paul POV chapter was a very late addition), so I probably should have worked on it for a bit longer before I posted. But overall I’m happy with it!

Thank you for these asks, I forgot how much I love this fic and it's been fun to revisit it!

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

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“PAUL: So the most important thing to say to people really is, “It isn’t necessarily so, what you believe. You must see that whatever you believe in isn’t necessarily the truth. No matter how truthful it gets, it’s not necessarily ever the truth because the fact it could be right or wrong is also infinite. The whole bit.” And that’s the point of it: the whole bit of being fluid and changing all the time and evolving etc. etc. This is it. It can’t ever be as cut and dried as we’ve got it now. And for it to be so cut and dried it’s got to be cut and dried in an unreal way. It’s got to be… It’s a fantastically abstract thing that people have got into without realising it. They’ve got into an incredible abstract way of living really. I mean, ‘cause none of it’s real! I was trying to think of the people that I meet in a day that aren’t acting in some way, and of course I’m acting, you know, all the time. But at least I’m making a serious effort not to act, now, realising that most of my acting is to no avail anyway. I mean there’s no point in anyone doing a Hollywood grin because everyone knows it’s a Hollywood grin. But everyone goes on in this fantastic surreal way, of accepting it as a genuine grin but knowing secretly that it isn’t really. But they take it and they do another grin back and they get on famously. They really get on well with each other doing those grins, and then one of then breaks a leg and the other one walks away and it falls apart a bit and something happens and the one who’s broken the leg wonders why the grin didn’t work when he had a broken leg. And it all gets very strange and very very far out. But everyone thinks that’s just the normal thing, and that’s life: “Oh well, that’s life!” and “Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it”… “You can’t burn your candle at both ends, you know.” That’s great, very scientific truths like “you can’t burn your candle at both ends” and who the fuck said that? [laughter] But everyone knows it’s true that you can’t burn your candle at both ends, but of course it isn’t true! And all the time they’re working… I say they but I’m in with they, I too am working on false assumptions… MILES: It stems from people being afraid of each other – afraid to open up the armour a little bit. PAUL: I really wish that I could… I mean… see, at the back of my brain somewhere, there is something telling me now that… it tells me in a cliché too… it tells me that everything is beautiful. Which immediately comes out as phoney sort of, I don’t know, as “Ban the bomb!” At the back of my brain there’s a thing telling me that everything is beautiful and everything is great and that instead of imposing things like: “I don’t like that television show” or “No, I don’t like the theatre”, “No, no. I don’t like so-and-so” that I know really that it’s all great and that everything’s great and that there’s no bad ever if I can think of it all as great. But this gets back to the bit that the other 22 years of me, it’s only ever been in the last two years at the most that I’ve ever sort of tried to think of anything as being beautiful, having realised that I could think of everything as being incredible, with a bit of effort, on my mind’s part. If I could… So I’m only just starting to try and think of things like that, so it still is difficult to communicate with people. But the aim is to just, one day, really just to sit there and not feel any of the hang-ups that people feel towards each other. Not feel any of the hang-ups of say, food not being up to standard or anything. That doesn’t matter, of course it doesn’t matter. But to me at the moment, it still matters a bit, because of what I’ve learned previously, so I’ve still got… I mean it would be too much of a hang-up to… fight this other 22 years and try to kill it off in a year and really try and sort it out in a year is too big a project. So, at the moment I’m just trying to operate within the new frame of reference but not pushing it. Because, I mean, to push it really would be to alienate myself completely from everything. I mean, it really would make me into a very strange being as far as other people were concerned.”

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Barry Miles for International Times: A conversation with Paul McCartney. (November, 1966)