I wish you'd see it's only me

allison, she/her existential mclennon spiraling all day every day my edits ao3

[rotten11ileven]

[m1ssunderstanding]

Thank you for saying this: “I truly think they let each other in emotionally a lot more than is generally accepted. I think they could open up and talk through things, especially when pushed by circumstances.”

I totally agree. I think we (fandom, society, whatever) tend to romanticize emotional repression as a masculine virtue and admire it even as we criticize it. This reminds of Paul’s “northern men” comments and how they’re contradictory and exaggerated and probably dumbed down for public consumption. Let me not ramble too much, but yeah, the communication/vulnerablity issues were very real, but you can tell from their early interviews alone and how they speak about/for each other that they were very much in tune emotionally and verbally. They planned a future together!!

First of all, so kind of you to send this. A lot of the time I think we -- myself included -- put more into disagreeing when we have quibbles than supporting when we agree. It took time and effort for you to send this and I appreciate you!

I hadn't actually thought about the idea that their emotional repression gets romanticized. That's a very good point!

I absolutely think Paul dumbs things down all the fucking time for public consumption and I also don't think that's acknowledged either by the fandom. He is emotionally stunted and repressed, but he also plays dumb as one of his many tactics when he doesn't want to get into a topic or he doesn't want to confirm something or be caught in a lie he just plays dumb. And it drives me nuts because there's a lot of times when I can't tell if he's actually got his head that buried or if he just wants us to think that, you know?

And yeah between John and Paul we do know they had communication breakdowns and there were walls between them. That was definitely part of what went wrong between them. But you're right. If you look at how they talked about each other in interviews and to each other in the nagra reels, they were clearly capable of being actually quite emotionally vulnerable. You don't get to the point where you literally think you have a psychic connection by not talking about your feelings. Why would you want to spend so much time with this person if you feel like you can't be open with them? Paul says he likes to find the most shut away spot he can whenever he's writing and somehow he managed to write hundreds of songs with this guy he can't express himself around? I don't think so.

You're also right that they planned a future together. You're not going to get these incredibly insecure guys saying publicly over and over that their partnership is "forever" unless they've discussed that together and that's something they each feel confident the other is committed to. They tangled themselves up in so so many ways, and that would've been terrifying if they didn't on some level know the other had their back.

Speaking of -- the reason the breakup was so heartbreaking for them both is because of how close they were before, how much they trusted each other, leaned on each other, planned on each other. The reason they knew exactly how to tear each other down was because they knew exactly where the weak points were, the cracks in the foundation, the pain centers. You can't hurt someone like that if they didn't show you around and hand you the keys.

[thedissenters]

The Beatles aboard the Southern Trail in Miami Beach, FL | 14 February 1964

[garfunkelgirl]

john lennon drunkingly singing yesterday and changing the lyrics to “why he had to go, i don’t know he wouldn’t say” sounds like something from a fanfiction but it really did happen like theres even a recording of it

[modrockmocker]

Even before he had become famous, George Martin had the aura. He was a tall man, well over six feet, with a fine head of thick, wavy, swept-back hair and dramatic features: a wide, helmet-shaped forehead; long, sloping jawline; liquid blue eyes; and an afterglow of masculine beauty that filled out and crystallized with age. He also conducted himself with such natural deference that every gesture seemed informed by a graciousness and decency beyond him. Nonetheless, for all Martin's personal poetry, at EMI he was something of a joke.

The Beatles by Bob Spitz.

[bodhbdearg]

Did Mimi "squat" Mendips?

In my recent review of the book The Making of John Lennon by Francis Kenny (2018), I noted a story from John's half-sister, Julia Baird, who claimed that Mimi got her house "Mendips" via squatting. A couple of people enquired if that claim was true so I looked into it in more detail.

The claim seems to originate in Julia's memoir Imagine This (2007). Julia doesn't specify her own source for the story but it was presumably another family member, as Julia herself was not born when these events supposedly took place (around 1945). Elsewhere in the book she describes hearing many family stories from Mimi's sister Anne ("Nanny") when Nanny was in her old age, so that indicates that the story may come from her.

