#the breakup

[reflectismo]

One interesting part in John’s manuscript of Paul’s affidavit is his note in the margins regarding the section where Paul talks about the growing musical differences between him and John. In particular, John underlines Paul’s statement that “[John] he was no longer interested in the performance of songs which he had not written himself.” John counters this comment with “Paul was guilty of this for years. Witness ‘let it be’ clip.”

The ‘Get Back’ clips have shown us that not all was dire between them at this time. But I do believe John’s comment is valid and crucial in order to understand the feelings wrt. the unity (or the lack thereof) felt within the group and how that played into the role dynamics of the band at this point. At the very least, it indicates to me that a lot more was going on than just simply John being completely checked out from the group in the later years.

[stylerm2world]

I am really sad and heartbroken over the Chenford breakup. It’s not rational, I get that. But, it was my escape from the painful shit and now it’s part of the painful shit.

What is the most disturbing thing to me is the reaction of the fandom. I posed a question in in a group about how I completely understand from Tim’s perspective, why he broke up with her. I totally get his behavior is a trauma response. However, I have consistently brought up with other members of the fandom my struggle with the breakup. My issue is how Lucy could ever trust Tim again. I keep getting answers referring back to Tim’s decision making and people continuing to justify it.

That is not my question!! My question is about the woman he destroyed emotionally, while claiming to love her. It feels like the woman in the group have been so conditioned to accept men’s shitty behavior that, of course, their response is, they will get back together. I’m like “who cares, why would you even want her to take him back?” My argument is if Lucy has self-respect, why the fuck would she ever get back into a relationship with someone who treated her so poorly, who knowingly and willfully broke her heart, regardless of the reason, even if he does love her. I am absolutely disgusted with men’s lack of self-awareness, lack of emotional maturity and being afraid to step up to the plate for your partner. As women, why would you accept that, why would you think it’s okay, why would you make the question itself about the male partner. Accepting shitty behavior because “he didn’t mean it, he really loves me and I love him, so it’s okay.” That is the response of a person who was abused and continues to make excuses for the abuser to continue. Yes, it’s fiction, but I can’t help but wonder, what kind of fucking advice you give to women friends who bring problems in their relationship to you. Do you respond with, “that’s sad, but you know you’ll get back together. You’re endgame.” What.the.absolute.fuck?

So fucking disturbing…

[tadpoleboba]

the breakup pt 3

[i-am-the-oyster]

Hi there, I also have a quick question about this post (Paul's guilt about hurting John, possibly evidenced in song notes during the making of RAM, and its source—that he left John, despite having promised not to).

Are you saying Paul felt guilty towards John, and knew why, during the making of RAM? And, if so, how would you square this with Paul's notorious 'grief rant' phonecall with Hunter Davies shortly after John's death, where Paul appears not only upset by the idea that he hurt John, but also unaware of what he could have done to cause this hurt?

"But what had really got Paul upset that day was an interview with Yoko in which Yoko was quoted as saying that Paul had hurt John more than any other person. Paul thought they were amongst the cruelest words he ever read." (Hunter Davies grief rant fun)

Was Paul bullshitting Hunter? (Go, Paul)

Was Paul being defensive and angry b/c Yoko blamed him for hurting John in public?

Was Paul not surprised to hear he'd hurt John (after all, they hurt each other often), but struck by the 'more than any other person' part?

I don't mean to say you're right or wrong. I'm just curious to hear you elaborate on this. Meaning, your take on Paul's guilt, and how accessible it was to him consciously. I've long been thinking about him hearing this claim, 'you hurt him more than anyone else', and how different that would have landed, depending on how aware/guilty he felt.

(Whether Paul was right to feel guilty or not is a completely different matter, and doesn't play a role on my question.)

Thank you for the wonderful meaty (sorry Paul!) ask!

I think Paul *did* feel guilty at the time, but I wouldn't exactly say Paul was bullshitting Hunter. The thing that always jumps out at me from that transcript is where Paul says:

There's only one incident I can think of that John has mentioned publicly.

(emphasis mine)

Isn't that an interesting distinction in the context? It makes me think that there were deeply private things that they each did to the other but Paul feels certain that those things would never end up the subject of public discussion.

I don't buy the image of Paul as lacking self-awareness or self-reflection. BUT he is extremely good at re-framing things in a positive way "so many times I had to change the pain to laughter" AND he is a very contrary person. He seems to often instinctively push against whatever narrative the person opposite him is proposing, especially where the topic needs some nuance. (eg the one time he approaches the topic of Jim's violence is in response to Stern pushing Paul's own "idyllic childhood" bit).

So back to the version of their story that had in mind when I made my original post. (Which I'm not married to, but seems like a plausible scenario worth exploring). Paul and John are in a codependent relationship, John has clearly expressed his terror that Paul might leave (as he did with Cyn). John's behaviour has become erratic and (at least borderline) abusive. Paul knows that if he lets go John will "take a tumble", but he's exhausted and Linda is teaching him to take his own desires and needs into account in a much healthier way. (Not to suggest Paul was never selfish in the 60s lol, but he wasn't practicing actual self-care).

