Summary: The Beatles all display insane levels of jealousy and possessiveness whenever they feel like a member is becoming too invested in something/someone else. This results in heavy flirting, fun shenanigans, childishness, and the odd misunderstandings.
Each chapter will focus on a different main character.
Red vs Blue
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney & George Harrison/Ringo Starr)
Summary: “See ya at the Derby, lads,” Paul says as he puts on his tweed coat, which fits him annoyingly well (and also hides his arse annoyingly well). “Can’t wait for Goodison Park to welcome you back.”
“Me neither,” John purrs, and chuckles at George’s rude hand gesture as the two Evertonians take their leave.
Ringo’s not chuckling. He’s busy wiping his pants with napkins, glaring at John all the while. “The fuck was that all about?” he demands.
That means it’s game on, John thinks, picturing Paul McCartney’s face in his mind and imagining how pretty it’s gonna look in defeat.
He can’t wait for the Merseyside Derby.
In the season of 1959-60, John Lennon and Paul McCartney are both made captains of rival football clubs, Liverpool and Everton, making them natural enemies.
But it's difficult to remember that, as with every encounter they grow more and more fascinated with each other.
Late Nights at Abbey Road
(George Harrison/Paul McCartney)
Summary: “Well?” he says when he can’t take it anymore, and he fears Paul might’ve fallen asleep. “What d’ya —"
“I love it,” Paul whispers.
Paul and George stay behind at Abbey Road one night. George has written a new song, but he only feels comfortable singing it to Paul. The rest of the evening takes an interesting turn.
The Cute One
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
Summary: John had never considered Paul to be cute.
There were many words for describing Paul’s looks, but despite what all the fans and magazines and journalists and even their own movie had insisted on, John had never for once thought of Paul as “the cute one”.
That all changed one unforgettable day in the sheltering Alps.
How You Show It
(George Harrison & Paul McCartney)
Summary:
1969
“Paul, do you want some sandwiches?”
Paul feels a knowing smile creep up on his lips as he shakes his head and regards George over the photo he’s holding. Sitting across from him in his jeans and striking red boots. Fashionable as always. When did he become so cool?
He chides himself for the silly thought. George had always been cool.
I think people need to write omega Paul weirder and with more dysphoria. Like how could anyone think he would be normal about being an omega when Paul clearly has such a complicated relationship with his masculinity. If we’re adding MORE gender to the guy he’s absolutely gunna be even cagier about it.
Hi! Can you now do a continuation of your previous post and elaborate on Paul's grief after the 2000s, and how he has dealt with it
I think his grief post-2000 looks different for many reasons. It appears far more devastating in the 1980s because the problems they had and the arguments between them were still fresh in his mind, and they hadn't been able to fully resolve things by the time of John's death. When someone you love deeply dies, your brain often amplifies the bad parts and the unresolved conflicts (this happened to him after Linda died too). He also began doubting John's love for him and was constantly seeking reassurance that John did, in fact, still care for him at the time of his death. We have to remember that this was a period when Yoko would publicly claim that John said nobody had ever hurt him the way Paul did, and the media and newly released biographies constantly portrayed John and Paul as rivals, suggesting that John had little regard for Paul, while elevating John as almost a saint and the sole genius of the group, often sidelining Paul. I think that's part of the reason Paul's interviews in the 80s are much more candid than they are today. He openly expressed not only deep grief, but also the far more complicated feelings underneath it. He would say that even though he and John had been getting along better before John's death, there were still many unresolved issues between them and many things left unsaid. This internal struggle—the pain of missing John deeply while also regretting that they never had the chance to fully resolve their issues and completely repair their relationship—seems to have been eating him alive throughout the 80s and 90s. You can see it reflected in many of his songs from that period, particularly the ones that revolve around not telling someone that you loved them. And you can still see traces of how much his complicated relationship with John remained on his mind even in the early 2000s. He wrote Lonely Road in India in 2001. It is about refusing to let past heartbreak pull you back into despair:
I tried to get over you
I tried to find something new
But all I could ever do was fill my time
With thoughts of you
I tried to go somewhere old
To search for my pot of gold
But all I could ever hold inside my mind
Were thoughts of you
I hear your music and it's driving me wild
Familiar rhythms in a different style
I hear your music and it's driving me wild again, oh
Don't wanna let you take me down
Don't wanna get hurt second time around
Don't wanna walk that lonely road again
I have seen some people think this is about Linda, but I don't think the lyrics fit, especially not the "Don't wanna let you take me down" and the "I hear your music and it's driving me wild." And the "Don't wanna let you take me down" sounds like a callback to "let me take you down" from SFF.