Julia's account is as follows:

By this time [around 1945] Mimi and George had moved into a new home. The house she and George rented in Vale Road, backed on to an identical one, called Mendips, in Menlove Avenue. The two back gardens were separated only by a fence, so Mimi had a clear view of what was going on in the other house. One day she noticed that the tenants were moving out of Mendips. Mimi wasted no time. She immediately started to pile up the Vale Road furniture beside the fence at the bottom of the garden. She then manhandled it over the fence into the other back garden. Within the day, Mimi and George were the new occupants of 251 Menlove Avenue, fronting on to the main thor- oughfare into town. The owner of the house only found out when it was a 'fait accompli'. Which meant that Mimi was a squatter! The law was strongly weighted in favour of tenants during those dark war days. The woman who owned the house had been waiting to sell it when the previous tenants left. Now, she had no choice but to sell to the new incumbents, Mimi and George, if she wanted to realise the money from the house. Mimi was very pleased with herself. As the occupant she was able to drive a hard bargain, relying on possession being nine- tenths of the law.

This account posits Mimi and George as squatting the house first, then buying it at a good price, benefitting from favourable laws towards tenants during wartime.

I then checked Tune In: The Extended Edition, because if anyone is likely to have investigated this claim using primary documentation, it's Lewisohn. He doesn't mention the squatting claim (though he does use Baird's book as a source for other things) and has this to say about the purchase of Mendips:

The purchasing deposit [for Mendips] was paid with money inherited from Francis Smith's [Uncle George's father] suicide, beyond which George and Mimi had a mortgage with the Leek & Moorlands Building Society - the monthly repayments met partly with rental income (from letting out The Cottage to Mimi's sister Harriet) but mostly through prudent budgeting.

Now, I know Lewisohn is famous for his attention to detail, but even that seems like a lot of information for something as mundane as a house purchase. I wondered if he dug up all that documentation (I'm assuming he has documentation) - down to the name of the building society - specifically to counter the claim of squatting - without explicitly mentioning it? I don't know, but the level of detail, even for Lewisohn, is striking.

The thing is, these two accounts don't necessarily contradict each other. Baird has Mimi and George squatting first, then buying - presumably they could be using the exact same deposit and mortgage as Lewisohn describes. While Lewisohn's account doesn't mention squatting, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Lewisohn's account has the advantage of being backed up by documentation (again, assuming he has documentation) while Baird's is a reported account from someone (Nanny, probably) who wasn't there, and which Baird also did not witness herself. But, at the same time, Baird is literally family, so will have been privy to oral accounts that, even if distorted, could have a grain of truth and by their nature wouldn't leave a paper trail.

Albert Goldman's biography, for all its flaws, was fairly thoroughly researched, and there's no mention there of squatting, fwiw.

My feeling is Baird's anecdote is so oddly specific that it's likely it has some basis in truth, but could be distorted and exaggerated. It isn't proved or disproved by Lewisohn's documentation of the eventual purchase of Mendips. Baird also has another account - this time something she did experience herself - of another Stanley sister (Harriet "Harrie") seemingly taking over a house that Baird and her sister were under the impression John had bought for their use. It's not proof of anything, but if true, may indicate a pattern of behaviour among at least two of the Stanley sisters regarding the getting and keeping of houses.

[poisedwalrus]

Paul sleeping on John 🥺

Maybe john caresses him tenderly?

I really really love your work btw! You're so talented ✨️👌🏻

Keep feeding us 💕

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) thank you! i try (ง •̀_•́)ง

[bodhbdearg]

McLennon Files Quiz!

For the past year or so, @st-johns-wood and I (as well as other great volunteers) have been working on the McLennon Files Archive, a collection of material relating to John and Paul's relationship, stored for posterity on the Internet Archive. The project is intended to have all this material in one secure place, as it can be hard to find on Tumblr and doesn't always have the right dates or attributions. We've recently passed a milestone of 600 items on this archive, and to celebrate @st-johns-wood had the idea of making a quiz! All answers can be found by searching on the archive - why don't you test your McLennon knowledge and get to know the archive!