John is spiraling, and pushing Paul away in that heartbreaking pattern I call "see I knew you were going to leave". (I'm sure there must be a name for it in psychology). Linda doesn't yet realise the depth of feeling she's dealing with. Paul knows how terrified John is, he's promised he won't be like the others, he won't leave. But he can't do it any more. John finally convinces him that he actually wants him to leave, he bawls his eyes out in front of Mal, and he disappears to Scotland.

I think he would be absolutely wracked with guilt.

And then I think as part of his recovery from that depression he would reassure himself that he did need to leave, that it was the right choice, that he and John could continue to care about one another deeply and move on.

I think Yoko's statement was unnecessarily cruel hurt him, and triggered that contrary response. What's she even talking about? What did I do? The worst ever?!

Thanks again!

[i-am-having-a-moment-here]

I wanted to write "nightingales" in a tag, I misspelled it as "nightingaled" and I sadly thought: "well, Crowley and Aziraphale certainly got unnightingaled"

[brickroll]

There are three types of people after this breakup and it's hilarious.

Type 1: I'm heartbroken, my heart is shattered, they were the only reason I believed in love 😭💔💔

Type 2: I'm gonna go to Monaco, Charles is single, im so happy (we're all bisexual for him - type-thing) 😝🤭😍

Type 3: OK, so when is he gonna start dating Max?

[moonraccoon14]

me at the end of episode 6

vs me at the end of episode 7

[triplexdoublex]

I love how she keeps having to mention him and being like I’m twin flames with myself when he hasint actually mentioned her once😭 all he has to do is post a video of him vibing to the break up and it would be over for her with the fans lmao she’s lucky he isint being petty 🤣🤣

Omg I would LOVE if he did that!!! 🤣🤣🤣 and change the lyrics to fit her “I know you bought me the bag, you ain’t get back tho, my name name on the bag tho” 💀💀💀

[torchlitinthedesert]

There's lots of interesting stuff in the 1968 (published 1969) John and Yoko interview posted by @thestarsarecool, but I did want to shout out to this unhinged contribution from Apple:

John doesn't see much of the other Beatles these days. Their Apple press secretary gives this report on their lives: "Ringo has a good domestic marriage - stable in the English sense; George's is good but more swinging; and Paul broke up with Jane Asher after John's marriage cracked."

[get-back-homeward]

Imagine this

How Do You Sleep that

Have you considered the most interesting song on the Imagine album may be How?

George was right. The song deserves attention.

Tumblr search is zero help on this song because it only picks up How Do You Sleep. But has anyone ever written about it?

Given John’s “How? + Why?” response to Paul’s 12-page letter about dissolving the partnership, I think it’s worth looking at. That exchange is sometime in summer 1970.

Song Origins

The earliest version of How? is a home demo dated as late 1970. This demo only has the “we” part of the song:

How can we go forward When we don’t know which way we're facing? How can we go forward When we don’t know which way to turn? How can we be certain About something we’re not sure of? Oh, no, oh, no

In the final version, this part is the end of the song (the bolded words change slightly). This ending is a shift from the personal “I” used in the rest of the song. So he started with “we” in 1970 and then evolved it into more self-directed reflection over time.

The demo is very rough, he's still searching for the notes. But something about it made me think of Look At Me, which has a similar plaintive tone and features several existential questions to the listener (Who am I supposed to be? and Who are we?). Look at Me originates from India and has an earlier 1968 demo that captures a glimpse of John’s state of mind during this crucial time. The How? demo would be recorded around the same time John is revisiting Look At Me to record formally for the Plastic Ono Band album.

The added self-reflection verses continue the same format of existential questions, moving from feelings to love. It's a blatantly honest look at depression in the wake of a loss, which I think George would have noticed and in some sense seen himself in. It's unclear when these verses are added (John just says “last year” in 1971 for all the verses), but they are probably influenced by John's experience of undergoing Janov's primal scream therapy (April-September 1970?). Possibly the questions left unanswered at the end of those 6 months.

How can I have feeling when I don't know if it's a feeling?

How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?

All three verses include the idea of uncertainty (I don’t know), which could be its own essay on existentialism vs epistemology in the face of a destabilizing event. But for now, let’s focus on the emotional aspect. Here, two places ascribe blame to drive his uncertainty: his feelings have always been denied and love is something he never had. This seems to go a bit far, but remember depression is a liar and part of Janov's therapy was probably that John’s closest relationships had all been a lie.

John adds the middle eight during Imagine sessions. It balances the bleakness of depression with the will to live:

You know life can be long

And you got to be so strong

And the world is so tough

Sometimes I feel I've had enough

This middle eight repeats twice, and each time, the end fuses to the first word of the questioning verses, without the typical space of a few beats in between. This lack of space suggests a relationship, as if the questions are part of the fight to keep him going past the bleakness of feeling like giving up.

Its first recording is May 26, 1971, nine days after Ram is released. Take 31 and Take 40 (Raw Studio Mix) were released on the Ultimate release of the album but aren't too different from the final lyrics/melody wise.