One thing that stands out is that in the 80s, Paul also used to frame their relationship using explicitly romantic metaphors, pointing out that he and John were like a married couple and that he was "almost like a girlfriend", which is why John had to put him aside when Yoko came along. These kinds of metaphors are, interestingly, practically nonexistent in Paul's interviews today. Instead, his language regarding John has grown much more openly loving, nostalgic, and emotionally open, while largely avoiding romantic metaphors altogether. He also seems to have learned to deal with his grief (which is still clearly very strong) in a healthier way. I think this happened mainly because, over the years, he talked more and more with people who had been close to John in the 1970s, read more about him, and heard things directly from people like May Pang and Elton John. He also has likely become aware of things that Harry Nilsson, Tony King, Elliot Mintz publicly said about how much John still cared about him. Gradually, I think he became more secure in John's love for him. Paul also used to say that he didn't like dwelling on the past, but his attitude changed considerably after the 2000s, when he became much more openly nostalgic. That's often what happens as people get older. The sharp edges of old conflicts tend to soften, while the love and the good memories become easier to hold on to. His most recent album reflects this very well.
His children are very aware of how much John still means to him. They bought him John's piano stool at an auction around 2007, and Paul placed it next to his father's old piano. He also began painting John frequently, who became a recurring subject in his artwork. In 2000, he said, "If I'm gonna see a face in a painting, it's highly likely to be his." In 2001, he began performing Here Today publicly for the first time, something he had avoided doing since writing it in 1981 because it was emotionally difficult for him to sing. And even after he finally found the strength to perform it, you could often hear his voice crack during the song. In 2009, he said: "Here Today is specifically written for John. That sometimes catches me out. I realize I'm telling this man that I love him, and it's like I'm publicly declaring this in front of all these people I don't know. I sometimes wonder what I'm doing." But I think performing the song helped him find an emotional release by expressing that love out loud, since in 1985 (when talking about John) he said: "I care very deeply, but I don't know what to do with my care." In some performances, he would even repeat the "I love you" part four times instead of just once, as he did in Russia in 2004:
He acknowledged this after it happened in another concert in Spain, also in 2004: "At least once a tour, that song just gets me. It happened at the first show, in Gijon: I was doing fine, and I found myself doing a thing I’ve done in soundcheck, just repeating one of the lines: ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ And then I came to finish the song, to do the last verse, and it was, ‘Oh shit – I’ve just totally lost it.’” In 2012, there was a radio call-in quiz about the Beatles, and Paul happened to be listening to it while driving. At one point they asked a trivia question about Paul himself, and none of the callers were able to answer it. Paul decided to call in and answer the question himself. The prize for winning was a bag of goodies signed by him, but Paul told them to give it to someone else. Instead, as his "prize," he asked them to just play Here Today, and they did.
The 2000s is also the period when he starts saying that he mentally consults John while writing songs. He said: "If I'm at a point where I go, 'I'm not sure about this,' I'll throw it across the room to John. He'll say, 'You can't go there, man.' And I'll say, 'You're quite right. How about this?' 'Yeah, that's better.' We'll have a conversation. I don't want to lose that." Another huge factor in helping him heal after the 2000s was having access to countless photos and videos of the two of them that reminded him of the bond they shared. This is something he talked about with Ron Howard while Howard was making the 2018 Beatles documentary. Paul told him: "If we're looking at the touring years, I would just like you to view the relationship that John and I had through that lens. I've only begun to do this in the last few years. I've seen a couple of YouTube videos that fans made that just reminded me of how good friends we were. There's so much acrimony that came later that continues to reverberate; it even colours my thinking today if I allow it." Which, again, reflects the constant struggle Paul seems to have whenever he allows intrusive thoughts about their conflicts to take over. For years, those conflicts often overshadowed the happier memories in his mind.