The McLennon Files

What press conference do we see John doing

Tips: There are many ways to find material on the archive - you can filter content by year, creator, subject term, type of material etc - more detailed tips on searching here. You can also use the search bar at the top of the collection - most significant terms will come up in object descriptions.

Let us know in comments or reblogs how you get on!

[roxylalondelovemail]

ringo? yep!!!

[m1ssunderstanding]

I read your earlier post where you mentioned

It is my theory that something went wrong emotionally with Paul and John around the time of Julia's death and John really leaned on Stu

I'm curious why you think this? John and Paul have always pointed to both losing their mothers as something that brought them together. Of course they could have only bonded over it later, but I never got the impression that it drew them apart. However, I think John was less active in the band afterwards. Side note: do you know if Paul went to the funeral?

Hi friend!

You're right that it is something that bonded them, at least later. Paul talks about how they both loved making people uncomfortable and then looking at each other and knowing they were the only two who knew what that was like. But to me that sounds like it bonded them after John had done some grieving.

My theory is based on two things.

One: John and Paul were attached at the hip from the minute they met until right around the time his mum died. It was John and Paul skipping school together to write songs, John Paul and George hanging out in the art school cafeteria, etc (no Stu) for John's first year at art school. What happened right before the second year? Julia died. John basically drops the quarrymen. Stu jumps up the ranks, as Mark Lewisohn puts it, around that time, and he doesn't last long. Paul and George both remember Stu being at the bottom by the time they're on their Scottish tour in early 1960, and they were mean enough to Stuart on that first Hamburg trip to make Astrid say she thought they were devoid of empathy. So it's something going wrong between John and Paul that let's Stu in and then when that wound has healed, Stu is the (beloved) emergency kit kept on hand in case something happens again.

And two: Paul and John deal with death very very differently.

Louise Harrison remembers John saying this to Paul before Julia died. "I don't know how you can sit there and act normal with your mother dead. If anything like that happened to me, I'd go off me head."

This is what Derek Taylor remembers about their reactions to Brian's death. "John said, “we've fucking had it.” George said, “Without Brian, we’re dead.” Paul said, “No, we’re not. We just have to get on with it. We’ll have to delegate.”"

After Jim died, John called Paul and was apparently very sweet about it. Paul did not call John about Alf, and John was angry.

So I would not be surprised if Paul majorly fumbled comforting John after Julia and John was hurt by it. And it works with the timing

[thedissenters]

John Lennon | © Robert Whitaker

[dreamingofthepast]

recently read Glyn John’s book Sound Man and i’m posting all the interesting excerpts about the beatles here before I return the book to the library!

“The only slightly strange thing to me was that instead of politely melting into the background as they started to work, Yoko remained sitting on the same chair as John, sometimes answering for him when he was addressed by one of the others. He seemed quite happy with this, so everyone realizing that this was to be the way of things, proceeded as best they could. I had never witnessed anything quite like it and felt very uncomfortable, so heaven knows how the others felt. It was almost like having a fifth member in the band all of a sudden.

After they had finally run through the first song a couple of times, Paul turned to me and asked what I thought they should do for an intro. I nearly fell over in shock. I thought I had been employed to just engineer and here I am in the first hour of rehearsals being asked for my input into the arrangement. I responded as quickly and confidently as I could and suggested a way of playing the intro, which they liked, and we were off. I was amazed at how quickly and easily I was accepted, each guy individually making an attempt to put me at ease and make me feel part of the team. It was only then that I realized that George Martin was not to be involved. I assumed that was because it was a live recording and did not require the normal studio production associated with their records.”

pg 123

“Whenever we took a break we would continue to discuss the how, where, and why of the show. Paul had the idea to take a cruise ship full of Beatles fans to an ancient open-air amphitheater somewhere in Tunisia and put the show on there. This did not go down terribly well with the others, particularly Ringo, whose main concern seemed to be what the food would be like.

On the second day, things came to a head among the band. The entire crew left the room in great haste to allow them some privacy to sort out their differences.

I have often thought that being in a band can be likened to being in a marriage. Members spend their lives cooped up with one another for weeks on end, sharing some very strange and sometimes extremely boring times together, magnifying the differences between the personalities that are bound to exist between any group of humans, that have nothing to do with the creative mix that they share as a unit.