Supposedly, another version of How? includes a question about home: “how can I go home when home is something I have never had” and it’s not clear which lines replace it. Perhaps “how can I give love when I don’t know what it is I’m giving?” Questions of home would be a result of Janov’s primal scream digging into his childhood and bringing forth old wounds. But in the absence of a physical home, it’s the people around you who become your home. This home line makes me think of that Get Back sessions moment, when John shares with Paul his excitement about getting Apple Studio functional and feeling like home. It's a picture of feelings being denied in action as Paul responds by changing the subject. For whatever reason, this home line gets cut by Take 31.

The placement of How? in the album tracklist is curious too, directly after the angry Paul-directed How Do You Sleep. Its title holds the same question but none of the anger. It’s like an echo of How Do You Sleep, informing the source of its anger and revealing what it masks: fear and indecision about the future.

Song Context

It’s interesting to place this song next to Ram, where the overwhelming theme is the exact opposite: grab life by the horns and move forward to find your own way. Ram sessions started in NYC in October 1970, around the same time as the How? demo. Each song, from Too Many People to Back Seat, reveals Paul’s mental exercise of extricating himself from his former life and moving on with his family in Scotland. Personally and professionally, Paul is building a new home away from John.

The final version of How? is produced more in the vein of The Long and Winding Road, the song at the nexus of the breakup. Its beginning is marked by the same distinct stop-start syncopated beat and the instrumentation builds across the song to make a bleak song more palatable. If Paul didn’t turn off the record the moment he heard John’s diss track, he would have almost certainly picked up How?’s link to TL&WR. That song being his own plaintive moment of fearing the future, considering life without the band that was his world. And the last straw when Spector remixed it without his approval.

In his April 1971 LIFE interview that precedes the Ram release, Paul shares a recent exchange between him and John. John recalls the infamous “bubble bursting” question, and Paul corrects him in the past tense: the bubble has already burst. This is one of several exchanges where Paul’s saying catch up, it’s done, let me go and John’s saying what does that even mean?!

Hearing Paul’s declaration of independence on Ram made John angry. He calls How Do You Sleep “an outburst” in response to Ram and not reflective of how he thinks of Paul all the time. But Ram also gave him a direction forward that McCartney did not. If John thought the album had messages to taunt him, he almost certainly heard the taunt in Monkberry Moon Delight:

Catch up! Cats and kittens Don’t get left behind

I don’t know about you, but hearing that taunt from my ex-partner/BFF/lover/whatever would certainly make me angry, hot enough to ignite my competitive streak and get to work.

It reminds me of the moment Fred Seaman recalls in 1980, when John hears Paul's Coming Up:

John told me that Paul was the only musician who could scare him into writing great songs, and vice versa.

Imagine is hardly my favorite John solo album. I'm not about to dismiss the terrible things John said about Paul or Ram or forget how the bad press buried the album for years. But I think in focusing on the anger, we can miss the simple fact that Ram inspiring John to write anything was actually the biggest compliment he could give. Sometimes, anger is the only fuel available to drive you forward, where anything is preferable to nothing. It’s not ideal or fair, and it’s up to you to pick up the mess of your storm later, but it’s something. Like a basic survival instinct kicking in in the midst of drowning. Any fight that pushing you back to the surface is preferable over laying down and dying.

In that way, I think John was being honest when he later admitted that How Do You Sleep was about himself. Not in the exact lines specific to Paul but in the action, to write (or accept), record, and release them. How? as an echo to this anger shows the before and after, how John used Paul as a punching bag in response. That action was all about John himself.

[fredandginger64]

I don’t understand Dean. He was obviously trying so hard to hurt Jerry as much as he could but Jerry wouldn’t say anything bad about Dean. I think I’ve only read one negative thing Jerry ever said about Dean. What made Dean so bitter against Jerry? More proof that their partnership was way more than that. Something happened between these two, something personal.

World-Telegram Feature Magazine by Robert Kamm June 27, 1959

[kittiesfordays]

i've watched 9 episodes of last twilight

and it's just so meaningful. it's so beautiful and important.

but having seen spoilers for episode 12, my heart hurts, knowing what it could have been, what it could have given us.. and what we got instead.

[stylerm2world]

Fanfic is my only comfort and now most of it feels like it was built on a lie.

[tadpoleboba]

The breakup pt 1 

[i-am-the-oyster]

I've never read Apple to the Core because copies are so $$$ but iirc based on the Historian the Beatles it was written at the height of the divorce and John, George, and Ringo all gave interviews but Paul wouldn't speak to the authors except through his lawyer so it's peak threetles vs. Paul agenda setting. I'd honestly love to read it.

Same anon!

It's a whole different experience reading a book published at the time vs one with layers of filters and hindsight. (Both have value of course, and neither is automatically The Truth). But Apple to the Core really is $$$.

It makes sense that JGR would give interviews at that time. I don't know which is sadder: the idea that they were lying to win a court case OR the idea that they had totally convinced themselves of the truth of some of these things.

I lean towards the latter. I think they were vulnerable because of their drug use, and their anger, and Klein's manipulation skills. I think J and G spent the rest of their lives believing things were at best exaggerations, and at worst total fabrications.

[i-am-having-a-moment-here]

Aziraphale: Come with me to Heaven.

Crowley: