#the fucking John Lennon interview is crazy

[femslashspuffy]

I can't take the archive footage in Forrest Gump seriously it's just like when people edit Joe Biden to say stupid things. It's like being in a showing of Rocky horror where you say leading questions to make the characters say stupid things. This is one of the most famous movies ever and they put Forrest Gump showing his ass to Lyndon B Johnson in it

[m1ssunderstanding]

Understanding Lennon McCartney Rewatch Part 1.2

George: We don't have to keep [an image] up, we just remain ourselves. Don't we, Ringo? Ringo: well, we do, I mean, it's the other two we're worried about. It's a joke about John and Paul being bigheads, but a crazy person – definitely not me – could also see it other ways if they wanted to.

Paul talking about their mutual friend when asked how they met and John telling him not to complicate it. They're so married it's ridiculous. 

Always looking at each other with every single joke. 

He looks like he's in a lovely enclosure at the petting zoo. I've always been so confused by this footage. Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on?

I LOVE that we now know Paul was cast as Thisbe and John as Pyramus and then they switched. I'm actually dying to know how and why that happened though. My first instinct was “of course. Paul was scared he'd look too convincing as a woman, so John did it for him.” But no. Paul dressed as a woman at the cavern, wore ladies lingerie in Hamburg, and wanted to do a full drag show on TV in the early seventies. So why not Thisbe?

Why do you as a man randomly bring up the color of your friend's dick while staring lovingly into his eyes?

It must be noted. They had a wonderful time playing star-crossed lovers. 

The bickering pianos are so cute! And then John (prompting Paul): and John and I . . . Paul: oh I hate this. John: will probably carry on . . . Paul: we'll carry on songwriting . . . You just know Paul didn't hear the end of that one interview answer for a long long time. And it's because John just had to hear it over and over again.

Love the editing so that Paul smacks John's ass right as the symbols crash. 10/10 A+

This iconic moment. Poor George tally number 4.

Interviewer brings up marriage and John takes a shot like he wants to forget that the whole concept even exists. Literally poor Cynthia. And not even in an “lol her husband's gay” type of way. Just in a genuine “the way their relationship fell apart actually breaks my heart because she really did love him and in his way he loved her too but they were just so thoroughly incompatible” type of way. 

Paul: makes a stupid dad joke. John: giggles gleefully and kicks his feet

I have never seen someone so disappointed that they didn't need to lend their friend a pen. Paul had his hand in his pocket before John even asked the interviewer for a pen and when the interviewer gives him one, Paul literally hangs his head like he's just been cut from the school play. I just. The obsession is frankly cartoonish. But also, he just needs to be needed, you know? How many songs does he have which conflate being needed and being loved?

The juxtaposition of Paul and John elaborately messing with the interviewer (“yes John Lenard, that's me” and “actually it's done by mirrors.”) vs George's “I don't know” and “yeah.” it's actually kind of mean editing but whatever. It is ULM not UH. Someone should make that though.

Again, John. Calm down. He's not that funny. Just look at Jimmy. That's the normal person's reaction to that joke. John is half the reason Paul has such a big head honestly. 

Paul's answer to a question about the Beatles gaining a lot of adult fans is nice. Sometimes he shocks with a bit of wisdom. Sometimes his words don't get messed up at the point they hit his throat as he says. 

What the fuck? Okay so the interviewer asks Paul what he likes in a girl, right? I've always been too distracted by Paul saying he likes a sense of humor and John doing an obnoxious fake laugh in the background because John. It's embarrassing how obvious you are. Stop.

But I never noticed Paul actually says “people”. The interviewer asks about girls and he says he likes “people - er - girls” to have a sense of humor. Huh. Okay. 

So ULM was actually what made me a serious Beatles fan and this was the first moment where I had to pause it and verify to see if what I'd just read was actually true. It really is a doozy. 

How to flirt. A guide by Paul McCartney. Step one: get your crush’s attention. This should be extremely easy. Just gesture vaguely at something you're holding. He'll be interested. Step two: do something suggestive to a phallic object. Step three: that's it. You've got him. He'll do whatever you want.

The editing in this thing truly is brutal. Just the jump cuts from a question about Cynthia to John and Paul making each other laugh to girls screaming to John and Paul unnecessarily touching to girls passed out on the ground to John and Paul desperate for each other's attention to girls waving signs to John and Paul sharing weird eye contact to girls physically mobbing them to John and Paul beaming at each other to a question about Jane. It really does drive home the immense pressure of compulsory heterosexuality back then. 

Then a question that's obviously meant to poke a nerve and start some bad feelings. “Paul. Is John the leader of the Beatles?” Easily rebuffed with “no I'm not” and “there's no real leader”. I know I'm dramatic but really it's like every aspect of that society was against them you know? And they just kind of said "fuck you, we're crazy about each other."

Question: what do they think about when they're imprisoned in their hotel rooms? John: we don't think about one thing. *Whips head to look at Paul* well, some of us do. Oh and you know that how exactly? What, do you just have a printout of his every thought? Do you keep constant tabs on his dick?

Someone give me the heterosexual explanation of that moment when John very clearly and obviously checks out and appreciates Paul's ass as he and Ringo are pretending to be cowboys. Seriously. I'm at a loss here. 

Poor George tally number six? Seven? They're asked what they'll do if England reinstates the draft. John brings up Southern Ireland. George brings up Germany. Paul and John plan their joint escape to Southern Ireland as if George hadn't even spoken. 

The choice to play “Another Girl” over that quote of John's being like ‘Paul's actually much meaner than i am’ is great. Because that's seriously such a jerk song. I don't much like Jane, honestly, but fuck, she deserved so much better than Paul. He was such a douche.  

Literally all the song choices in this are phenomenal. “Hide Your Love Away” over the montage of 60s homophobia moments? It's so genius. Saying everything without saying anything. Letting the Beatles do the talking. 

The laugh track over the cartoon is honestly so sad. Nobody asked them if they were okay with being mocked like that and they never even made a dime off it. What would that have felt like to know that your being “too close” with your best friend was a running joke on TV?

“It's only love and that is all. Why should I feel the way I do?”

[likeadevils]

was that interview paul mccartney and taylor did together in 2020 a big deal to you

at that time not a super big deal-- i didn't get really into the beatles until like, 2021? i think? but in retrospect routinely drives me insane. like paul mccartney heard my tears ricochet and mirrorball back to back and we just don’t know what he thought about either track. jail.

anyway here's a completely unrequested ranking of how insane it is that paul mccartney heard each song on folklore. also TRIGGER WARNINGS: cancer, death, drugs, infidelity, suicidal ideation

DISCLAIMER: 1) most of what i know about paul is centered around the beatles 2) you can not empathize with paul mccartney the same way you empathize with taylor. the dude is. he’s made some Choices.

songs that i regularly go oh my god paul fucking mccartney heard this song wtf

mirrorball (that’s him! that’s paul!)

mtr (i tried so hard to keep this brief. so. one of the things that lead to the beatles breaking up was like, song publishing drama, and also the other three beatles wanted to sign this fucking awful manager and paul didn’t want to do that and he ended up suing the other three beatles to get out of the contract and between that and various complicated personal stuff paul ended up becoming The Villian of the beatles breakup— or maybe not The Villian cause you know, the yoko of it all, but Villian #2. and then you add in the paul is dead of it all and how john lennon wrote a diss track about paul and one of the lines in it was “those freaks was right when the said you was dead” and it’s like. crazy. also one of paul’s biggest regrets was not getting the masters to the beatles songs and he’s been trying for like fucking decades and it keeps slipping away and michael fucking jackson bought them out from under him once?? it’s a whole thing)

exile (no cause the breakup took for-fucking-ever and was like mostly caused by “you never learned to read my mind” and he just has to endlessly talk about it to this day and reopen that wound and even though half the people involved in it are dead the conversation will just never end and it’ll just always echo throughout his life)

hoax (i feel like i would need a line by line breakdown but like bro. brother. brethren.)

upon reflection i will go oh god paul mccartney heard this but it is not one of the first things i think of when i hear the song

betty (his first name is james, which is just funny, and i would not be at all surprised to learn he said this shit verbatim when he was 17. or really ever kinda. uwu i’m too stupid not to cheat. also it was kinda your fault if you think about it. xoxo take me back please)

the 1 (such a paul song really. i’m doing good -> goes on to slowly reveal the most heartbreaking shit you’ve ever heard)

invisible string (not so fun fact his current wife (nancy) was friends with his first wife (linda) because they met during chemo but it seems like nancy and paul didn’t meet until after linda died which is the most fucking heartbreaking invisible string)

timt (one of the saddest pairs of paul mccartney quotes is this one time he said “i’ll do any drug except heroin, heroin is for suicidal people” (which is also sad because john lennon was like famously addicted to heroin) and then years later he was like “i did heroin after the beatles broke up” and its like jesus christ)

cardigan (like in a overall sense yeah when he was a teenager he did forever bind himself to a deeply inconsistent teenage boy and then that teenage boy found a different partner and left him, and some of the lyrics go hard through the paul and john context, but like overall it’s not like. like mtr and exile HIT when viewed through the beatles breakup lense and cardigan is like. yeah that happened)

august (i mean i guess? see above and see below)

illicit affairs (fuck sir james paul mccartney justice for maggie. i don’t know her last name but justice for maggie. man dated her for like three years while having this whole ass very public other girlfriend that he WAS ENGAGED TO and then that engagement fell apart because he was caught in bed with A THIRD WOMAN and then he keeps dating maggie AND MOVES THE THIRD WOMAN IN TO HIS HOME. and then he starts dating A FOURTH WOMAN and fucking ghosts maggie but then he showed up THE NIGHT BEFORE HE GOT MARRIED, cried at her, then left AND GOT MARRIED AND NEVER SPOKE TO HER AGAIN)

seven (he apparently spent a lot of his childhood just hanging out in trees people/bird watching? which is adorable. you also get the whole perfectionist looking back fondly on children being a peer to go insane. but also he seemed to stay in contact with his childhood friends to a kinda insane degree. but also man has lost a lot of friends)

epiphany (his mom was a fucking nurse who died when he was 14 and then later his wife died of the exact same thing. so i imagine the second verse Hits. aside from that though eh)

the two (2) songs that paul commented on

tlgad (he liked it!! this one gives me bigger george vibes tho. guys george’s house was so fucking cool he had all these weird caves underneath it and sometimes he would give people tours and have someone else lead them into the caves and then jump out and scare them)

peace (again said he liked it!! apparently got a bit hung up on the “give you a child” line which. fair. but also. listen to the song a bit more james i think it would give you mild psychic damage)

no brain damage

mad woman (i would actively avoid having to talk to him about this song. not cause i think he’d say anything particularly harmful (nowadays) i just think i’d be bored out of my mind)

[thesibfiles]

Courtney going on tour right after?

Theres a misconception that after Kurts death, Courtney went straight on tour right away. This is false. The album was already set to release a few days after and they couldnt change that on such a short notice. Promotion for the album was cancelled and she pushed back the tour 4 months.

“Live Through This was supposed to provide Love an opportunity to step out from her famous husband’s shadow. “It’s annoying now, and it’s been annoying for nine years, Love said in a 1999 Jane Magazine interview of always being connected to Cobain. Released four days after Cobain’s body was found, the album’s promotion was put on hold. Rather than retreat from the public eye, Love openly mourned and helped fans of Cobain and Nirvana make sense of the singer’s death. She sat with grieving teenagers gathered outside the couple’s Seattle home and recorded a reading of parts of his suicide note that was played at the singer’s memorial that gathered near the Space Needle. In the days following his death, Love showed a very raw and emotional side and admitted that, like many fans, she didn’t have all the answers. 

It was, and still is, impossible for people to discuss Live Through This without noting the irony of the album’s title. Love has said the name was not a prediction at all, but instead a reflection of all she had endured in the months leading up to its release, including a very public custody fight with the Los Angeles Department of Family Services over daughter Frances Bean. Rumors suggested that Cobain had written much of Live Through This (it’s Miss World, not Mister, just FYI). “I’d be proud as hell to say that he wrote something on it, but I wouldn’t let him. It was too Yoko for me. It’s like, ‘No fucking way, man! I’ve got a good band, I don’t fucking need your help,’” was Love’s response to critics in Spin’s oral history of Live Through This. Love and Cobain often shared notebooks and lyrics with each other, and while there is talk of Cobain’s influence on Love’s work, or the writing of all of it, less is mentioned in the press of her impact on his lyrics and music. Rather than sucking all the life out of Nirvana or threatening the success of the band, like many assumed she would do, she inspired Cobain. Fun fact: In Utero, Nirvana’s last album, was named after a line from one of Love’s poems.

Sadly, songwriting rumors would be replaced by other rumors. Women are often vilified and condemned for the deaths of their male partners. Love, like all women, was supposed to save her partner from death and addiction. Fans of Cobain projected all their anger and resentment over the loss of the Nirvana front man onto Love, and soon she was blamed for not only his addiction but also his death. There are even two movies devoted to the theory that Courtney killed Kurt: the awful Soaked in Bleach (2015) and the equally awful Kurt & Courtney (1998). If you think we’ve come a long way, baby, sadly we haven’t. 