Equally, there invariably comes a time when one or another in a band becomes frustrated with the status quo and wants to take a different musical path and set sail on his own.

I have a very clear memory of sitting outside in the bleak surroundings of the soundstage at Twickenham on that cold gray afternoon with Denis, the line producer for the film, both of us praying that the elation of being employed for a project with the most successful artist in the world was not about to come to a grinding halt after only two days.

It is not my place to discuss any detail of what happened, but it is common knowledge that George left the band and was persuaded to return a couple of days later.”

pg. 124

“The band had formed Apple Electronics in 1967, for the purpose of designing and building innovative consumer electronics. It was headed up by Yanni Alexis Mardas, whom Lennon had nicknamed Magic Alex and I knew as Alex the Greek. I had come across this guy before with the Stones on their 1967 tour of Europe. He turned up at a gig and sold Mick on the idea of building a light show for use on the tour, the likes of which had never been seen. Having been paid for the components, he reappeared a couple of weeks later with what could only be described as very basic disco lighting. Each guitar amp onstage had small lamps attached to it that would change color and intensity with the level and frequeney of the sound it emitted. I came to the conclusion that at best he suffered from delusions and at worst he was a complete fraud. He sure could talk the talk, and a couple-“

pg. 126

“years earlier had convinced The Beatles that he was an electronics genius. In fact, according to his ex-flatmate, Marianne Faithfull's first husband and art gallery owner John Dunbar, he was nothing more than a TV repairman.

Brian Jones had met Alex shortly after he arrived in England from Greece in 1965 and introduced him to John Lennon who had been impressed with his "Nothing Box," on display in Dunbar's gal-lery, which turned out to be exactly that, a small box with random blinking lights that John would supposedly sit and stare at while under the influence of LSD. It was at John Dunbar's gallery that he met Yoko, as she was also an exhibitor there.

Alex took me out to dinner in London a few weeks after the Stones tour had finished, to pitch me his ideas. Among many claims that he made to me that evening was that he reckoned he could build a domestic robot that would clean the house and answer the door, knowing who was friend or foe. He had convinced George that he could build the most innovative studio yet, claiming he could design and build a 72-track tape machine. At this point in time we were only up to eight tracks. The only product that I can recall to surface from Apple Electronics was a transistor radio that looked like an apple.

I turned up at Savile Row dreading what I was going to find there.

Particularly as it was going to be down to me to make it work. My fears were not unfounded. It was apparent that Alex knew little or nothing about the recording process. The console looked like something out of a 1930s Buck Rogers science fiction movie. Above it on the wall were eight loudspeakers that were about the size and thickness of a large ham and cheese sandwich. I had previously hinted to George that I had little or no faith in Alex and was put very sharply in my place.”

pg 127

“So when I all but burst into laughter at what I was confronted with as I walked into the control room, he accused me of being biased, having made up my mind before even trying it out. In any event, it soon became obvious to all concerned, and much to George's chagrin, that they had been ripped off and that the whole setup was as much of a joke as I had originally assumed it would be.

George Martin came to the rescue and arranged for us to borrow equipment from Abbey Road, which was delivered and installed by the wonderful Dave Harries[…]

We carried on in much the same manner as we had started. I set the band up in the round with a small PA and they continued to rehearse the songs, playing and singing live. […] After a couple of days, Billy Preston swung by to say hi and was immediately told to sit down at the electric piano and join in. What a bonus that turned out to be. He was an old pal of the band from their days at the Star-Club in Hamburg and they were all really pleased to see him. Apart from his genius as a musician he was great to have around and definitely contributed to the ever-improving mood of the sessions.”

pg 128

“I was having dinner with Klein in London one night in 1968 when he announced that he was going to get The Beatles. I told him he was bonkers, but here we were a year later, him waving hello to me with the grin of a Cheshire cat as John ushered him into the office for what may have been their first meeting.