A huge difference now is that the public narrative has largely shifted away from the old "John and Paul were rivals" story, so Paul is no longer constantly being bombarded by this through the media. By this point, he has heard countless people who were close to John talk about how much John loved him and missed him. More than ever, both fans and the media openly describe his relationship with John as a love story of sorts, and surprisingly many people interpreted Now and Then as a "love letter" from John to Paul. The Get Back footage had a profound effect on him. Instead of confirming the image of a relationship in constant decline, it reminded him how much warmer, happier, and more affectionate many of their interactions actually were. Paul himself admitted that the footage showed a far more positive dynamic than he had remembered. When asked about what moment of the film made him smile most, everything he mentioned had to do with John: "Me and John goofing around on ‘Two of Us’ acting like ventriloquists and singing through our teeth; me and John goofing around on ‘Bathroom Window’ where we start singing Tuesday - “Hello Tuesday!”, that was nice. But the one that immediately comes to mind is John dancing...just seeing him dancing. It’s very cute." He also said, "Whenever I was in the band, playing live, I’d be facing out. John was to the left or to the right of me, so I never got to sort of see him perform so much. Except in the film. And there he is in massive closeup. I can study everything about him.” He has also spoken about how much he treasures a six-foot-tall print of this photograph:
He said, "It was a picture Linda had taken and it really gave me hope that picture. Before the Peter Jackson thing that was like one little picture I held onto [...] And you can just see that we’re into each other and we’re like smiling, we’re engaged in doing something artistic, something interesting. And I say that every time I felt a bit down, I look at that picture and go, ‘No that’s the reality.’ [...] I've got the pad and I'm writing, and he's just looking over at me, and you can see the body language and everything: These guys love each other." So I think one of the reasons he has made more openly loving comments about John after the 2000s is that he seems to be much more at peace with their relationship. He now has had constant reminders that things were not always as bad as his mind sometimes led him to believe for years, or as the media often portrayed them. Deep down, I think he always knew that, but now it is much easier for him to access those reminders, which in turn makes it easier for him to express his love for John more openly. That said, I have noticed that he now tends to repeat, over and over again, that they managed to get their relationship back on track before John died and clear up their differences. If you read his interviews from the early 80s, however, that doesn't seem to have been entirely how he viewed it at the time. Back then, he explicitly said that there were still many unresolved issues between them, even though their final phone call had been warm and friendly. I think portraying the state of their relationship in 1980 as more resolved than it actually was may be, at least in part, a coping mechanism. Talking about unresolved conflicts and the more painful aspects of their relationship still is a very sensitive subject for him.
Another thing I've noticed is that throughout the 2000s and 2010s, whenever he is asked about John's death, he often tends to universalize his grief and make it less personal, which unfortunately has led some fans to think that he is cold or that he doesn't care very much. He'll say things like: "I felt like everyone felt", "It was the same for me as it was for everybody", "It was a huge shock for the whole world, just like the Kennedy assassination." On one occasion, after Paul gave an answer along those lines, the interviewer pushed back and said something to the effect of: "Yes, it was a shock for everyone, but we didn't know him. You did." At that point, Paul looked slightly uncomfortable and replied: "Yeah. For me it was... so sad realizing that he was gone. That I wasn't gonna see him again and we weren't gonna hang out anymore." He said that last part very quickly, and it was obvious he didn't want to dwell on it, much less discuss it publicly. He immediately changed the subject and started talking about the guy who killed John instead (about him being "the jerk of all jerks"). What some people interpret as coldness strikes me as something very different: a deeply rooted grief that is still raw beneath the surface, and one that makes him feel vulnerable whenever he has to discuss it in public. Universalizing his grief and speaking in more general term helps him talk about it in front of the cameras, without losing his composure. I honestly hate it whenever they bring up the subject of John's death, and they always ask him the same things ("How did you hear the news? How did you feel?"). It's clear these people have no idea of the depth of Paul's feelings for John, and how painful it is for him to be reminded of his murder in every interview. His own son James said in 2013: "John Lennon was shot dead in 1980. That totally knocked Dad for six. I haven't really spoken to him a lot about it because it is such a touchy subject." Paul himself said a few years ago: "It's very difficult for me and I, occasionally, will have thoughts and sort of say: 'I don't know why I don't just break down crying every day.' [...] You know, I don't know how I would have dealt with it [if we hadn't made up] because I don't think I've dealt with it very well. In a way... I wouldn't be surprised if a psychiatrist would sort of find out that I'm slightly in denial, because it's too much." He later reiterated, "I can't think about it. I'm sure it's some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it." This is clearly something that has never fully healed and remains emotionally raw, even if he handles it much better than he did in the 80s. Part of that is because he has found healthier ways to express and release those feelings, as I explained earlier. He has become increasingly comfortable with expressing love for another man publicly, even though you can still occasionally see traces of self-consciousness. For example, in the early 2000s, when he was asked about the line "the night we cried," he sounded hesitant and sad, saying that it was "probably about our mothers dying." Today, however, he speaks much more openly about it and has explicitly said that they cried because of "how much they loved each other" (though he is inconsistent regarding the amount of people who were present. Sometimes he says it was all 4 Beatles, and sometimes he says it was just him and John).