One year after Anthony Bourdain’s death, Asia Argento is still being blamed, and in September 2018, Ariana Grande had to take a break from social media after fans blamed her for the death of her ex Mac Miller. A few months later, she would be blamed for new beau Pete Davidson’s mental health and addiction issues. It’s amazing she finds the time to write hit songs what with all the dude destruction she has going on. When women are not being blamed for the deaths of the men in their lives, they are being attacked for not grieving properly. “She wasn’t crying. She’s got $30 million coming to her. Do you blame her for being so cool?” a hospital staffer said of Yoko Ono following John Lennon’s murder in 1980. 

About four months after Cobain’s death, Love went on tour to promote her new album. Some questioned and judged why she would go on tour so soon, but Love has said it was a necessity. She had a young daughter to support. She needed to work. She also, sadly, still needed to prove herself. “I would like to think that I’m not getting the sympathy vote, and the only way to do that is to prove that what I’ve got is real,” Love told Rolling Stone in 1994.

Twenty-five years later, Cobain’s death still hangs over Live Through This. In the days leading up to the anniversary of Cobain’s death, former Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur wrote an open letter to music magazine Kerrang saying she “would not stand for Kurt’s death overshadowing the life and work of the women he left behind this year.”

“We were extremely well designed for each other,” Love has said of her relationship with Cobain. In a letter reprinted in Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love, she calls him “my everything. the top half on my fraction.” The two had similar upbringings, both came from broken homes and spent childhoods shuttling between relatives and friends. They both grew up longing for love and acceptance. When we tell the story of Kurt and Courtney we talk about drugs and destruction, but we don’t talk enough about love.

The two also shared an intense drive and ambition. “I didn’t want to marry a rock star, I wanted to be one,” Love said in a 1992 Sassy interview. Evidence of her drive can be found in the many notes and to-do lists she kept, some of which are collected in Dirty Blonde. There are reminders to send her acting résumé to agencies, to write three to four new songs a week, to “achieve L.A. visibility.” A scene in the documentary Kurt & Courtney features an ex of Love’s reading from one of her to-do lists, which has “become friends with Michael Stipe” as the number one task to complete (not only did Love do this, but he is her daughter’s godfather). This ambition is not surprising from a woman who, when she was younger, mailed a tape of herself singing to Neil Sedaka in hopes of getting signed. Love knew what she wanted at an early age, and what she wanted was fame.

She was certainly living by the “do not hurt yourself, destroy yourself, mangle yourself to get the football captain. Be the football captain!” motto she championed in the 1995 documentary Not Bad for a Girl. Ambition is often a dirty word when it is used to describe women and Love is no exception. She has been repeatedly described as calculating and controlling when she should be rewarded for her blond ambition and viewed as an inspiration. Critics and the press often call her a gold digger who only married Cobain for fame and money. They fail to mention that when the two met Pretty on the Inside was actually selling more copies than Bleach, Nirvana’s debut album. Even post-Kurt, Love’s intentions were always under scrutiny. On the Today Show to do press for The People vs. Larry Flynt, Love refused to talk about her past drug use, despite the host’s repeated questions, saying the topic was not an appropriate fit for the show’s demographic. She was right, but it didn’t stop a writer from describing the move as “calculating” in a 1998 Spin piece.

Cobain was ambitious too; he was just much slyer and more secretive about it. He was known to call his manager and complain when MTV didn’t play Nirvana’s videos enough, and he would correct journalists who misquoted the band’s sales figures in interviews. While success is typically celebrated and rewarded for men and it certainly was for Cobain, he also had to be mindful of the slacker generation that loved Nirvana and greeted success — and especially mainstream success —

While female celebrities like Love are criticized for their rebellion, male celebrities, like Cobain for example, are celebrated and mythologized for it. Cobain and Love both struggled with addiction, but it is Love who is repeatedly vilified for her drug use. “She was vilified for being a mess, for being a drug addict, for not being a great parent — in other words, all of the things we expect in a male rock star,” said Bust magazine in a piece in the magazine’s 20th anniversary issue, which featured Love on the cover.

We make jokes about the drug antics of male celebrities from Keith Richards to Charlie Sheen, idolizing their debauchery and depravity. The new Netflix/Lifetime movie by Jack Daniels, The Dirt, about Mötley Crüe, takes the band’s excesses to almost comic levels. Check out crazy tourmate Ozzy Osbourne snorting a line of ants by a hotel pool! Such zany antics! I would love to see Lindsay Lohan try to get away with that. We never allow women to live down their arrests and their addictions, but we repeatedly allow men to have a redemption arc. Robert Downey Jr. was in and out of jail and on and off drugs for much of the mid to late ’90s, but we rarely, if ever, talk about his past.

When Love isn’t being attacked for her addiction issues, she is being judged for her parenting. Love’s first unflattering press was “Strange Love,” the much publicized 1992 Vanity Fair profile by Lynn Hirschberg. While the piece talks at length about Love’s drug use and constantly questions her parenting ability, it doesn’t paint Cobain in the same light. “It is appalling to think that she would be taking drugs when she knew she was pregnant,” says one close friend in the piece. Hirschberg relies on many unnamed sources and focuses often on the tabloid-like aspects of Love’s life and addictions. “Courtney has a long history with drugs. She loves Percodans (‘They make me vacuum’), and has dabbled with heroin off and on since she was eighteen, once even snorting it in Room 101 of the Chelsea Hotel, where Nancy Spungen died,” she writes. “Reportedly, Kurt didn’t do much more than drink until he met Courtney.” (Even when it is reported by Kurt and Krist that Kurt tried heroin in 1989, way before Courtney, It was also known that he smoked weed and used caugh syrup to get high in 1989 and 1990.)

This double standard was common in coverage of the couple. In Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the 2015 documentary by Brett Morgen, Love asks her husband, “Why does everyone think you’re the good one and I’m the bad one?” Later in the film we see a scene of Frances Bean’s first haircut. The child sits on Cobain’s lap while Love searches for a comb and scissors. The camera shows Cobain nodding off, and while he maintains that he is just tired, it’s clear he’s not. The scene is painful to watch, especially because those around Cobain carry on like nothing in wrong, giving the feeling this is just like any other day in the Love-Cobain household. The scene is a reminder of how the press treated Cobain’s addiction when he was alive. They just carried on like nothing was wrong, instead directing all their judgement at Love.

[megan1412]

Btw, this story is non canon to my McLennon series. Thanks @catinsatintrousers for the cool request, here it is!

A Much Needed Break

1968, John and Paul head to New York for the Apple Press tour for some business and a break from tension at home.

————————————————————————

John neatly packs his suitcase as he takes a drag from his joint. Paul is rushing around the bedroom trying to find his favorite tie.

“God damn it where is it?”

“Forget it Paul. We’ll buy a new one when we get to New York.”

“I know it’s here somewhere.”

“Paul?”

“What?”

“Forget it. Relax.”

Paul huffs as he wipes the sweat from his brow. This is stupid, he thinks. Why is he so stressed out over a tie? He sits next to John, who is taking long drags now.

“Hey, I’m sorry I stressed you out. Hey take that out.”

He takes the joint from John and hears a grunt from his lover. He runs his fingers through John’s new long hair. It was something new to him and he had to get used to seeing John like this.

“I feel like we need to have a break.”

“Mhm yeah. I’m fucking exhausted.” John said quietly.

“I feel you love.”

“Flight boards in two hours. We’d better get going Paul.”

“I can’t honestly wait.”

“For a business trip?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but this could be a chance for us to relax and talk... about us.”

“Um ok. Is this about what happened in India?”

Paul goes silent. The incident plays over and over in his head. They had had a small argument during their trip to the ashram. John admitted that he wasn’t sure where their relationship was going. Paul retorted that he was the problem their relationship was changing. John got offended and they didn’t speak much for the rest of the trip. Paul just wanted to talk that’s all. He wanted to see why John was so depressed all the time and always longing for acid. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t his John.

“We’ll talk about it later. Let’s get to the airport.”

They walk out of the bedroom with their luggage in tow and head to the airport.

——————

The Next Day

John lays down on the bed and sets aside his bag. Interviews and promotional events wore him out. He hears Paul come out from the bathroom in a towel and his hair all wet. Paul has that sinister look on his face, and John instantly melts.

“Like what you see Lennon?”

“Man, you haven’t looked this hot in a while.”

“I save myself for special occasions.”

He dries his hair with another towel. He hums as he walks around the room.

“It’s nice to be back in New York, away from the chaos and the tension.”

“What tension?”

Paul looks at him with a surprised look.

“You haven’t noticed what’s been going on?”

“I don’t know. Things I guess are changing.”

“Yeah. Hopefully for the better and this is just the adjustment phase.”

“Possibly.”

Paul decides it’s time to put all this band stuff and the Apple business aside for the night and initiate some romance. He saunters over to John and sits next to him. His bear chest is near John’s arm and he leans in to give a tender kiss on John’s awaiting lips. John instantly gives into the kiss and pulls Paul on top of him.

“I’m sorry Macca.”

“For what?”

“For what I said in India. I was wrong.”

“I’m not mad. I love you too much to ever be mad at you.”

“Thanks.”

They roll around on the bed and playfully kiss like they did when they were young teddy boys back in Liverpool. Paul goes for John’s pants and begins to unbutton them. John slips off Paul’s towel and reveals everything. Paul blushes as he waits for John to undress. The rest of the night is history.

When they wake up next to each other, they lay there holding each other and look out the window and see the big buildings all around them.

“You know, Frank Sinatra should write a song about New York.” John says with a smile.

“Or maybe you could.”

“Nah, his voice suits it better than me.”

“Sounds like a good song if it ever happens.”

[polythenepamkillerdiller]

After 2 years being in Beatles fandom particularly on Lennon/Mccartney dynamic. i come to the conclusion that Paul and John both were obsess with each other and they definately fucked. The reason they broke up is because they hadn’t been fucked in long time. All because no more tour. Last time they fuck is Paris 66. Many of Mccartney song is about John, no matter what he said about it. Hey Jude is definately about John. And why the fuck he want to write a song about his friend son? Yoko and Linda i dont like them equally. I dont think Linda was clueless about John & Paul bussiness. She knows, she know what really happen between them. Just imagine your husband become a drunken man in the middle of fcking country and isolate himself from everyone and wrote songs like heart broken lover definately give some insight something weird about their friendship. Kinda feel that Paul feel bit jealous/possesive of John personality. The way he wrote song about him feel like john definately on his mind 24/7. Lastly Not to disrespect Paul fans but sometimes i find his fans too idolise him so much like his a fcking rocknroll God. I listen to this so called Lennon/Mccartney podcast at first i find it quite interesting but later on they just Mccartney podcast actually. The amount of mocking and downgrading on John’s part is unbearable. Using John’s name into the discussion just want to cancel him slowly. Yes John is crazy, he even admit it he bit emotionally unstable so why everybody take serious everything that he said literally? He’s human, he got human feeling and human feeling often changing. Unlike The Greatest Paul Mccartney who comes from planet Mars that never change his story. Now i stop looking for more facts because they already give the answer, the answer is through their song and John’s interview.

[masterthespianduchovny]

David and Gillian: The Non-Romance for the Ages

One thing that I can’t shake about the media focus on David and Gillian receives is that it almost exclusively is reserved for actual (former) couples.

Like, why is the media focused on a couple that never was?

It’s not like David and Gillian’s situation was unique: co-stars with great chemistry who the media/people would like to see together. Plenty of shows and movies have co-stars like that. Hell, some co-stars have actually ended up together (and some have not), yet for two people out of their career primes and vocally denied ever being involved and stated it’ll never happen, the media refuses to leave this idea alone.

And if you follow popular culture and celebrity news, this is highly unusual. The media loves actors in their primes or on popular shows/in popular franchises. They love hot, young people. They love established box office sellers. They love a scandal. They love couples they drives gossip and clicks, which IMHO, outside of attractiveness, David and Gillian don’t fit that criteria.

Yet, this question about them (not) being romantically involved always comes up. Maybe not in every interview, every year, but it’s a question that doesn’t die. It’s fascination that hasn’t ended.

Which makes me think of the evergreen appeal Gillovny has for many people, which isn’t common.

What I mean by this is that there are certain couples, whether or not if they stayed together, that the media and society will always be obsessed with. It is something about them that we can’t get enough of. Most celebrities couples do not fit this criteria.

Take for instance, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Even now, even when most of them are dead, there is still a fascination about their relationships. A “modern” day example is Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston (which earned this status due to many reasons, but they were a big thing before their divorce).

Despite never being together or even being rumored together, meaning rumors that consumed the media, they are in a limbo of sorts. As long as these two are alive, these questions will always plague them. People will be curious no matter how much they deny ever being involved. I think, unlike the others, it will fade when they pass away because we can’t follow a relationship that didn’t exist.

But, I just think about that no matter who they were with and no matter how long they were with them, none of their relationships have ever captured peoples attention as much as their non existence romance. And that's crazy as fuck. No relationship can compare to one that never happened--that’s the one many are invested in.

I think about Angelina Jolie in her prime (and before Brad) and how people were so obsessed with her and Billy Bob Thornton. That hardly anyone ever talks about them--this was a huge relationship almost 20 years ago. Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn--a huge thing around 15 years ago.

I think about all of the big relationships now that largely have intrigue for clicks and because they're popular right now, but there aren’t many couples that truly enrapture fans.

Yet, this couple that never was does.

I honestly believe that if they had got involved during the height of the X-Files’ popularity (and public), they would’ve been a huge fucking deal. They would’ve been an IT couple (of sorts). The media was begging for that shit--fans were begging for it. If they had stayed together in this hypothetical, they’d be one of those couples, even if they’re very low key, that people would’ve been super obsessed with and salivating for content. And they would've definitely given some bomb ass answers when asked about each other.

Now, in this hypothetical, if they broke up, it would’ve been an equally big deal. The media and fans wouldn’t have ever got over this chaotic couple because they would've been chaotic in the best way possible.

I’m not arguing that no other non couple receives this type of attention, I’m saying it’s actually pretty uncommon, especially for it to have gone on as long as it has.

Compare this to Kate and Leo, who the media and fans actively rooted for. I rarely hear people talk about still wishing that they’d get together. Despite no one believing they’d ever crossed that line sexually or romantically, it was a thing for a time to publicly root for them to get together. And it kinda just died off. Where as the fascination with David and Gillian pre-existed Kate and Leo and still existed well after the media dropped the other two.

[itsjackgilbert]

Situation Comedy

INSCRUTABLE MUSIC-VIDEO GENIUS MAKES MOVIE. IT'S VERY GOOD. INSCRUTABLE FILMMAKER DOES MAGAZINE INTERVIEW. IT'S VERY BIZARRE. A VERY SMALL GLIMPSE INTO THE INSULAR WORLD OF SPIKE JONZE, WHERE MAKING AWESOMELY STRANGE FILMS, WEARING FAKE PENISES, AND GETTING BEAT UP (SORT OF) ALL ARE PART OF THE SCENERY

BY ZEV BOROW

"He came to visit me once and when he first arrived I got a phone call that I had to come pick him up because his car had been impounded because he'd been chased by, like, ten cops on bikes after he drove his car onto these little fairgrounds and did a bunch of doughnuts. So, then I had to drive him around all weekend." — Three Kings director David O. Russell

"Actors are more consistent. They tend to land their tricks." — filmmaker Spike Jonze, on who is easier to direct, actors or skaters.

"He wanted his brother to be in Three Kings, so he shot an audition tape with his brother doing the Sharon Stone role in Basic Instinct, crossing and uncrossing his legs. It was the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen." — David O. Russell

I meet Spike Jonze at the production offices of his new movie, Being John Malkovich, which is a bizarre comedy about a love triangle between three people who find a secret portal into John Malkovich's head behind a file cabinet in an office building where the ceilings are four feet high. John Cusack and Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener are in it. So is John Malkovich. It's really good and weird and funny, though not always in that order. Spike Jonze directed it.

Jonze is 29 years old and sort of famous for directing some of the best music videos ever made: the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage"; Fatboy Slim's "Praise You"; Weezer's "Buddy Holly"; Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet"; and other really good ones, too. He's also made some excellent commercials and two interesting short films. However, mostly because of the exceedingly cool videos he's done for, mostly, exceedingly cool people, Jonze has also become famous for being exceedingly cool. A wide and deep selection of the hippest people alive dig Jonze. They are his friends. This past July Jonze married actress, filmmaker, and fellow sort-of-famous person Sofia Coppola. Tom Waits sang at their wedding. Tom fucking Waits.

Jonze is small and wiry, with the body and demeanor of a skateboarder, which he is. He is relaxed, unfailingly polite, and has a voice suggesting a 15-year-old boy. When we meet he is wearing a T-shirt and scuffed-up $350 Marc Jacobs shoes. He tells me he's supposed to meet with Knox, an as-yet-unknown guitar player, to discuss ideas for his video and invites me along. But first we go to buy a big bag of cat food for his cat.

Jonze says Knox plays "sort of country-funkabilly-Prince-like music...really beautiful stuff." A friend gave him a tape, he says, and he fell in love with it. We get lost trying to find Knox's house.

When we finally arrive, Knox says he was asleep because Jonze was supposed to arrive hours ago. Jonze says he's sorry, that it must have been his assistant's fault. Knox is tall, with short, dark hair styled vaguely pompadour-ish. His apartment is small. Neil Young in on the CD player. An acoustic guitar rests in the corner.

"I'm the only one in the band, so I do the whole gig," Knox says. "My old man was a guitarist and my mother was, like...well, she was a capable pianist, not great. I'm from Tenness–Knoxville–that's why I go by Knox. My mother ahd a baby two years before me, a little boy, and it died at birth, and I am, like, the copy of that kid. And my little brother almost died at birth 'cause of me, so it's kind of all cyclical. But I'm still tweaking it. So, uh, what kind of ideas do you have?"

Jonze talks about making a video that's not very commercial, about something that's cool in and of itself.

Knox: "I just don't want it to be cute. Don't take this as an affront, but some of your videos are...cute. The 'Buddy Holly' thing was little fucking cute. I was thinking more of an early John Cugar-type of thing. Like 'Jack and Diane.' Maybe with some of the words on the bottom of the screen."

Jonze: "Uh, cool.... But it’s also cool to do something maybe not as literal.” He asks Knox if he wants to be in the video. Knox says maybe just his face, as a child.

Jonze says he could come over with a video camera and they could try some stuff out.

Knox: “Like what?”

Jonze: “Well, I don’t want to just throw stuff out.”

Knox: “Well, I’m not going to steal your stuff.”

Jonze laughs, sort of. There is an awkward silence.

Jonze: “How about a video with Xeroxes, just as a cool medium?”

Knox: “Yeah, well, that sounds schticky. Xeroxes are schticky.”

Jonze tries to say something about form. Knox says he likes “the Jazzercize” video Jonze did.

Jonze: “‘Praise you.’ Cool.”

Knox turns toward me and says he doesn’t think Spike looks very into it. Jonze says he doesn’t want to do anything he’s done already. He asks Knox if he saw the video he did for Sean Lennon.

Knox: “Nah. That guy’s too fuckin’ avant garde for me.”

Jonze: “No, I’m not saying that. It’s just I don’t want to make something silly out of your song, but at the same time....” He trails off.

There’s a tense silence, then Knox turns to me and asks if I have any ideas for videos. I tell him I don’t. Knox says “fuck,” loudly.

Jonze: “Look, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do, and if you don’t really like my stuff maybe we shouldn’t work together. I like working with people who are....”

Knox: “Yeah, well...fuck.... Well, if you come up with some ideas, any ideas, call, but I just...shit.”

Jonze: “I should go.”

Jonze gets up. Knox begins to pace. Then he screams, “Fuck!” and throws a small wooden chair Jonze had been sitting on against the wall. It shatters.

Jonze: “Dude, chill.”

Knox: “I think you better leave!”

Jonze: “I was just....”

Knox: “Just fucking leave!”

Then Knox pushes Jonze into a wall, hard. I think to myself: Spike Jonze is about to get his ass kicked. Then, like a panther (or jaguar), Jonze jumps at Knox. They hit the floor. Jonze is on top of Knox, throwing punches at his head. After about 15 seconds, I pull them apart. Knox gets up and screams, “Wait right fucking there!” and runs into a back room. Jonze looks at me and says, “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” and runs out the door, fast.

Knox jumps out from the back room, glowering and holding a baseball bat.

DRIVING AWAY, JONZE MUSES ABOUT HOW “HECTIC” things got with Knox. He repeatedly pushes his face toward the rearview mirror and asks if I think his eye looks swollen. It doesn’t. He says nothing like that has ever happened to him before, except once “with Everlast, but it never got physical.” We pull into a 7-Eleven and he gets a juice and some Advil.

I try to ask some more questions about the movie. “I’m apprehensive about talking about it at all,” he says, “because I feel like it’s going to cloud someone’s opinion. You think about all the movies you had preconceived notions about, about all the ones you read stuff about until you were sick of them before you even saw them.

SPIKE JONZE’S REAL NAME IS ADAM SPIEGEL. He isn’t interested in talking about why, or when, he started going by Spike Jonze, or how much it has to do with Spike Jones, the 1940s band leader, but it’s probably related to the fact he grew up hanging out with a lot of competitive BMX bikers similarly fond of pseudonyms and alter egos. He was raised in Bethesda, Maryland, a well-heeled suburb of Washington, D.C., where his mother enjoyed photography and his father enjoyed being the scion of an extremely successful family-owned catalog company. Jonze is the middle child (younger brother; older sister) and was into skateboarding, photography, lots of Dischord-era punk rock, and, most of all, BMX.

In the mid-’80s, BMXing’s popularity was exploding, and Jonze was spending much of his time at Rockville BMX, a legendary retail and mail-order BMX shop in nearby Rockville, Maryland. At age 15, he accompanied the Haro pro-BMX team on a summer tour of the U.S., serving as part-time roadie, contest announcer, T-shirt salesperson, and using an old 35-millimeter camera, team photographer. By the time he was 16, he was writing and taking pictures for skate and bike magazines. At 17, immediately after finishing high school, he moved to Torrance, California, to work at Freestylin’, the sport’s preeminent glossy. There, he met Mark Lewman and Andy Jenkins, two kindred spirits.

“We were all living together in this apartment across the street from the magazine’s offices, in the Valley, which was like the epicenter of the skateboarding and BMX world,” says Lewman, who was 18 at the time and is now a creative director at Lambesis, a San Diego–based advertising agency that deciphers youth culture. “We’d skate to work, ride ramps, listen to Black Flag and Eric B. and Rakim, and get into adventures drinking Night Train, being weird, and stomping around downtown L.A.”

They’d also make zines. First, in 1991, Homeboy, then, two years later, Dirt. Clever and funny, they became popular with the 25-and-under, proto-extreme-sport, punk/rap-inclined hipster set. During this time, Jonze also started getting hired to take photos for magazines such as Details and Interview. And he began filming skateboarding videos, including one particular deft collaboration with ‘80s skate god Mark Gonzales titled Blind Skateboard Video.

One night, backstage at a Sonic Youth concert, Gonzales gave a copy of that tape to his friend Kim Gordon, who dug it so much that she asked Tamra Davis–who had just directed her first film, Gun Crazy, and had yet to become the wife of Beastie Boy Mike D.–to work with Jonze on shooting some skateboarding segments for Sonic Youth’s video for the song “100%.” He was 21.

Jonze has always lived in something of a rarefied world inhabited by bikers, skaters, emerging rock icons, and movie stars. Even so, he notes, he first met the Beastie Boys through his sister. She and Adam Yauch met in traffic school. The Beasties and Jonze share an appreciation for the absurd. Yauch and Jonze used to do things like rent police uniforms so they could direct traffic in Manhattan.

A few short years after “100%,” Jonze was established as America’s preeminent director of unusual music videos. This fact seemed to bore him. In 1998′s Fatboy Slim “Praise You” video, the one with the dancers in front of Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Jonze credited the direction to Richard Koufey and the Torrance Community Dancers. To this day, Jonze denies having been a part of it. Earlier this year, a typed letter arrived at the Spin offices vehemently demanding Spin retract its report that Jonze directed the video. It was signed Richard Koufey and included a detailed résumé for Koufey that stated he was a dancer in the “Thriller” video, the “Love Shack” video, the film Dirty Dancing, and something called “Dancextravaganza” at the opening of a Dellamo Fashion Center.

IN ADDITION TO BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, Jonze has another movie coming out, one in which he acts. It’s called Three Kings and was written and directed by David O’Russell. The two met when Jonze hired Russell to help him write a script for Harold and the Purple Crayon, which was to be a partially animated adaption of the children’s book, and Jonze’s feature-film debut, but never made it into production. Jonze costars in Three Kings with George Clooney, Ice Cube, and Mark Wahlberg. They play four U.S. soldiers who try to steal a secret cache of Kuwaiti gold at the end of the Gulf War. It’s a different, very sharp war-genre picture. Jonze plays a redneck private who is the sidekick of Wahlberg’s more seasoned soldier.

“I’d never really acted before,” Jonze says. “A few little things with friends, but nothing serious. And it’s not like I really want to get into acting. But David was really into me doing it, and Mark was especially supportive. In some ways I feel like I had no right to do it. But it was a lot of fun.”

Russell recalls Jonze’s commitment to the project. “He stayed in character a lot on set, and I think he eventually regretted it because Mark started beating the shit out of him as if Spike was really his tagalong sidekick. We tried telling Mark to go easy on him, but he was in character too. I think Spike was upset that that was happening.

AMONG THOSE IMMERSED IN THE CULT of Spike Jonze, the Weird Al prank is infamous. As partially recounted in an issue of the Beastie Boys’ zine, Grand Royal, Mike D. and Russell Simins, the drummer for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, interviewed by Weird Al. During the interview, they got the conversation to come around to the Beatles. Precisely at that moment, they had Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono walk by and staged something weird and funny. No one at Grand Royal can remember exactly what happened, but it included Spike Jonze dressed up as a waiter.

I didn’t know of the Weird Al prank until weeks after meeting Jonze. As such, I spent a good portion of my evening immediately following the Knox vs. Jonze incident breathlessly telling friends all about their fight, until a friend, a longtime skater, looked at me and matter-of-factly said: “He staged it.”

Two days after the fight I go to meet Jonze for lunch, and, even though I’m not sure, I tell him I now that the afternoon with Knox was staged. Jonze demurs. “That would be gnarly” he says. “Maybe we should come back to this topic after lunch.