After exactly a month, on the 3lst of January, we finished at Savile Row with a proper performance of all the songs as we had discussed and went our separate ways.”

pg 129

“When it came time to leave, I felt it would be hypocritical of me to go without mentioning the article in the press and John's extraordinary venom aimed at me over the Let It Be sessions. So, as we got to the front door to leave, I turned and, in as pleasant a way possible, asked him if he could explain himself, since he had appeared to be so pleased to see me and yet had been extraordinarily unpleasant in the interview.

He turned to me and told me that he had been equally vicious about Paul during the same period and that Paul had got it right when he had declared that the only person John was hurting with his vitriolic behavior was himself. It was not exactly an apology, more like an explanation. This outpouring of negativity had taken place during John's "primal scream" period in Los Angeles, when apparently he came off the rails for a while. We parted company with a hug and a look of relief from Mick that I had not embarrassed him, having gone against my word to behave myself.

That was to be the last time I saw him. I am really glad that my last memory of John is such a pleasant one.”

pg 216

a little bonus section i liked :)

“Many people over the years have asked me what drug I was on when constructing the opening sequence. This only goes to show what an extraordinary misguided idea so many people have with regard to the effects of drugs on popular music, as most find it incomprehensible to believe that I was completely straight and in fact have never taken drugs of any sort. Other than the odd aspirin.”

pg 114

[poisedwalrus]

Your art is perfect... I have no words to say how beautiful it is, I love it!!!! I've been following you very recently, but I've already seen all your art hehehe

I realized that you don’t have much mclennon age gap, could you do it with 1980 john and 1960 paul?

(´▽`ʃ♡ƪ) you flatter me! yes! ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧

[charl0ttan]

being myself performatively

[elvisqueso]

"Let's go back and get 'em, eh?" | The Beatles: Help! (1965)

[adriennefrombrooklyn]

🌅 ⛔️ and 😊!!!

Hi friend thank you for the ask (and for tolerating all of my mclennon spirals)!! 💜💜

🌅 do you typically know the ending to something before you start writing it?

I usually have some idea, even if that idea is as vague as ‘they have sex about it’ In the case of my big ol’ multi-chapter au I’ve had percolating in the brain for over two years, I have no idea how I want to end it, which is probably why I have only a vague outline to show for it.

⛔️what’s something you try to avoid in your work?

I haven’t ventured into writing whump myself, even though I really enjoy reading it, I guess because I know it’s not for everyone. But I’ve done emotional h/c before and I have a lot of ideas bouncing around for more straight up whump that I’m sure I’ll write eventually, maybe I’ll post it anonymously just to get over the hurtle of being perceived 🫠

In more basic writing dont’s, I try to avoid using descriptors instead of names and pronouns when in writing smut. Reading ‘the taller one, the older one’ etc just takes me out of the scene immediately. Smut writers of the internet, never be afraid of repeating all the ‘him, his, he, names’ as you can, it will set you free

😊 say something nice about your writing

Many times I have reread my own smut and thought, “damn that was hot, who wrote this”

[undying-love]

did Paul really name his kittens Pyramus and Thisbe... its gotten to a point where I don't know if its real, but if it is, that is so crazy to me

Yes, he did! What seems to be a myth, though, is the idea that John and Paul gifted the kittens to each other. I have found no source for that. But yes, Paul did actually mention in a 1999 interview that he once had two cats he named Pyramus and Thisbe:

Q: Tell us about some of the animals you’ve had over the years.  Paul: Oh, I’d love to tell you about the animals. I personally never had a pet growing up, because my mom and dad both worked [...] So my first pet was when I was living alone as one of the Beatles and I got an Old English sheepdog called Martha, and I loved her dearly, she was beautiful, she was really good for me; we were good for each other. I remember John Lennon coming ’round and saying, “God, I’ve never seen you with an animal before.” I was being so affectionate it took him aback, he’d not seen that side of my character. Because you don’t do that with humans-not as obviously anyway. And then I had two cats called Pyramus and Thisbe, which showed my literate bent, and then I had three-they all had to be cool names, of course-that were called Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And then as a family, Linda and I, after Martha died, we then got another Old English sheepdog and we eventually had a litter by the one after her. We kept two of the puppies, so that meant we’ve got three now. I have four dogs at home, three English sheepdogs and Stella’s dog, the mutt. She’d hate me to say that!