Back in the 80s, many people who knew him remarked on how he would just talk and talk about John, often completely unprompted. And that hasn't really changed. People who work with him still say that he loves telling stories about John. Journalist Paul Du Noyer noted that in almost every interview he's had with Paul, he eventually makes some unprompted reference to John. Morgan Neville recently said something similar and offered what I think is a very perceptive explanation: talking about John is a way of keeping him alive. You can see it in interviews. Paul's eyes often light up whenever he gets the chance to tell a funny or affectionate story about John, even if it's one he's already told a hundred times before. There are also more personal stories, such as the anecdote about John giving him a piece of chocolate: a tiny memory that clearly means a great deal to him, so much so that he has hardly ever, if ever, retold it publicly. Yet he once shared it with Bono while giving him a tour of Liverpool and pointing out places where he and John used to hang out: "John bought a bar of chocolate and when he came out of the newsagent he broke it in half. Gave me one half. I was amazed [...] Most boys would break off a little square, but John gave me half his bar." Paul then put his foot on the accelerator and drove away before quietly adding: "I don't know why I'm telling you that."
We all know about the John Lennon calendar he had hanging in his studio in 2015, and we only became aware of it because a journalist went there to interview him and immediately noticed it.
Paul has also said that he buys John's writings and drawings and puts them all over his walls, so he "can look at them all the time." Morgan Neville confirmed this when he visited Paul's house: "When I went to Paul's house for one of the interviews, I was let into the house and was told he'd be back in a little while. I looked on the wall and there was a drawing by John. Then Paul came in, and I said, 'I just noticed you've got this John drawing.' He said, 'Oh, let me show you something.' We went into the hallway and there were many drawings by John. He said, 'I was sitting across from John when he drew some of these. And I just felt like this would be a good home for them here.' And he just stood there looking at them with such love that I got the chills." Julian Lennon said something that also caught my attention a few years ago. After hearing Bill Maher describe John and Paul's relationship as being like a love affair, Julian replied: "I agree with you, 100%. And the more I meet Paul in later years, the more I can see that—from him."Julian then began telling a recent anecdote about meeting Paul around the time his book Eye of the Storm was released and seemed about to give a specific example of what he meant, but unfortunately Maher interrupted him before he could finish the story. He also mentioned that Paul keeps telling him he's got things to tell him about his dad he's never told anybody (this is something Julian has said before, that Paul keeps saying, "I've got stuff to tell you"). Colin Hall recalled that some years ago he visited Paul in his London office, and the two of them started talking about the early days. Paul told him that his most treasured memories were of "sitting in John's small bedroom listening to music and playing their guitars." Colin said that as Paul was saying this, he became visibly moved and seemed close to tears.
So everything seems to point to the fact that he is in a much better place internally regarding his relationship with John than he was in the 80s—vastly more so. Whenever he wants, he can now look at photos and footage of them interacting, having fun, and looking at each other lovingly. He constantly hears testimonies from people who knew John talking about how much John still cared about him. He sees the media portraying their relationship less as a competitive rivalry and more as a love story. He no longer has to constantly remind people of his place in John's life and insist that he was one of the people closest to him. You can tell how much public perception of their relationship affects him. After the whole Yesterday songwriting-credit controversy, when he asked if, only on that song, whenever they we were using the full names, it could say, "Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon", (he wanted this because in the Beatles Anthology CD booklet the lyrics to Yesterday had a picture of John above them and the credit was, "Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney"). When many people accused him of trying to damage John's legacy, Paul responded:
"Don't get it wrong. I was one of the most important people in John's life and he was one of the most important people in my life. I'm the only person who wrote that body of work with him, who was in the room with him and I... For something tiny like this to cloud that is ridiculous. I love him and always will." (2005)
The fact that so much of the old media framing has changed drastically has genuinely helped him a great deal. But even so, the pain of losing John still weighs heavily on his heart and that's unlikely to change. As he once said in 2001, "I know I will never get over it and hope I will never get over it."
I’ll admit I had low expectations for the new album but I’ve been incredibly impressed with the musicality and production of The Boys of Dungeon Lane. I’m in awe of Paul’s ability to pluck these melodies out of thin air, and after a listen or two, feel as if they have been in the McCartney catalog for decades. How can he hitting this great stride at 83 years old? It illustrates that getting older doesn’t mean you stop growing or that creativity dies. I hope all of us will be this lucky.