We pull into a Carl’s Jr. Things between us are slightly tense. I keep pressing him on the issue as we walk into the restaurant. Jonze doesn’t say anything until he’s just about to order at the counter, then he says we should walk outside. I follow him into the parking lot toward a parked black sedan. There is a guy in dark sunglasses sitting there, sipping on a Coke.

“Dude, it’s off,” Jonze says. “We’re busted.”

Jonze then reveals that he’d “planned something” for right there, right then, at the Carl’s Jr. We all had back inside the restaurant, where Jonze begins walking around the seating area and tapping on what appear to be lonely Carl’s Jr. diners on the shoulder. There are four of them, strategically placed; two have video cameras hidden on them, on has a regular camera. Two of them, including the guy from the car, who is Jeff Tremaine, the art director of the skateboarding magazine Big Brother, are wearing hidden microphones.

“This was going to be an all-out assault,” Tremaine says. “I was going to walk by and bump into Spike and my drink was going to fall all over me. And then I was going to get all jacked at Spike and knock some shit on him and get into a fight.”

“I was actually going to take a punch this time,” Jonze says, “but I was also going to bite down on some blood pellets.” He shows me two small capsules of fake blood. “I wanted the whole article to be about how I keep getting my ass kicked.”

“I was going to knock over the salad bar,” Tremaine says. “We were going to have the whole thing on tape. I twas going to be a turkey shoot, like Kennedy.”

“You are all extremely fucked up,” I tell them.

Jonze says he started planning for it late last night and tells everyone he’s sorry he didn’t go through with it. Tremaine tells Jonze that he was excited to punch him. Then, everyone tells me some stories of previous pranks, the best of which is described as simply the Hard-On One. It goes something like this:

The guy who played Knox yesterday–a friend of Jonze’s who also pulls stunts like getting himself hit by a car (for a Big Brother photo shoot) and shooting himself with a gun while wearing a bulletproof vest (for fun)–puts on a pair of flimsy gym shorts, out of which sticks a large, fake rubber penis. Then, he goes out and gets into a pickup basketball game. Next, he walks into a guitar store, where, when a salesman hands him a cord to plug in, the salesman is pulled toward the fake rubber penis. After that, he makes a quick stop at a karate studio, from which he is quickly removed. Finally, he goes to get measured for a tux, where, according to Jonze, the tailor exclaims [in a thick Indian accent], “What? You always run around with your dick sticking out?”

“It’s amazing,” Jonze says. “We’ve got the whole thing on tape.”

After Carl’s Jr., Spike lobbies me to concoct a wild, made-up story with him, one I could submit in lieu of the article. He’s got some funny, clever ideas for it, too.

“SPIKE DIDN’T GROW UP WATCHING A TON OF FILMS or even TV,” says Kim Gordon, who has known Spike ever since he worked on “100%.” “So he’s not tied to any sense of history image-wise, the way most people are. He just has a real instinctual feel for what people like. And he’s willing to try absolutely anything.”

“I think he kind of looks at everything like it’s a chance to take a golf cart and make it go 60 miles per hour,” says his old friend Lewman. “It’s always been about having a really good time.” Even so, by all accounts Jonze is meticulous, tireless even, whether it concerns a feature film, or taking down a Carl’s Jr. salad bar. His willingness to go to almost any lengths to maintain the integrity of any project–no matter how seemingly small, trivial, or twisted–is nothing short of spectacular. It is probably the one quality that best portends him making very good movies for a long time. A vast portion of Jonze’s creative energies are consumed by these tiny, hysterical performances that will never make any money, that are solely for the benefit of himself and his like-minded friends.

“But it’s not about being weird for weird’s sake,” Lewman says. “I mean, Malkovich is a movie that, at its heart, is about something everyone can relate to–desperately wanting to be someone else.... I think a lot of how [Jonze] looks at the world might come from skating and biking. You do that as a kid and you don’t look at things normally. You look at a hockey rink and see a place to skateboard. You look at a bench as a thing to do tricks off of.”

I SEE JONZE ONE MORE TIME. HE MAKES IT OBVIOUS he’d rather I not write about the Knox and Carl’s Jr. pranks. Further, he mostly turns off my tape recorder any time I start to ask him anything. He tells me he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t want to come off as a guy who is lucky enough to make cool movies with big stars but is all petulant about talking to the press. He tells me again how anything he says as far as explanation of his own work is less interesting than someone’s own interpretation of his, or any, movie. About an hour passes. I ask him to name some of his favorite movies and filmmakers.

“I like stuff that is unpredictable in terms of tone,” he says. “I like Tim Burton, The World According to Garp, Being There, all the Coen brothers’ stuff. I feel really lucky to even have the opportunity to try to make those kinds of movies.”

I ask about his movie, about what Malkovich was like.

“He’s just amazing. Really genuinely eccentric. He heard about the script and contacted us, loved the idea. It was weird because he plays himself in the movie, but it’s not really him, it’s the script’s idea of him. Whenever I see him do the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment, I’m like, this guy is my hero.”

The Dance of Despair and Disillusionment is reason alone to see Being John Malkovich. In the movie, John Cusack plays a puppeteer who enters the body of John Malkovich and forces him to give up acting for puppeteering. At one point, Malkovich acts out the dance he wants to be his ultimate master-puppeteer work, the Dance of Despair and Disillusionment. Just out of the shower, he acts it out in a towel. David Fincher, the director of Seven and Fight Club, fellow former music-video director, and close friend of Jonze, calls it “up there with Butch and Sundance jumping off the cliff, as far as greatest movie moments ever go.”

I try to get Jonze to talk about other things, videos, his commercial work. (Jonze often shoots commercials, the most recent being Lee Jeans’ “Buddy Lee” spots.) He won’t. A few days later, we talk on the phone. He asks how I’ve decided to “handle” the article, says he knows I’ll write “something good.” The next day, I call him back, ask him to clear up some factual stuff, dates he worked on things, how he first met certain people. He’s not into it. But, before we get off the phone, he does answer one question.

Me: Where did the idea for the “Sabotage” video come from?

Jonze: “Australia.”

[kalypsichor]

oh darling [ beatles x reader ]

summary: backstage on the England leg of your tour, you meet the four Liverpool boys of your dreams

prompt: can i request a reader who’s a musician/singer and a big beatles fan so they sing their favorite songs at a concert (my peronal faves are “honey pie”, “oh, darling!” or “for no one”, but you can choose!) and the boys were secretly there!! the boys meet them after the show and the reader just loses it?? maybe some romance?? warnings: too much backstory, badly researched 60s slang

i’m fudging the timeline around so that in this fic oh! darling was released in the early 60s instead of in abbey road and reader is meeting them in the mid 60s. reader is american and I incorporated some romance but left it open-ended. more notes at the end!

masterlist

This is what you love most about touring. A thousand faces shining with the glow of the stage in dark concert halls; the satisfying dig of guitar strings into your fingertips; each inhale of breath that rushes into your lungs and is converted to notes ringing with clarity, clashing with dissonance; and the raw electricity of it all.

As the last chord of the song fades into the air, you allow yourself a giddy, adrenaline-fueled smile. The crowd roars and stomps their feet and you can feel the ground vibrating underneath your feet. It takes a while to get them to quiet down, and when they finally do, you lean in towards the mic.

“I’d like to thank y’all again for coming to tonight’s show!” Cue more screaming. “We’re going to close out with a song by a band you probably haven’t heard of— very underground, very obscure, you know. One of your lot. This is Oh! Darling.”

The crowd erupts into more cheers and you allow yourself to reminisce about the first time you’d heard this song on the radio. A few years younger and without a nickel to your name, your band had been just a hobby during the off-seasons of school. In the sweltering New Orleans summer, crammed into a friend’s garage, you wrote and played songs inspired by the local rhythm and blues so popular at the time. It was all just for your own enjoyment, of course— you didn’t think that anyone outside of Louisiana would like your kind of music. But you loved the slow grinding tempos and the strong backbeats that were so fun to dance to, even if you and your bandmates were the only ones who’d ever sing or dance to them.

Until, of course, you changed a radio station one day and suddenly heard that very same rhythm and blues from some internationally known band called The Beatles. “Well,” you said, turning to your bandmates, “if some pasty English boys can play it on the radio, why can’t we?” So the band began booking gigs at local bars, then theaters, then across the world as its popularity grew. All the while, you fell in love with the English band, buying every new record and learning your favorites on guitar.

And here you were on tour in Britain years later, living a dream you could barely believe. A giddy smile spreads across your face as you realize the enormity of being here at all, thousands of miles away from home and singing the song that started it all. Your fingers pluck the familiar strings and you feel yourself settle into a nostalgic beat.

Oh! Darling, please believe me I’ll never do you no harm…

When it’s over and you take your last bow, sweat beads your face and neck and you want nothing more than a cold shower and a bottle of champagne. The din of cheers and claps follows you into the wings of the stage where your manager waits with an odd smile on her face.

“Some people here to see you,” she says. You grab a cup of water from one of the assistants and down it like, well, water.

“I thought we weren’t letting fans backstage today.”

“Yes, but these aren’t the usual fans. They’re… you have to see for yourself.”

You set down the glass, already wishing you were in bed. “Look, Grace, I’m sorry but it’s just not a good time. I don’t care if it’s the Kennedy’s or Jesus Christ himself, tell them to come back later.”

“It’s been said that we’re bigger than Jesus, y’know.”

If you turned your head any faster you would’ve gotten whiplash. That familiar Scouse accent that you’ve only heard in records and interviews… but there was no way it was—

“John Lennon?” It’s your drummer, Thomas, who speaks. “You’re John Lennon. God, that’s unreal. I’m talking to John fucking Lennon.”

“Oh, don’t mind us, we’re just backdrop,” grumbles one of the other three. He’s got dark, intense eyes under heavy brows and a mop of hair. This is George Harrison in the flesh and blood, and he would seem very serious if it weren’t for his toothy, almost canine grin. You feel a thrill race down your spine from the almost predatory look that he gives you.

Kate, the bassist, peers over your shoulder. “Y’all are a lot shorter in person,” she comments. Then, quietly to you, “Close your mouth, honey. You’re catching flies out here.”

You really hope you’re not drooling. It’s no big deal, right? Except that your idols are standing right in front of your eyes, mop-tops and all. You suddenly become hyper-aware of how your hair is plastered to your face and yet somehow also sticking up in eighty different directions. Why didn’t you use more product? More importantly, why haven’t you said a single word yet? They must think you’re some kind of idiot. Okay, do something before it becomes awkward. A handshake! A handshake is good.

You stick out a trembling hand. “Hi,” you say, voice breathy and high like some kind of schoolgirl with a crush.

Too late, you realize that there’s no way all four of them can shake your hand, idiot, and you’ve already come up with four different ways to fake your own death and never speak to anyone again when Paul McCartney (Paul! Freaking! McCartney!) takes your palm with a gentle but steady grasp. He brings it to his lips in a mock bow, eyes peering up under fluttering eyelashes.

“M’lady.”

(Is this what cardiac arrest feels like?)

“Down, boy!” John pats the back of the bassist’s head, smirking, and before you can mourn the loss of his touch they’ve begun bickering like an old married couple.

A different hand takes yours. Thick, calloused fingers. Cold metal rings press into your skin. “Don’t mind them, they’re children. I’m Ringo.” And here was Ringo Starr with the signature grin. Something about his sweet, wide smile makes you relax instinctively. He’s just human, like you. They all are. Underneath the fame and fortune, you’re all just messy humans with a love for music. And with that realization, you let yourself settle back into your usual self.

“They’re not so bad,” you say. “I’ve seen worse. At least they’re potty trained, right?”

This gets an adorable laugh from him as well as George, the latter of which had been talking to Kate about guitars until now.

“Great job up there, by the way.” You blush at the compliment and George goes on, “Those are some wicked brilliant riffs! You’ve got to show them to me sometime.”

“What, and let you steal our band’s secrets? You’ll have to try a little harder than that, mister.”

The three of you fall into an easy banter, mostly gushing about each others’ musicianship. Eventually, John and Paul break their fight, realizing that they’re no longer the center of attention.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” John says a little breathlessly, still laughing from something Paul said. You try not to notice how pink his cheeks are or the way his hair falls perfectly into his eyes from the toustling. “Say, why don’t we take this somewhere with a booth and at least three pints of alcohol?”

“There’s a pub two blocks down,” Paul chimes in, “and they always let us take the back door. The fans can get crazy, y’know.”

Pru, the other lead vocalist, swings an arm around your shoulder and answers before you can. “Sounds boss. I’m ready to split if you are, mop-tops.”

They look confusedly at one another and you huff, elbowing her in the ribs. “What she means is that we’d be delighted to go. Right, Pru?”

She scoffs something along the lines of stuffy Brits but nods. With that, the two bands begin making their way to the exits, melding into one raucous group of overlapping conversations. Before you can make it there, however, your manager grabs you by the arm and looks you in the eye with a steely glare.

“I better not being seeing your face in the papers tomorrow.”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, Mom.”

“And be back at the hotel before three! You’ve all got interviews in the morning and I do not want another situation like Toronto on my hands. You hear me?”

“That reporter was a sexist pig and I meant what I said. Also, I wasn’t that hungover!”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” George pipes up, “We’ll get her back in one piece. Maybe two, if we’re unlucky.”

You pat Grace’s hand and her glare softens. “Alright, get outta my sight.” She waves a hand and walks off, already rattling off instructions a mile a minute at some poor intern.

