When did their relationship start?
I was asked some time ago what I thought the timeline of John and Paul’s relationship was, and I said it was very complicated to pin down. There’s so much we don’t know, and their bond was always intense, even during and after 1968. Recently, though, I’ve been rethinking the beginning of it all, and I’ve started to wonder if their “relationship” may have begun much earlier than I first believed — maybe even in their teens in the late 1950s. This is because of something I was told (second-hand, but I really trust this person, for many reasons). Apparently, Mimi and Jim were having quite a bit of correspondence in the late 50s, worrying over how John and Paul were behaving — “like schoolboys in love.” Paul wasn’t paying attention in class, they were inseparable, and there was a concern that something “taboo” was happening. They tried to keep them apart, which only made them rebel. If this is true, then if we line that up with other bits we know from the period, it really fits.
For example, Colin Hanton recalled that Jim set a rule: John couldn’t be alone with Paul in the McCartney house unless Jim was home. Mimi often wouldn’t even let Paul inside her house. Bob Spitz — who has admitted that he was told secrets about the Beatles he chose not to include in his book — uses strikingly suggestive language about John and Paul in the late 50s/early 60s:
“School proved a nagging obstacle for John and Paul, the occasional stolen afternoons unsatisfying, hardly time enough to get something going before Jim arrived home from work. Weekends were reserved primarily for the band. It wasn't so much that they needed time to write as much as it was each other's company. Something special was growing between them, says Colin Hanton, something that went past friendship as we knew it.”
They sneaked into Paul’s house when Jim was away, and Mike McCartney remembered that they’d bribe him “a couple of bob to go to the pictures, so he wouldn’t interfere” with their songwriting sessions. Mike wasn’t really "annoying little kid" at the time — only two years younger than Paul — so why the need to send him away completely? Why couldn’t he just hang around outside the house? Why couldn't John and Paul just go to a room and lock the door? It suggests they wanted total privacy. Like John's sister Julia said:
“Paul and John would come to my father’s place, go upstairs and lock themselves in for hours and hours, listening to records and thumping about up there.”
Bob Wooler compared them in this period to Leopold and Loeb — two young men who thought themselves superior beings, but also famously gay lovers. The comparison is very telling.
There are other clues too. John and Paul regularly went to the movies together, just the two of them. Years later, while explaining his bond with Yoko, John told Paul it was like “holding hands in the back row of the pictures.” That’s a very specific memory, and it is more than plausible that this is something he and Paul actually did in those years — and perhaps John even used it intentionally to sting Paul.
If some kind of intimacy had already begun in this period, Paul’s jealousy of Stuart Sutcliffe makes even more sense. Paul admitted to a “deadly rivalry” with Stu over John’s attention. Dot Rhone said Paul “hated” Stu for being so close to John, and that Stu flaunted it on purpose. Stuart’s sister Pauline even suspected Paul’s hatred was fueled by the possibility that John and Stu were sexual, something she herself believed was true. Their Paris trip would also carry even more meaning if it was something they experienced while they had "something" going on already. It would explain why they both cherished it for life. The same trip that John could be referring to in (Just Like) Starting Over:
Why don't we take off alone?
Take a trip somewhere far, far away
We'll be together on our own again
Like we used to in the early days
You also see hints in songs. In Here Today, Paul says: “What about the time we met? Well, I suppose that we were playing hard to get.” That always sounded intriguing, like the "playing hard to get" went on for a while before things became defined. During the Let It Be sessions, John cryptically said to Paul: “Like when we were in Mendips, like I said, ‘Do you like me?’ or whatever it is. I’ve always—uh, played that one.” Many have speculated on this odd exchange. It sounds like one of their coded conversations, (they had to at that moment, Yoko and others were there) possibly referencing a private moment at Mimi’s house when John directly asked Paul if he “liked him” that way.
This fits with Paul’s lyrics in However Absurd:
Something special between us. When we made love the game was over.
Maybe this “game” of playing hard to get ended when intimacy began.
Paul’s poem Rocking On also might tie in. It uses 1950s imagery, recalling shared youth and a line that says, “Reminisce about our childhood, what we did in deepest wildwood.” If this is about John (as most of the poem suggest), it could be an actual reference to them seeking out privacy in a secret place — because they couldn’t have it freely at home. Call Me Back Again (1975) tells of someone Paul used to call all the time as a boy, because their number “brought him joy.” Supposedly it’s about a former girlfriend, but which girlfriend from the 50s fits that description? What girlfriend from his youth could Paul be pleading to call him in the 70's? None come to mind. But if it was John, it makes sense why Paul cherished his calls so deeply. Even Fuh You (2018) could be a clue.The video shows a Liverpool boy named Jamie (Paul’s first name is James) in a relationship considered taboo at the time (he is white and the girl is black). Nearly every visual ties back to John, including the black-and-white color scheme and the local references (including the newsagent where Paul first spoke to John). The song Get Enough, could also be referencing their young romance, with lyrics about them walking by the docks, him seeing a person's face “now and then,” and remembering it "forever". It also talks about him and this person being full of hope anxd their "future burning bright". The imagery is loaded with Liverpool echoes: “the tugs rolling by together,” “the lights on the shore.” It’s the Mersey, the waterfront where Paul and John grew up side by side, watching ships and dreaming big.
All in all, maybe I’m reading too much into these details. But if what I heard is true, it aligns perfectly with so many clues. And could also tie in with what John once said:
“It was a LONG relationship. It started many, many years before the American public, or the English public for that matter, knew us. Paul and I were together since he was 15, I was 16.”
If they were together for that long, no wonder why their breakup was so intense and traumatizing. Paul always being reluctant about getting married and breaking down the night before his wedding, and John rushing to marry Yoko afterwards. "We spurred each other into marriage," as Paul once said.
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