Look At These Children.

Paul McCartney on hearing ‘Free As A Bird’ for the first time and working on it for The Anthology. Interview for Access Hollywood, 24 May 1997.  

Paul: I heard it and I was very emotional. Sort of: “Wow! Yeah! The boy, Johnny!” You know, I loved- ‘Cus I loved him, you know. And I spoke to Ringo on the phone and I said: “Better keep your hankie handy for this one, ‘cus it’s pretty emotional when you hear it!”

It was fantastic for me! Having John in the headphones? It was like he was here! ‘Cus when you’re working, he’d be in a booth over there and you’re not necessarily looking at him. He’s here in the headphones…

Disclaimer: I’ve seen this quote float around but never the corresponding clip. If someone has made it available before, I apologise. If not, please enjoy, like I did, another addition to the tag #then you were here today, where Paul talks about feeling John’s presence. 

"I mean that is so special for me. I know it's virtual, but there I am. There I am singing with John again. We're back together."

100 percent agree. People aren’t even allowed to change. That’s the sad part

i know you're done with this topic, but i just want to get some things out of my system: you're right in saying that kids don't care about women/victims and i bet they have no idea about what cynthia, may or yoko etc have had to say about that subject and they wouldn't care to find out anyway. plus: what happened to the concept of restorative justice? i guess the kids aren't aware of it, but the whole "cancelling" philosophy is pretty silly anyway. i don't think kids on twitter/tik tok have the right to destroy someone's life and/or legacy forever because of colossal mistakes they made in the past, no matter how big and serious they were... kids seem to believe they do have that right nowadays, but that only serves to stroke their ego, to make them believe in their moral superiority. but is that behavior actually changing the fucking world? is that feminist activism? is that helping change men's systemic treatment of us? no, it isn't, but if kids want to continue to be self-indulgent and childish, so be it.

I am done with this topic but this was a nice ask so I’m posting it :)

I’m also so immune to internet activism thinking that calling a dead guy a wifebeater makes them woke or that disliking his annoying ass wife is misogynistic or whatever. When you’re actually doing things to try and help disenfranchised women, like I was doing before the pandemic, you’re just open to a whole new reality. It’s insane how whole movements have been reduced to jokes bc of this type of """activism""". Like, my 15yo tiktok addicted sister genuinely can’t hear the word feminism without laughing and tbh, I’m pretty close to that as well. How activism, instead of actively and practically trying to improve people’s lives, became a fucking punchline. Like yeah, this guy was violent to women decades ago. He was shot dead in front of his house. There, misogyny solved, except for the fifteen thousand jokes about his abuse (making fun of the victims!) and the fact he died from gun violence.

I love (eye roll) this generation of writers who think they are being edgy by going in the other direction by trashing John because he didn’t want to be best buddies with every single person. It reminds me of Fred Seaman’s book where the captain who took John to the Bahamas insisted on moving himself and his family into johns rented apartment, forced John to sleep in the floor and pay for all their outings and meals for a month while the captain pretended he was Johns’ best friend. Fred thought John was being petty for not wanting to be best friends with this clear user and wanting to get away from him. Just silliness

Shevey could have just said ‘I was intimidated by his confidence, wit and physical appeal’ but instead she decided to write a whole slanderous trashy book. 

Lol! To be fair a group hug after throwing a brick through the window would make for a great story. I’m just protective of my Johnny. My husband says I collect broken people. Even at the pound I have to rescue the runt if the litter who looks the saddest. Hence why he love John and fight the good fight for him as even though he did so many annoying friends someone has to give him unconditional love you know? Yes I’m sad

Wholesome moment! ❤️ love to see it

(From McCartney by Christopher Sandford)

Give me the John one!! Pretty please??

scans from 1960s magazines

Forever loved and missed. May you never be forgotten

I love your stories and the Rise and Fall of John Lennon is one of my fav stories in the fandom. It was such a great mix of humiliation, angst, fluff and intimacy. I really hope you continue with your stories. I’ve never re read a story more than that one lol

i might elaborate later but fanfic replies literally develop writer’s metacognition and make them better writers

Ugh I love the sentiment but I’m so fed up of this take that Paul was the patient hero who held on until he just couldn’t before he was forced to let go? How about this-they were all assholes at different times. They all were rubbing each other the wrong way. They all had different goals and objectives. They also at different moments thought they didn’t belong in the band end this exacerbated tensions. I just hate this boring view that Paul And to a certain extent Ringo were sitting around saving the day and the wayward children of John and George. Ringo quit the band first. Paul was off trying to get his biased in laws to be the bands manager and was more and more disconnected from the band in terms of the creative process. In other words all band members contributed to the break up and there was no hero. Agree it was a tragedy though as it could have been resolved and with communication

What breaks my heart (though a lot breaks my heart about these two) is that, whatever had transpired between John and Paul during the escape-hopefully-this-fixes-it trip to India, it's that neither had wanted the outcome of it to be what ended up happening.

I mean even with John clearly spiraling out of control of his mind and emotions, trying to deal with it all from childhood to then and now with drugs and alcohol and sex—I can't bring myself to believe he wanted to have the falling out, the divorce, the interpreted separation of connection from the soul, from Paul.

All complicated and dramatic and bluffing and lying to himself evidently points to no, he didn't.

He burned down the temple he loved so much because he loved it so much. He burned down the Beatles—and with it, he burned down what he and Paul essentially created together (as George said, it was in 1967 that John and Paul became a duo... That is, not super on the nose dig at apparently the innate dynamics of the Beatles George was privy too... Or at least believed he'd witnessed become the inevitable outcome of his band in 1967. Remember, 1967 was like, peak John and Paul attached-at-the-hip proximity probably similar to that of when they were just teenagers in Liverpool together)

Not to exclude the other two, because John was so desperate and in need of his friends, the people he had grown up with, he'd wanted them to buy an island and live together on it, just them, houses connected through tunnels.

But, as harsh as it sounds, John could live not working with or necessarily having George and Ringo... But Paul.

Now Paul and him, in many interviews, confidently proclaiming once The Beatles went bust, then that's alright—it'd be John and Paul, Paul and John, still writing music together, still creating together. Paul helping John with his books, John and Paul writing music together as old farts to so graciously hand off for younger musicians to play; John and Paul even having the audacity to mention maybe dabbling in creating a musical play, even when John apparently had no interest in musicals whatsoever.

It was John and Paul, JohnandPaul, and it was since 1957. George was just speaking the truth of it all out loud:

HADDAD: Then, your musical ambitions didn’t really begin to take form until the two of you joined with John Lennon?

GEORGE: Paul and John were the spark that ignited The Beatles. Of course, we weren’t The Beatles then, and we didn’t have Ringo, but that was the start. The air was filled with excitement, and even though we went through silly names like The Quarrymen Skiffle Group, The Moondogs, The Moonshiners, and The Silver Beatles, before evolving into that group everyone grew to know and love, the crucible was in 1967 [sic; 1957] when John and Paul became a duo.”

— George Harrison, interview w/ M. George Haddad for Men Only. (November, 1978) [X]

John and Paul were the spark that ignited The Beatles. The Beatles were John and Paul's, and George was simply aware of it. By 1967, John and Paul were a duo, at least in George's viewpoint: the inevitable happened, what George suspected to be, anyway.

So to tell me that John had actually wanted to burn it all down and destroy this Thing that was in fact his and Paul's, essentially burning Paul (and himself) in the proces, because he loved them, it, him, too much. He wanted that.

I refuse to believe it.

I refuse to believe it because even John couldn't buy in to his own lies about why he had actually been the one to finally bring an end to Lennon-McCartney. Yoko's validation of his lies and encouragement of letting go of the past and all those that hurt him (Paul) might've enabled him, but it didn't make the lies of it all stick. He couldn't justify it in the end, he couldn't let go.

It's heartbreaking to think how neither of them wanted it to go the way it did.

Paul probably didn't even fathom it. He's gotten into enough rows with John, and while this one could've definitely been different, been worse, been something that even stable and strong and level headed and perfectly centered Paul McCartney couldn't even withstand, he couldn't control, he couldn't neatly deal with. What he couldn't do for John. What he might not have been able to understand, for John, for whatever reason.

But they've had fights, they've had their trials and tribulations together... What's another one? Why wouldn't they be able to climb over it or sweep it under the rug? Or even come to a compromise, at some later date.

Paul certainly didn't want what ended up happening, with The Beatles, with John.

It damn near tore him up and left him a pitiful, pathetic, alcoholic of a man. He agonized over this impending doom of another loss he couldn't stop.

Of course the main strain between John and Paul after the India excursion was only made worse and exacerbated by other outside forces and John's dwindling psyche and general stability.

No matter how hard he tried, truly fought for it all, it was set up for failure by the inside out.

Ringo was the only one trying at points and Linda was literally his saving grace.

Paul felt he had to divorce The Beatles (divorce John) because he felt he had no choice. John tapped out. George was angry. John wasn't even trying, after all Paul did was try and try and try.

What I'm trying to say is, and not just beat this potential dead horse: what is truly heartbreaking, is that John and Paul since the time of their boundless partnership, friendship, collaboration, and essentially finding their soulmate in each other (Paul's word, not mine) they had it set it would be them, together, forever, creating and inspiring and being together, during and after The Beatles.

You could say it was unrealistic, that it was just the faulty and frivolous daydreaming boyish promises young men barely in their twenties make in the heat of the hour of that day and week and month and year.

But they meant it. You can tell they meant it, you can tell, especially from Paul, that he meant it truly and earnestly and with shameless affection and fondness for his relationship with John, that he wanted to continue whatever this was with him, after The Beatles and on.

It's heartbreaking, because whatever was transpiring between John and Paul and which came to a head in India, whatever happened in India, they didn't want it to turn out and end in the way that it had.

John and Paul loved each other, indescribably so.

It's so heartbreaking when two people who clearly loved each other and are like soulmates, can't end up staying together, have a falling out or life finds a way to tear them apart because life isn't fair.

It's tragic.

There's an extra heaviness to it when you come to fully realize "Nobody wanted what happened to happen."

Neither John or Paul planned for it, for that kind of falling out, for a divorce. By all accounts and records, it hit like an agonizing and sudden septic natural disaster.