“Is yours like that too?” you ask, looking after Grace fondly as she picks up a costume rack without slowing down. If the terrified look on the intern’s face is any indication, she’s still berating him to high hell.

“Honestly,” George replies, “I think all managers are. Mum away from home, y’know. Eppy’s always right and it’s annoying as hell.”

You share a knowing smile before surging on to catch up with the group already at the door. John’s at the lead. Elbowing your way through, you make your way to his side.

“It’s a side entrance so it shouldn’t be too bad,” he says, pushing on the handle.

Immediately, a barrage of sound smacks you in the face hard enough to do a double-take. Apparently, you and every other person in London knew about the side entrance because you’re met with a sea of clamoring fans. Heads turn toward the opened door in a mesmerizing, horrifying ripple of motion. Someone mutters a heartfelt fuck under their breath. It’s probably you.

“There she is!” a girl screams.

“I love you! I LOVE YOU!”

“Is that the Beatles?”

“MARRY ME PAUL! I WANT YOUR BABIES!”

Amidst the chaos, someone intertwines their fingers in yours. It’s John. He looks down at you with a boyish grin and, not for the first time, you lose a bit of yourself in his gaze. The other three boys share the same wild glint in their eyes. He leans close until his lips brush your ear and for a moment you let yourself believe that you’re alone with him and nobody else.

“This is the part where we run, darling.”

And so you do.

notes: because i’m horny for music history, i spent way too much time researching oh! darling’s musical composition. the song is heavily influenced by new orleans rhythm and blues as well as louisiana swamp blues, music styles originating from african-americans/creoles/cajuns in the 50s (read more about it here!). so in my mind, reader is of the same ethnic background as the music she creates, but you’re free to interpret it however you want! 

[flowersinmytimemachine]

The German song that mentions Mclennon

Okay so as I've already said, there is a song in German that names John, Paul and also Yoko Ono. They are only mentioned in the chorus but concerning the topic of the song I think it is worth talking about.

The song is called "Kogong" by Mark Forster. (Sollten das hier deutschsprachige Leute lesen, bitte tötet mich nicht :D)

Here is the official music video:

1. About the singer

Mark Forster is a 35-year-old German Singer-Songwriter. He had his first major hit in 2014 and ever since has been able to become one of Germanys most famous pop singers. He is known for his catchy and easy-going tunes. Most of the songs talk about love, self-confidence or just having a good time.

Just like many people, I know a bunch of his songs without really being a fan. They just play his hits on the radio ALL THE TIME. Despite his fame, some people say that his songs literally sound more or less the same. (If you want to get a better idea of his usual sound, some of my favourites are: "Flash mich", "Au revoir", EFF- "Stimme")

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, "Kogong" is quite the opposite of that. Maybe you could hear that this song sounds rather melancholic and slow. And guess what? That piano that you can hear in the background? Yep, that's Pauls piano. Mark Forster literally flew to London just to record this song at Abbey Road Studios. He says:

"We recorded 'Kogong' at Abbey Road Studios, in Studio 2, where the Beatles made all their records. And the piano that you can hear in 'Kogong' is the same piano that Paul Mccartney played 'Let It Be' on. That was quite special for me and my band and I think you can hear that the old Beatles spirit somewhat comes through in it."

Kogong came out in 2017. It was released on the only album by Forster that has an overall more serious sound. So what exactly is "Kogong" about?

2. The lyrics

Here are two pictures, one with the German lyrics and one with a translation by me.

When you read the lyrics, you will probably see that it is kinda hard to understand, especially after only one listen. Quite a few phrases don't seem to make a lot of sense. Well German audiences were not so happy either with this piece. Some said that the melody is good even though nobody was used to this kind of song by Forster. But the comments online seem to share the same opinion on the text: Forster probably only wanted to show that he is also able to write more intellectual sounding songs. Many just view it as avantgardist crap. Then again the video has 20 Mio views on YouTube and is currently his 6th most listened to song on Spotify so 🤔

But now about the interesting stuff. How could ANYONE who knows at least the slightest bit about Mclennon not stumble across this line:

"I am fucking Yoko Ono. My heart is Paul and John."

My heart is Paul and John? Yes Mark, I couldn't have said it any better myself. So ever since this song came out, I was curious what all these confusing lyrics could mean. Where is the connection between this one line and the rest of the song? What did Mark Forster say about it?

3. Interpretation

Here is a statement by Forster:

"Kogong is the sound of the heart when it's listening. The song is about small and big things that my heart told me but that I kind of couldn't really hear. I really hope that I'll be able to pay more attention to it in the future, so maybe this song is my new start."

So the subject of the song is not really able to listen to its heart. Furthermore, the lyrics hint on multiple topics and problems that the person has to face:

Being not happy at all, maybe even depressed ("you're not fine, you're only half-way fine"), this could also suggest that the subject has to keep up a facade while suffering inside

Problems in a relationship, marriage or even having an affair ("what you still want from her", "you hug eachother for far too long")

Self-image, Self-acceptance ("Wherever you are, you will always be yourself", "you need your peace")

The above mentioned quote says that this is a personal song. Another time he said that he realised that he wanted to become a singer while walking on the Road to Santiago (hence the line about hiking).

In another interview he stated that he tries to write in the same way as he thinks minus the rhymes. Overall short phrases which came to his mind.

So in concern of listening to ones heart: The lyrics suggest that the subject is not only unable to listen to its heart but rather actively ignores it due to outer circumstances. ("I don't want to hear a thing and am beating my chest like King Kong.").

Seems like there is a constant dispute between the heart and the subject. Which finally leads us to the line:

"I am fucking Yoko Ono, my heart is Paul and John."

How could a seemingly average pop singer connect a song about inner conflicts, love and self-image to John, Paul and Yoko Ono??

Well Forster said that he literally grew up with the Beatles and that they influenced him deeply. But to connect specific names to this topic, he couldn't only have been enjoying their songs. He has to know about their history and especially about their break-up. I've read a few opinions that "John" is only in there because it rhymes with "Kogong". So if he came up with that name and him being a Beatles fan, maybe the association to John Lennon isn't that far off. But why "fucking Yoko Ono"? Mark says:

"Yoko Ono is often accused of breaking up* the Beatles. And sometimes that's how I feel about my heart: Yoko Ono brings me and my heart apart." (*literally bringing apart)

?Eh?

Tbh that's hella confusing. I think he was kinda joking tho since he also states that the "fucking" is in there because of that British town. Which obviously makes no sense. Since Forster is serious about the rest of the song, its almost like he doesn't really want to talk about the true meaning of that line.

I mean the "John" could have suited only as a filler word at first. But I just don't think that other songwriters would automatically then connect that to Yoko Ono and especially Paul. Furthermore John and Paul form an unity here in the symbol of the heart. Despite the songs topic that's just such an romantic association.

Of course the average listener could easily say that this is all random nonsense. But for me who is genuinely interested in the Beatles/ Mclennon, this line doesn't seem out of context.

So if we take the lyrics of Kogong seriously, Mark Forster connects difficult romantic relationships and listening to your heart with John and Paul. Btw I know that Yoko didn't break up the Beatles, but Mark Forster is only talking about the infamous accusation of such. And even if he's only referring to the rumored breakup, wouldn't it be Beatles VS Yoko or Beatles VS John and Yoko? No, Mark Forster has to put John and Paul on one side and due to the metaphor with the heart, they together are portrayed as something pure, something romantic.

4. Conclusion

Well I can't really break the song down to every little phrase and its possible meaning. I think this post is already long enough 😅

Nevertheless "Kogong" by Mark Forster talks about conflicts with the inner-self concering love or becoming the person that you really are. All of this is quite explicitely connected to John and Paul (and Yoko) in the peak line of the chorus. (Just the way Forster sings this part is so...honest and amazing..). In my opinion, Mark Forster implies a really close (possible even romantic) connection between Paul and John while being put up against Yoko.

Shipping Mclennon or viewing their relationship as very close/romantic is often connected with horny teenagers on social media who make up crazy theories to satisfy their own desires. But here we have a man in his 30s who seemingly hints on similar ideas concerning their relationship in one of his most famous songs. And I know that this is not the first time that pop culture mentions their connection in that way but its actually the first very serious approach that I know of.

And maybe I am really reading too much into all of this. ( I mean I'm a Mclennon shipper after all lol) But in the end we still have a man who flew all the way to London just to sing-scream "I am fucking Yoko Ono, my heart is Paul and John" at Abbey Road Studios and I think that's pretty cool.

If you finished this mess till the end, thank you so much and let me know your opinion on it! ☺️🙌

(Sorry for any writing mistakes and I also have the sources of the quotes at hand, but obviously they are in German)

[m1ssunderstanding]

Understanding Lennon McCartney Rewatch Part 1.4

Oh, John. It's hard because I'm like “fame was not good for that man” but I'm also like “he would've gone crazy with self-loathing if he didn't have the fame.”

John and Paul start to answer a question at the same time. John: no, go on, you can say it. They're seriously so married. 

John's schoolboy flirting is cute, but what's more noteworthy to me is a) how happy Paul is to be shoved and b) how he instantly leans back into John. It's like they're bungeed together or something. 

John gets me. Look how much he loves Paul bringing out the forced confidence shield to protect him. He's so in love. So turned on. 

Here's my question about the death threats. Did the other Beatles actually receive them and tell Brian about them and keep them from John? Because that would be incredibly sweet and noble of them, but also, in that case, surely John received death threats too. Meaning he just didn't care about his own life and assumed the others were being left out of it because they hadn't actually said they were bigger than Jesus. Or did they have people filtering all their mail by that point? And Brian had been keeping the death threats from all of them? Because that could be interpreted as both protective and selfish of him. Does anyone know?

Again. I just love how Paul goes to bat for John over and over during this tour. Batting his eyes and playing with his hair and shouting down any and all criticism of John speaking his mind.

This moment is so telling to me. An interviewer who was up front at several concerts points out the looks and smiles between John and Paul which you can only see from the front and asks, “is it really that much fun every time?” The easy answer is, “Yeah. We like what we do. It's fun!” But Paul gets cagey. “Oh well the thing is you know with things like that it's probably…” and he makes up a bullshit story about messing up on a song they haven't performed in a year. Why do that if you don't have something to hide? (Even if you're subconsciously hiding) That right there is a tip-off for me that they're not normal about each other. 

Interviewer: are you guys breaking up? John, immediately and emphatically: No. Paul: "Depends what you mean by breaking up, you know . . . Because we can't go on forever like this, so we've got to think now and prepare for, you know, if it did happen. The time has come for us to break up, but we've realized the possibility . . . Of breaking up as a natural progression." Literally shut the fuck up right now, you're going to give John an aneurysm.

I understand. I know. I don't relate to Paul much but I do relate to his hyperactivity and his avoidant attachment. I make sure constantly that I'll be okay when all my relationships end. But you don't talk about that in front of the other person. Especially someone like John whose worst fear is being left. Come on. Think. 

See, now look what you did, Paul. Here's John's answer the next time they're asked about breaking up. 

And yeah, the klan being the ones to “stand up against the Beatles blasphemy” really proves my point from the last post I think. It's just masked racism. 

It actually seems like Paul's more vocally political at this point in time than John is. I wonder what happened to change that? Was it just the influence of their respective wives? Was it just easier for them to play up the roles they'd been assigned for the most part?

Okay on this round of “are you breaking up” they look at each other first before they answer and then Paul goes “all together probably.” I wonder if they talked about their previous answers together and admitted – however cautiously or however veiled – that hearing the other say they might leave hadn't been fun. Who knows, honestly.  

Paul and John often talk about making a radio show together apparently. Gosh if only they could've done that now. I'd make them my token white boy podcast. It'd be great. They'd be so lame and so adorable and they'd talk about recipes and politics and they'd gossip and rank other people's music. But anyway, what really gets me is the often bit. So they really did plan their post-beatle future together. Enough that it was a frequent topic of discussion between them. They planned to be together forever. 

Ugh it always guts me that Paul brought a girlfriend to Paris with him to meet up with John.

Okay my tin hat is glued to my head for this but. But. Hear me out alright? So John starts filming on 09/19/66. He's there for 6 &½ weeks. Putting the end at the beginning of November, right when Paul goes in disguise and alone to Paris. Do we have tabs on John for those dates? John just talked about going around Paris in disguise. What if  they met up by themselves and in secret? What then?

 No fucking wonder John was exhausted with him. Damn. He takes a month and a half to write strawberry fields, shows it to Paul, then...

Interviewer: the songwriting team will keep going whatever happens will it? John: yeah, we'll probably carry on writing music Forever. It's just so ‘Obviously. Might as well ask me if the sun's going to come up tomorrow.’

His friend – try dangerous drugs with and take home to daddy type “friend” – just died brutally and suddenly two days ago, and this is what he looks like and talks like and he's going in to work like it's nothing. I just. Compare that to John talking about Brian's death? Obviously two very different relationships but still… Paul's upbringing really fucked him up so hard. He thinks he's not allowed to be human. What can I say? It's a drag.

AKA the happiest 6 months of John and Paul's lives. 

I find it fascinating that Paul alone is asked to compose and record what would eventually become the carnival of light and that he just went ahead and included everyone in that. Really makes me wonder if he got a vibe off John that him doing the family way alone was hurtful or if they maybe even talked about it? Or maybe he just didn't like doing the family way without John.

Actually quite a lovely, forward-thinking, humble speech. Imagine being John, though. Watching that from home like “why the fuck is he philosophizing to the world without me?” Because you know John shares all those sentiments and might even have got there first. It would be infuriating.

“A lucky man who made the grade” is an interesting way to describe Tara and I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with Tara being cool enough for Paul to associate with him. And Paul is many things but stupid is not one of them. He's going to at the very least wonder if this verse is about John laughing at his friend's death. Right? Like I know Paul's the repression CEO but seriously I don't think even he is that good. 

Maybe that Leopold and Leob quote isn't just about tearing people down verbally. Maybe Wooler genuinely got a vibe of a sense of superiority and therefore lack of empathy with Lennon/McCartney.

I mean he really does sound like he's describing sex though, doesn't he? Emotional, loving, romantic sex. Followed immediately by Paul's “I'd love to turn you on” lyrics and the “down with pants” and “sword swallower” pins. Alrighty then. 

What I would call my Beatles bio after watching this. "They Touched Dicks: The Only Logical Conclusion."

[andthebandbeginstoplay]

My Two Fandoms Collide: A Paul McCartney x Taylor Swift Masterpost

Hello friends. It has recently come to my attention that there is crossover between my two favorite fandoms. I am here to answer all your Paul McCartney Taylor Swift questions, and generally provide support for the idea that there will be a collaboration between the two iconic songwriters on T’s new album. Are some things a stretch? Sure. But I want to explore all possibilities. Buckle up because it’s gonna be a wild ride. 

This all seems to have started when Paul McCartney told BBC that the song Who Cares, on his new album, Egypt Station, was inspired by Taylor Swift and her relationship with her fans. The song is about internet bullying and Paul said:

"I was actually thinking about Taylor Swift and her relationship to her young fans and how it's sort of a sisterly thing. And I was imagining talking to one of these young fans and saying, 'Have you ever been bullied? Do you get bullied? Then I say, 'Who cares about the idiots? Who cares about all this? Who cares about you? Well... I do.’"

Basically Paul McCartney is the sweetest best person alive and I love him very much.

This all came to the attention of Swifties when Taylor Swift said that Paul McCartney was one of the top three things influencing her in a video for Time Magazine. She called him a role model, and praised his incredible abilities as an entertainer. (Another influence she said was tumblr :D Also interesting that both Paul and T have crazy strong and supportive tumblr communities...although i have no idea if Paul has ever been on tumblr, but if so HI PAUL WE LOVE YOU) 

Given the bajillion clues that Taylor has been dropping about her new album recently, we can reasonably assume that this comment needs a fair amount of dissection. So here are all of reasons that Paul McCartney and the Beatles are going to be important in TS7:

1 - We’ll start with the most obvious clue, which is on Taylor’s Instagram. In February Taylor publicly started her TS7 era with a new instagram aesthetic, basically on February 10th everything went from red, white, and black to sparkly, dreamy pastels. In the very first picture of this era she is wearing a fairytale worthy dress. Guess who she credited for the outfit? Stella McCartney, a designer and Paul McCartney’s daughter. This is also interesting because when she credits people (style, photography, etc.) she typically just lists them at the end of the caption, but in this post she thanked Stella as part of the caption, so it seems like she was specifically calling attention to the McCartney family.

2 - Paul & Taylor have one very unique thing in common - they are both “dead”. The old Taylor, of course, died in Look What You Made Me Do on Reputation. However, Paul’s death was not self inflicted. Basically in the 1960s rumors started to fly that Paul McCartney had died in an accident and the Beatles had replaced him with a look-alike in order to keep their fame and upward trajectory going. People thought that the band had left clues in their album art and lyrics, and went on a crazy easter egg hunt to find the truth (sound familiar, Swifties?) “Paul is dead” was basically the best meme of 1969 and the story went 1960s-viral and was picked up by radio stations, newspapers, and magazines. 

3 - In 2018 Taylor Swift interviewed Pattie Body who is a FUCKING ICON. She was one of the most famous models of the 1960s, was married to the Beatle George Harrison for most of the time the Beatles were together, and inspired a million incredible rock songs (like Something by The Beatles and Layla by Eric Clapton). In the interview they talked a lot about Beatlemania and what it’s like to deal with an extreme amount of attention and pressure, especially at a very young age. I particularly found this pairing interesting because T hasn’t listed the Beatles as a main influence before, so I was excited to see the crossover beginning.  Full article here.

4 - In the ME! music video there’s an entire section where we are randomly taken to a 1960′s concert. Tbh this is super unrelated to anything else that is happening and doesn’t really make much sense with the rest of the video, that exists in a fantasy city. All of the outfits in this scene are very Pattie-Boyd-like, but what I think is even more significant is the screaming, crying crowd that Taylor & Brandon are performing for. People in the crowd are going CRAZY for the performance. A couple of the close-up shots of people in the audience completely losing it look identical to fans at Beatle’s concerts at the height of Beatlemania.  

5 - THIS ONE GOES OUT TO THE GAYLORS. One of the most popular theories about the Beatles, specifically on Tumblr, is that Paul McCartney and John Lennon were in love. Their couple name is “McLennon”. There is evidence for days that the bandmates were more than friends and a general consensus that WE LOVE THEIR LOVE. However, they always had to keep things hush hush because #the60s and #PR. There is a lot of speculation around Taylor’s sexuality and the idea that she might come out in her seventh album. From rainbows to pronoun usage, there are a lot of clues that T likes girls, but had to keep quiet about it for the sake of her PR. 

6 - LAST AND CERTAINLY LEAST both Paul and Taylor are known for dancing their butts of at awards shows, even if no one is dancing with them. I’m mostly putting this in here because I wanted to post these cute gifs of them:

OKAY THAT’S ALL I HAVE FOR YOU THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME I NEED TO LOG OFF NOW BEFORE I COMBUST

[ramblingqueenfangirl]

Amazing things about Freddie Mercury part 1:

1.) He had an unbelievable ear for music and knew what would sound good on a cd and would help produce every single Queen song.

2.) predicted he wouldn’t live to see 70 CHECK

3.) sings better than like any human ever according to science.

4.) writes some of the most amazing songs ever. Including Bohemian Rhapsody

5.) writes number 1 hit songs in like 5-10 minutes with whatever paper or surface is available

6.) says he’s gay about a half dozen times on the record in every form of media. Everyone: so I wonder if he’s bisexual.

7.)Has a 28 inch waist at 38 years old.

8.) says he can’t play the guitar but teaches Brian May the guitar parts for Ogre Battle.

9.) in 20 minutes made history with the best live music performance EVER

10.) generous as hell when doesn’t have to be

11.) finds the most uninterested ordinary guy at a bar meets him for all of 5 minutes when told to fuck off and then keeps up with him and tries again and he’s the most perfect partner that could exist.

12.) worries about his skin but doesn’t have one zit like EVER.

13.) lives twice as long as most people diagnosed with AIDS

14.) doesn’t exercise but has crazy muscle definition with like no effort.

15.) picks 3 of the most perfect guys to have a band with and makes sure they never break up.

16.) liked by every single famous person who ever met him and just anyone who ever met him

17.) Crazy flexible but like does nothing to practice it. Can do contortionist tricks without knowing it.

17.) has a cold or throat infection goes out and performs the best live music performance EVER!

18.) movie of his life makes a BILLION dollars worldwide while building an entirely new generation of worshippers 28 years after his death.

19.) Can wear literally anything or hardly anything and people focus just on how damn good the music was.

20.) Tribute Concert has lineup that would never sing together again and had the biggest music and film stars on the planet for free for him and none of them lived up to his talent.

21.) stopped piano lessons in 4th grade and plays like a master without ANY Sheet music and can barely read music.

22.) sells number 1 album 4 years after his death.

23.) writes what’s considered the best rock song ever

22.) sings thrash metal and opera and totally nails them both.

23.) could tell audience to do literally ANYTHING and every single person would do it without question

24.) buys like the coolest house ever in the middle of a crowded cramped London and has a garden and almost an acre of land.

25.) Can call people ANYTHING and they just love him even more.

26.) could do a concert with no voice and have whole audience sing all the songs and still walk away thinking it was the best concert they’ve ever been to.

27.) worst album inspires world’s best selling album.

28.) worst album gets to number 4 on charts and considered a “failure”

29.) in 3 seconds just by instinct makes one of the most iconic and recognizable poses of any singer ever.

30.) band has had album on the top 100 every single day for like 41 years

31.) dying of one of the most painful and horrible diseases ever and 5 months before dying of pneumonia sings one of the hardest vocal tracks to sing in most rock music in ONE take.

32.) Has perfect rhythm in music and is a human metronome by birth.

33.) anything with his name on it sold multiple times and is just as or more popular than first time.

34.) dead for 3 decades and people still sob over losing him (can you think of any other artist who you can say the same)

35.) gives like the least media interviews of any musician and has some of the most recognizable and famous quotes of any of them.

36.) put onscreen at 2012 Olympics doing call and response and gets better reaction than John Lennon and every athlete from every country participated.

37.) still shattering world records and has been dead 28 years

38.) EVERY SINGLE HUMAN on the planet has heard at least one of his songs

39.) One day while looking at modern art magazines picks up a pencil and copies one of the most famous paintings in existence In about 5 minutes perfectly.

40.) best virtuoso singer in popular music and has absolutely no formal training.

To be continued: ADD YOUR REASONS

[thecoleopterawithana]

Coming Up

This McCartney II (1980) hit single, extremely popular on both sides of the Atlantic, was recorded during the summer of 1979, in circumstances eerily similar to the creation of the first McCartney (1970). 

In a show of the cyclic nature of life and karma that John Lennon would no doubt appreciate, Paul retires once again to his farms to escape the tensions of a crumbling band, focusing on the wonders of music and testing how he could stretch on his own. 

And from his exploration and experimentation emerged an exciting new song.

I originally cut it on my farm in Scotland. I went into the studio each day and just started with a drum track. Then I built it up bit by bit without any idea of how the song was going to turn out. After laying down the drum track, I added guitars and bass, building up the backing track. I did a little version with just me as the nutty professor, doing everything and getting into my own world like a laboratory. The absent-minded professor is what I go like when I'm doing those; you get so into yourself it's weird, crazy. But I liked it.

Then I thought, 'Well, OK, what am I going to do for the voice?' I was working with a vari-speed machine with which you can speed up your voice, or take it down a little bit. That's how the voice sound came about. It's been speeded up slightly and put through an echo machine I was playing around with. I got into all sorts of tricks, and I can't remember how I did half of them, because I was just throwing them all in and anything that sounded good, I kept. And anything I didn't like, I just wiped.

– Paul McCartney, interviewed by Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone (26 June 1980).

It was released as a single on April 1980, with a live version recorded in Glasgow, Scotland, during Wings UK tour (17 December 1980), as the first song in the b-side. The latter became the more popular version in America.

I always thought the single was going to be the solo version. We did the song on tour because we wanted to do something the audience hadn't heard before. The live version on the b-side of the single was recorded on the last night of the tour in Glasgow. In America, a lot of the disc jockeys on the top 40 stations picked up on this side and so it became the a-side in the States. It's the b-side in the rest in the world. 

– Paul McCartney, interviewed by Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone (26 June 1980). 

And thanks to all these DJs, one merry day, the letter reached “his brother across the sea”.

Lennon was being driven by Fred Seaman through Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, when he first heard ‘Coming Up’ on the radio. ‘Fuck a pig, it’s Paul,’ he exclaimed, before turning up the volume and nodding along. 'Not bad,’ he decided at the song’s conclusion.

He asked Seaman to buy him a copy of McCartney II and set up a new stereo system in his bedroom specifically so he could listen to it.

The next day, 'Coming Up’ was still rattling around John’s head. 'It’s driving me crackers,’ he told Seaman, before venturing the opinion that even if its parent album was patchy, at least Paul was back trying to do something eclectic and experimental.

– In Man On The Run: Paul McCartney In The 1970s, by Tom Doyle (2013).  

After, when talking to the press, John tried to curb his enthusiasm and come off as unaffected, in that usual way of his.

Somebody asked me what I thought of Paul’s last album and I made some remark like, I thought he was depressed and sad. But then I realized I hadn’t listened to the whole damn thing. I heard one track – the hit “Coming Up,” which I thought was a good piece of work. Then I heard something else that sounded like he was depressed. But I don’t follow their work. I don’t follow Wings, you know. I don’t give a shit what Wings is doing.

–  John Lennon, interviewed by David Sheff for Playboy (September 1980).  

But later, on the day after his birthday, John reiterates his passion for the song and aligns with Paul, not only on his choice of preferred version (solo VS Wings), but he also shares Paul’s frustration with the US single swap.

John: Well, he had a single – it’s on the radio, out here – and I thought that ‘Coming Up’ was great! But I liked the freak version that he made in his barn [more] than that live Glasgow one, you see. I’m – yeah. Hilburn: The one that’s on the album. The one with the speeded up voices? John: Yeah, I think that’s – if I’d been with him, I would have said, “Yes, that’s the one,” too, and I thought that the record company had the nerve changing it round on him. But you know, I know what they mean, they want to hear the real guy singing, but I like the freaky one. Stevie Wonder does it, nobody moans at him. 

– John Lennon in talks with LA Times writer Robert Hilburn. October 10th, 1980 (Hit Factory, New York).

In fact, this song was so impactful for John, that it shook him out of his five-year hiatus, prompting him to get back in the studio and record Double Fantasy. This was something that Paul, in turn, greatly appreciated.

TV GUIDE: At the time of Wings, how competitive were you with your former Beatles band mates?

PAUL: Really competitive. I don’t think any of us would have ever admitted it. I know we would listen to what each other was doing and [think], “Oh, my God, that’s good.” I know for a fact John did once with [my] song ‘Coming Up’. It was on a documentary, I think, about John, where his recording manager at the time said John listened to it and went, “Oh, I’ll have to go back to work.” I found that a very nice fact that I egged John into doing something.

– Paul McCartney, interviewed by Lisa Bernhard and Steven Reddicliffe for TV Guide: Listen to what the man says (May 1st, 2001).

And again, some years later, he reemphasises.

Apparently John heard it when he was in New York. I saw a John documentary and somebody was saying, ‘I brought this record of Paul’s to John and played it for him.’ John went, 'Oh fuckin’ hell, the bastard’s done something good! I’ve gotta work!' I love the idea of forcing him up off his arse.

– Paul McCartney, in Conversations with McCartney by Paul du Noyer (2015).

And Paul had every reason to be elated by this development. After all, it meant that the message had gotten across the sea, was received and taken to heart by its addressee. 

So what did the letter say, exactly? Well, let’s look into it, shall we?

You want a love to last forever / One that will never fade away / I want to help you with your problem / Stick around, I say

Coming up / Coming up, yeah / Coming up like a flower /Coming up, I say

You want a friend you can rely on / One who will never fade away / And if you're searching for an answer / Stick around, I say

Coming up / Coming up / Coming up like a flower / Coming up, yeah

You want some peace and understanding / So everybody can be free / I know that we can get together / We can make it, stick with me

It's coming up / Coming up / Coming up like a flower / Coming up for you and me

Coming up / Coming up, I say / Coming up like a flower / Coming up, I feel it in my bones / Yeah, yeah yeah yeah

You want a better kind of future / One that everyone can share / You're not alone, we all could use it / Stick around, we're nearly there

Coming up / Coming up everywhere / Coming up like a flower / Coming up for all to share

Coming up, yeah / Coming up, anyway / Coming up like a flower / Coming up

The phrase ‘Coming up’ is used in two ways here:

Coming up like a flower  [as in literally rising out of the ground]

The choice in metaphor could be attributed to the sentiment of renewal, of rebirth, of something Starting Over. 

But besides the more lyrical interpretation, the term ‘flower’ here couldn’t be accidental, as it makes a common appearance in John’s idea of love.  

Q: As Tom Robbins half-facetiously asks in his most recent book, “How do you make love stay?”

John: Trying to possess it makes it go away. Trying to possess somebody makes them go away. Every time you put your finger on it, it slips away. Every time you turn the microscope’s light on, the thing changes so you can never see what it is. As soon as you ask the question, it goes away. Peripheral vision is what it is. There’s no looking directly at it. Try to look at the sun. You go blind, right? Now that doesn’t mean you don’t have to work on it. Love is a flower and you have to water it.

Yoko: Yes. I think that love will never die. Once you know somebody, you can never unknow that person. And knowing is loving. So you can never get out of love. There might be misunderstandings and separating for other reasons, but love is always there. Staying together is just one form of love. Maybe that’s a strong love and expression of love. But love is a soul thing. It always stays there. 

— John Lennon and Yoko Ono, interview w/ David Sheff for Playboy. (September, 1980)

John’s philosophy and choice in words seem to be heavily inspired by the D. H. Lawrence poem ‘Mess Of Love’.

We've made a great mess of love Since we made an ideal of it. The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain woman, all my life That moment I begin to hate her.

The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! --- My love dies down considerably.

The moment love is an understood thing between us, we are sure of it, It's a cold egg, it isn't love any more.

Love is like a flower, it must flower and fade; If it doesn't fade, it is not a flower, It's either an artificial rag blossom, or an immortelle, for the cemetery.

The moment the mind interferes with love, or the will fixes on it, Or the personality assumes it as an attribute, or the ego takes possession of it, It is not love any more, it's just a mess. And we've made a great mess of love, mind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-perverted love. 

In fact, it is not the first time D. H. Lawrence has been referenced in Beatle company. On 23 January 1969, as the band finishes up the day’s sessions in Apple Studios, a visiting Robert Fraser teases Paul about his looks. [Head to the link for self-explaining footage].

Robert: Ah, you look like a Victorian miner now, you know. [Paul laughs]

Paul: Aye.

Robert: A D.H. Lawrence. 

Paul: Well, I can’t afford to mess around here, you know. No.

John: [camp affect] Mess me up baby, in my red-hot fire.

Paul: I’m a golden garter. 

The Victorian miner here could be referring to a young love in D. H. Lawerence’s life:

I believe the nearest I've come to perfect love was with a young coal-miner when I was about 16.  

– D. H. Lawerence, as quoted in My Life and Times, Octave Five, 1918–1923 by Compton MacKenzie.

It’s unclear if John knew of the poet before this exchange, but some months later he was well acquainted with his work.

Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard, or just think it's gonna get on with itself. You gotta keep watering it. You've got to really look after it, and be careful of it, and keep the flies off and see that it's alright, and nurture it. 

– John Lennon, 'Man of the Decade' Interview (2 December 1969).

And if we want to go further down the rabbit hole, one only has to look at how John and Paul talk about plants to understand what went wrong in the relationship.

When we are in Scotland we plant stuff -- vegetables -- and we'll leave them there, and of their own volition they will push up. And not only will they push up and grow into something, but then they will be good to eat. To me that's an all-time thing. That's fantastic. How clever! Just that things push their own way up and they feed you. 

– Paul McCartney, interviewed for Life Magazine (16 April 1971).  

Because if one the one hand we have 69 John’s view of ‘love is delicate and fragile and has to be carefully taken care of, it has to be nurtured, and inattention and dismissal will make it wither and die’, on the other hand we have Paul’s 71 revelation of ‘wow, I never knew that love could just grow on its own, that it could just naturally push up without your coaxing and continuous care, and on top of that it feeds you, it gives you something instead of just taking!’

(But I’m probably reading too much into that, in spite of it being eerily fitting...). 

But then, we have,

It’s Coming Up [as in something drawing near or approaching, like a... birthday]

There was indeed a special birthday coming up the year this song hit the airwaves. On October 9th, 1980, John Lennon turned 40. And forty seemed to be a relevant age for John and Paul. 

When asked in 1963 what they’d do when the bubble burst, Paul answered:

We’ve thought about it, and probably the thing John and I will do is write songs as we have been doing as a sort of sideline now. We’d probably develop that a bit more, we hope. Who knows, at forty we might not know how to write songs any more.

– Paul McCartney, interviewed for BBC’s ‘Mersey Sound’ (1963).

And John, a couple of years later, in 1965, during a press conference in San Francisco:

If we're still alive, we’ll come back when we're forty and look at the places that looked interesting.

Add to that the Beatles bursting simultaneously, on two separate occasions, into the chorus of ‘The Old Dutch’ song:

We've been together now for forty years!  

And how could we forget John’s wonderful exchange with himself:

Q. I’m sorry. Just a few more questions MR. LENNON, I’m sure you understand I have a deadline… my editor… etc..

A. Alright then, GET ON WITH IT!

Q. Have you ever fucked a guy?

A. Not yet, I thought I’d save it til I was 40, life begins at 40 you know, tho I never noticed it.

Q. It is trendy to be bisexual and you’re usually ‘keeping up with the Jones’, haven’t you ever… there was talk about you and PAUL…

A. Oh, I thought it was about me and Brian Epstein… anyway I’m saving all the juice for my own version of THE REAL FAB FOUR BEATLES STORY etc.. etc..

Q. It seems like you’re saving quite a lot for when you’re 40..

A. Yes, there might be nothing better to do, tho I don’t believe it.

– John Lennon, interviewed by himself for Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine (November 1974).

Paul himself repeats the saying much later in life:

Q: When did you start [painting] in a regular way? 

Paul: When I was forty, somebody said: “Life begins at forty,” so I took them literally and instead of taking it as just a symbolic idea of a time to start something, I really wanted something to start. 

– Paul McCartney, in Paul McCartney: Paintings (1999).

John Lennon is also recorded saying:

Time will tell where the real magic lies. I’m only 40 now when this tape comes out. Paul’s 38.

John, in fact, ended up writing a song titled ‘Life Begins At 40′ in 1980.

They say life begins at forty / Age is just a state of mind / If all that's true / You know, that I've been dead for thirty-nine

And if life begins at forty / Well, I hope it ain't the same / It's been tough enough without that stuff / I don't wanna to be born again

Well, I tried to sweep the slate clean / With a new broom ev'ry day / If that don't work / I'll jerk around until my next birthday

Yeah, life begins at forty / Age is just a state of mind / Well, if all that's true / You know that I've been dead for thirty-nine

He didn’t record it for Double Fantasy, as he intended to give it to Ringo, for inclusion in his upcoming album. 

The same one on which John and Paul had planned to reunite musically.

John finally took Paul up on his offer. He trusted that he and Paul could make it, and was ready to stick with him, to Start Over.

But he wasn’t born again long enough for that. 

Outro

‘Coming Up’ was recently included in Paul McCartney’s 2018 Valentine’s Day Playlist, which is described as “the sound of Paul in love”. 

[Disclaimer: I didn’t come up with all of these connections. For that, I have to thank @sweating-cobwebs for exposing the importance of the upcoming anniversary in the most pleasing way possible, in Vol 4 of Understanding Lennon/McCartney. And a shoutout to @northernsongspeels for unearthing that D. H. Lawerence poem. Quotes are linked to their original posts, where it applies.

I made this post out of the desire to gather in a single place everything about a song that I love, and register its importance as the last love letter Paul sent John while the latter was still alive. It’s both beautiful and tragic that this was the one John finally responded to in the way that was desired.]

[born-to-lose]

Classic Rock interview with Roger Taylor (2013)

Let's cut straight to the chase, Roger - what is the status of Queen right now?

I'm still in that band, but there's only two of us left, Brian and myself. And only one of us can walk [laughs]. We still run the brand - that's what it is these days.

So if Queen is a brand, operated by you and Brian, where does Adam Lambert fit in?

I wouldn't say he's always going to be a part of Queen. We're doing the live TV show in Vegas with Adam and a couple of other guests, in a 10,000-seater, but that's all we've got planned. There are no rules, really. We do things very much on the spur.

But do you plan to continue performing as Queen, with or without Adam Lambert?

Yeah, but it's only an occasional thing now. Last year, with Adam, we did three really big shows in Europe and three at Hammersmith Apollo, which was a lot of fun. Brian and I realised a long time ago: this is what we do, this is what we are. I'm afraid, readers, it goes on forever.

Are you happy with Adam as Queen's singer?

He works very well with us. He's an incredible singer. He's got a really magnetic stage presence. He's very sexy. And, of course, our more theatrical songs suit him perfectly. He's a diva - a male diva. And that's what he should think about being.

Before you began working with Adam, you toured and recorded an album as Queen + Paul Rodgers.

Paul is a singer that Freddie admired. He led two of rock's greatest bands: Free and Bad Company. In that sense he is the antithesis of Adam Lambert.

We actually loved playing the Free and Bad Company stuff with Paul. But strangely enough, although Paul was wonderful, with that amazing blues-soul voice, Adam is more suited to some of our bigger songs than Paul was.

Some Queen fans think you're selling the band short by having a guy from American Idol as your singer. Do you understand that?

Whatever you do, people have to take it or leave it. That's always the case.

The same applies to The Queen Extravaganza, this new 'official tribute show'. What does that mean, exactly?

Good question. It means that we, or rather I, had a hand in making it. There's an awful lot of Queen tribute bands around, some good, some bad. So I thought, why don't we try to make a really good one, with brilliant musicianship? I put the band together in America, using the internet to audition. And the singer I found, Marc Martel, is an absolute dead ringer for Freddie's voice.

What's Marc Martel's background?

He's in his 30s, from Nashville, originally from Montreal. He's been in Christian bands. He's an extraordinary singer. We also found these amazing musicians. We had a nine-piece group at the beginning and it was too unwieldy. Too much like a showband, with three singers. Now it's a six-piece.

Three singers has the whiff of musical theatre.

And that's the last thing I'd ever want. I can't stand all that over-singing. What these guys do is play our music brilliantly. They can perform the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody, because they can all sing.

How good is the drummer, Tyler Warren?

Brilliant. And he can sing higher than I can. We all know that the drummer is the most important member of the band.

And in some cases the best looking?

Yeah, that as well [laughs].

Seriously, are Classic Rock readers going to like the tribute show?

I'm a rock and roller. I'm not a balladeer. And I think rock fans will love this band. They really get me going. Everybody who sees them will be impressed, I can pretty much guarantee it.

There were rumours in 2011 of a new Queen album, based on 'lost' demos of Freddie's.

Not true. We wouldn't want to put out an album of demos anyway.

Are there any remaining Queen songs, recorded with Freddie, which might be released in the future?

Yes, there's a couple of tracks. Brian and I are going to work on them. One of them we all worked on, the other one was mainly a Brian song.

Were both songs written near the end of your time with Freddie?

Actually, no, they're quite old. I'm not bigging them up or anything, but yes, there are a couple of things that we're going to finish, and I dare say they will come out.

Are there any plans for another Queen album?

Universal want us to put together an album of the slower songs that people don't know so well, so I'm compiling that this week with Brian.

You also have a new solo album out soon.

It's been written over a five-year period, so it's very eclectic. Some gentle stuff, some rockier stuff, and some fairly political stuff.

Where did the political stuff come from?

I wrote a song called The Unblinking Eye, about disillusionment, the mess the country was in, shops on the high street closing and out politicians being such a despicable bunch.

Are you the kind of man who rants at the telly when the news is on?

I've grown out of that. The TV can't hear you.

What's the title of your new album?

My first solo effort [in 1981] was called Fun In Space. I was reading a lot of science fiction at the time. So I've called this one Fun On Earth. I've come down to earth a bit, but there's still a bit of fun in there - some smiley tracks.

Is it influenced by any modern music?

The best band I've seen in a long time is Sigur Ros. I love that atmospheric, semi-ambient thing they have. They're magnificent too. I saw them at the Academy in Brixton.

Do you still get out to gigs?

Very rarely. But I went to see that, even though I had flu at the time. Well, a nasty cold.

Also released in September is a collection of all the music you've made outside of Queen - including solo albums and your 80s side-project band The Cross.

Yes, it's called The Lot. I said: "Let's have the lot in there," so I thought let's call it that.

Is it all good stuff, or is there some rubbish in there too?

Like anything, there are some things you regret. But my last solo album, Electric Fire [1988], still sounds great.

What's the best song you wrote for Queen?

Hard to say. I like Radio Ga Ga. It was a nice fusion of synthesisers and... what can I call it... epic pop.

And the worst?

There's a few. I hate Delilah [on Innuendo]. That's just not me.

Was Modern Times Rock 'N' Roll, on the first Queen album, the first song you wrote for the band?

Yeah. Although before that we'd all written Stone Cold Crazy together. I think that was our first proper song.

As a drummer, you've cited John Bonham as your biggest influence.

For me there were three main influences: Bonzo, Keith Moon, and Mitch Mitchell, who I think was so underrated. I heard Ginger Baker saying some incredibly cruel things about Mitch Mitchell and I thought, what a cunt. Ginger Baker didn't have any of the subtlety or dexterity of Mitch Mitchell, whom he slagged the hell out of. That really got up my nose.

Who are your biggest influences as a songwriter?

Oh, Ginger Baker, definitely [laughs]. Seriously, it would be Dylan, Lennon... and Springsteen is fabulous.

Which song would you say has your best lyrics?

Heaven For Everyone [recorded first by The Cross and later by Queen] had some good stuff about love and dignity, the usual anti-war thing. These Are The Days Of Our Lives was quite nice in a reminiscing, rather old-fashioned kind of way.

And that song took on a greater meaning after Freddie's death.

It took on a resonance, yeah. I was sort of referencing us at the time I wrote it. We knew Freddie wasn't well.

Did you ever see a better frontman than Freddie?

You'll never see anyone connect as well with an audience as Freddie could.

But for all his showmanship on stage, wasn't he somewhat insecure in private?

Oh yeah. He was quite insecure about all sort of things. Strangely, he was also shy in some ways. But he could switch it on and off. He was great when he was with his close circle, but if there were people he didn't know very well, he could feel quite awkward.

Was there any part of Freddie's personality that used to get on your tits?

Almost nothing. But he used to clear his throat in a quite nauseatingly loud way. But we got on famously.

In the 2011 documentary Queen: Days Of Our Lives, when you talk about the last year of Freddie's life and the hounding he received from the tabloid press, you sound furious, even after all the years.

I still feel it today. It was The Sun. It was like an assassination in order to flog a few newspapers. How vindictive and horrible. I thought that was a bit much. I felt very protective of Fred then. And just recently when the News Of The World went down I danced a fucking jig.

Did you ever court the tabloid press?

Not really. I never believed that tabloids sold records. Or actually furthered your career. And I think you're better off trying to keep out of them. I don't think they help you. If anything, they make you look like a tit. And there's too much ammunition there. The less they know, the better. Freddie got a lot of crap printed about him, Brian had a lot, and I had a little bit but not much.

Did you believe there was a homophobic subtext to some of the media coverage of Freddie's death?

Absolutely. "This is what you get..." It was just prurient, wasn't it?

Do you ever dream that Freddie is still around?

Yeah. Brian would tell you the same - that Freddie sort of lives with us. We spent so many years together, living in each other's pockets. And we'd socialise quite a lot together. So he's someone who's not going to go away. But I don't intend to spend the rest of my life living under the shadow of Freddie Mercury. He was my best mate and he's gone, bless him, and we miss him, but you've got to get on with life.

The first Queen album is now 40 years old. What are your memories of making it?

It was all very exciting. Time in the studio seemed so expensive - 30 quid an hour, a huge amount of money back then. We would go in at four in the morning. It was hard work. And we never really got the sound that I wanted on the first album. We didn't have quite enough control, which we got on the second album.

In those early days, what were your hopes and dreams for Queen?

We wanted to get lots of work. We wanted to be recognised. We wanted to be rich and famous.

And how did that work out for you?

It worked out all right. But it's always a more gradual process than people imagine.

Looking back over Queen's career, what are you most proud of?

The way that the music has seeped into the general consciousness, the fact that we are still occasionally played on the radio, and a lot of the music is still popular. Kids know our music now, and I find that fantastic.

Any regrets?

Many regrets. Most are small ones. But I think we made a bad decision to go to South Africa [to play in Sun City in 1984, during the era of apartheid]. I think we were badly advised. Although we went there with the best intentions, I think it was the wrong decision.

But the following year Queen did the right thing and played at Live Aid. And stole the show with a performance that people still talk about today.

Live Aid was a great day. I remember Bob Geldof describing it as a global jukebox. And we got that: right, we'll ram in as many songs as we can. If you're appearing on a global stage, you know that most people watching on television won't be your fans, so we thought the most sensible thing was to play the ones they know. Or rather, play the ones that they might know. So that's what we did.

How would you describe your relationship with Brian May?

We're best mates, really. It's amazing what Brian fits into his life. He's a genuine polymath. He's an astrophysics PhD, one of the world's foremost experts on stereophotography. He does all sorts of things. A bit bonkers, some of it.

You and Brian have continued as Queen without Freddie and without the band's other founding member, bassist John Deacon, who retired from the music business in the 90s. Can you understand why Robert Plant chose not to tour again with Led Zeppelin?

Yeah. Robert's a very pure-spirited man. Also, Zeppelin is very demanding on a singer - all those vocal gymnastics. Pehaps he thinks in some way he might not deliver at the level he was delivering at. And also there's the huge respect for Bonzo, who was the motherfucker of all rock drummers. So yeah, I can see why he won't do it. And Robert has a very respected career of his own.

But if Freddie had lived and had declined to tour again with Queen, that would have been hard for you to accept.

I guess it would. But Freddie always felt his real comfort zone was when we were all together... bickering away [laughs].

Did that bickering come from having four songwriters in Queen?

Very much so. There were definitely four schools of writing going on. John and I found our strengths later than the other two. Right from the start, Freddie just went on in leaps and bounds. He just sort of invented himself. But, at the end of the day, we understood each other. And it worked very well.

In the glory days of Queen you had a reputation as a playboy. Were you?

No. I think that's overplayed. We had a good time - we had a really good time - but we didn't shout about it.

Have you slowed down over the years?

Of course. Everybody slows down. Or dies. And I don't intend dying yet.

What's next for Roger Taylor? A solo tour for your new album?

I'm thinking about getting together some mates in a really hot band and getting out on the road. And if I did, I'd have my son Rufus Tiger Taylor playing drums. He plays with Queen when we tour. He plays percussion most of the time, and when I do anything out front he plays drums. He's Brian's favourite drummer, I think.

Did you teach him too well?

Actually, he's more from the Taylor Hawkins school than mine.

Have you ever thought about stopping playing drums?

I can't imagine it. It would be horrible to think I'd never play the drums or sing again. It's like a painter, really - most painters keep painting.

But it's a bit easier to paint than to play drums.

Very true. But my style gets more economical and relaxed, without me realising it. It's not quite as wild as it was. But I still love to play. I've done a couple of shows with Jeff Beck recently, which is a delight. Jeff is just the most wonderful guitar player.

So you're not thinking of retiring?

Why would I want to stop? It's not like I have to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to go and play the drums, it's something I can pick up and put down when I choose.

All those years ago you wanted to be rich and famous. And your dreams came true. Is there a downside to all of this?

Not really. I slide around fairly unrecognised, which suits me down to the ground. Some people enjoy making an entrance and being noticed. That's not really me.

It's been a good life, hasn't it?

It has. I'm very lucky.

[01tsubomi]

here is my pitch for a better version of the movie Yesterday (2019): the directors could’ve made 2 movies. they could’ve made 1 movie about two childhood friends whose relationship is tested by the guy’s rising stardom, and 1 movie about a guy who wakes up in a world where the beatles never existed. nobody who came to see that movie came because they wanted a cheesy romcom. the movie should have been about how idolizing the beatles as the Greatest Thing That Ever Happened To Music is bad and how all the artists who try to model themselves after them to become The Next Beatles are limiting themselves as creators. so the plot is, the main guy was in a band with a bunch of his friends, and their original stuff was doing pretty good, except protagonist man (vocalist and lead guitarist) is OBSESSED with the beatles, knows every song by heart, and all he wants is to make music that sounds like the beatles because the beatles are the greatest thing that ever happened to music. he’s also deeply insecure about his own abilities, and he wants nothing more than to be admired by the people around him, so in his mind, he had no choice but to copy them. except his friends don’t agree with him - in reality their music is better when they’re not just trying to imitate the beatles, and after a gig that goes bad because protag won’t let them play anything but beatles covers, they get in a huge fight that results in protag leaving the band, biking home in a blind fit of anger, and getting hit by a bus. wakes up in the hospital, as per the original script, makes his dumb beatles reference which feels way more natural when he’s already been talking about the beatles 24/7, and when he realizes nobody knows the beatles he goes wild. because this is his chance to finally feel like a good musician, people will finally appreciate him, so he starts uploading covers to youtube, doing gigs and shows, people are annoyed by him but then realize that his stuff’s good. he blows up overnight. his friends aren’t that surprised because this is the kind of music that he’s been playing the whole time, they just don’t remember it being beatles music, so right as he’s about to go on stage for his first decent gig (end of act 2 out of 5) they apologize for being stupid, say that he’s probably best as a soloist because the stuff he’s writing is really incredible and they never should’ve doubted him. and it’s all he ever wanted, except, this isn’t HIS music, he’s still not doing anything original, it’s just that now he’s being loved for it, so he goes on stage and plays a few hits while getting increasingly stiff and nervous while watching his friends in the front row cheering him on, and at the end of his ~third song he pauses and goes “i’m gonna play something different, actually” and gears up to play a song (that was featured earlier in the movie) that he wrote, that he was nervous about before, and he’s strumming his guitar and feeling pretty good until he notices that the crowd isn’t loving it. so he chokes up and halfway through, switches over to Hey Jude, or something. some beatles song he had never performed before with the same chord progression as his original one. and everyone goes crazy. there was an agent in that crowd who signs him right then and there, and instead of talking to his friends who are trying to congratulate him, he signs a contract right then and there and leaves the next day. act 3 is all the stuff w that crazy manager lady and ed sheeran except ed sheeran doesn’t act like he’s the greatest performer ever and someone writing a better song than him is the end of the world. protag guy is doing what everyone does in every band movie and is losing touch with himself in the face of overwhelming fame. his first album - which nobody knows is just a beatles cover album - is doing INSANE on the charts, he’s selling out shows, people are calling him an overnight sensation and the greatest new thing in music, and it’s all he’s ever wanted, but something a reporter asks him during an interview reminds him of the fight he and his friends had, and he realizes it’s all fake. because it’s not his music, and he’s meeting all these other musicians, and he realizes the stuff he’s singing ISN’T EVEN the best music out there. so he’s just shrouded in praise everywhere he goes and it’s killing him because he knows he doesn’t deserve it. then at 11 p.m. one night he goes to CVS to buy, like, a bag of some candy he and his friends used to eat all the time because he’s sad and sentimental, and he hears some people whispering behind him and he’s thinking, oh great, someone else wants me to autograph their CD full of songs i didn’t even write, but this teenager asks him “hey are you (name) from (band)?” and he’s like “...yes??” and the kid’s face lights up like “i loved you guy’s stuff- i mean, your new stuff’s good too, but you were one of my favorite bands”. and he realizes maybe he’s not that great of a musician but he was better doing his own stuff than trying to copy someone else. so he reconnects with his friends and they crash the big gig that he had been preparing for the entire 4th and 5th act, and go on stage and play their shitty garage rock album front to back, and leave, and there’s that whole scene of the guy running out of the venue except he’s running with his friends and he never tells the truth about the beatles, because fuck it, who needs the beatles to live their lives, it’s growth because when he first realized they were gone he freaked out about never being able to hear them again but now he’s completely content, and on their way out some guy stops them like “wait- you kids have talent do you want a record deal” and it’s one of the beatles because my mom’s favorite thing about this movie was how they “brought john lennon back” and the movie ends on the main guy staring his idol straight in the face and saying “nope”