I’m really into a lot of songs on this record but I wanted to talk about Never Know because, not only is it my favorite, but a lyric triggered a connection that’s worth exploring, so here we go…
First, this song feels heavily inspired by past musical Beatle business (tape loops, close harmonies, mellotron, electric piano, recorder à la Fool on the Hill) but the lyrics feel placed in the early 70s timeline of the breakup and escape to Scotland. Let’s take a look:
I want to be the one | That's rooting for you | Lying in the sun again | I want to feel your touch | The things that you do | Have always meant so much to me
I don’t think he’s literally talking about lying in the sun (although he’s likely using a double meaning here), I read this as John being the sun. ☀️ The charismatic genius he bet his life on. When all is right with the world, he’s typically basking in John’s glow. Almost all of John’s attention and warmth, creatively and personally, has been on Paul up to this point. But now the sun shines on Yoko and he’s longing to be the partner who is John’s main support and focus again.
I want some love and peace | We need it right now | Your wonders never cease to be
At this point in time, John and Yoko are heavily engaged in their Peace activities. And Paul seems to be saying: okay, so you’re promoting a facade of love and peace to the world but, to me, you’re attacking my whole existence. Don’t I deserve love and peace right now too?
I love you, but you know | My heart is breaking over you | When you got me on the run | My body's shaking, oh, oh, oh | My mind is black and blue | I love you, but I never know
Here’s where this song took at turn that, in my mind, made me more certain that this is a “John Song.” The lyric “you got me on the run” alludes to his and Linda’s escape to Scotland to spin out, mourn, and heal in private. And the reason I think that is because of the line “my body’s shaking,” which instantly reminded me of the quote below from the book Wings: the Story of a Band on the Run
And this interview from All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words calls out shaking a little later in the timeline.
I'm gonna take the time | To prove that I care | Don't mind as long as I'm with you | I've got to make you see | I'll always be there | I only want to be with you
Following the story laid out in the previous lyrics, this last verse seems to be present day Paul being ever so self-aware that one of his greatest weaknesses is not being able to show/tell people that he loves them or that they are important to him. And he’s come to the understanding that this is what John needed to hear/know to believe that Paul never stopped loving him, knew a good thing when he saw it (warts and all), and was still committed to their partnership. So this song is just another one of those attempts to make John (somewhere across the universe) see that Paul “will always be there.”
My insane analysis on like the most important McLennon moment ever caught on film
IN THIS ANALYSIS, I will compare the original 1969 footage of the Beatles discussing India with the edited footage of the same moment in the 2021 “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary.
The original footage has significant historical relevance, where Lennon makes explicit references to the Bob Wooler incident and the holiday with Epstein in Spain. What’s more is, he does this after Epstein’s death. It’s a risky thing to hint at in casual conversation, and that’s knowing that they’re being filmed.
In mentioning these two incidents, Lennon simultaneously alludes to an, ahem, moment between him and McCartney in India.
Of course, the remarks Lennon makes could be ironic, self-sardonic witticisms - he was wont to make those.
But I find it interesting that exactly these remarks have been so heavily edited and / or entirely omitted. To me, this signals that the documentarists were aware that what Lennon said, if heard in its entirety, would lead to serious speculation.
Throughout the transcript below, there are some highlights to showcase where the documentary deviates from the original recording. I will explain these highlights:
Blue is when original audio has been left in, but as voiceover, meaning original visual footage is left out
Green means original footage has been moved and edited around
Red means original footage has been left out completely
The amount of highlights give a sense of how insanely heavily edited this moment is.
The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” is also guilty of this, but to avoid confusion, I only directly compare this transcript with the 2021 documentary.
If you watch the documentary, additional footage has also been added to the original recording. I don’t include these additions since this is a transcript of the original conversation, but I do point to moments where significant additions have been made in the footnotes.
Beatles transcript, original India discussion, Jan 25th, 1969, compared with the 2021 “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary:
Paul, John, George and Ringo are rehearsing, surrounded by sound- and film-crew. Paul is having an inaudible conversation with Ringo.
JOHN: (singing, unintelligible)
PAUL: Oh, I saw that film last night.
JOHN: What?
PAUL: Of us at the Maharishi’s - I’ve got all the film of it-
JOHN: Oh, yeah.
PAUL: And we all saw them(?) together. Incredible. It’s just got a great opening. (Nods at something) Yeah, (inaudible).
JOHN: The helicopter one, up in the sky.
PAUL: Yeah, I noticed you taking it, so I thought, “oh, I’ll get that.”
JOHN: Well that was the idea, you know, ‘cause you said you were making a film.
PAUL: Yeah. But it’s incredible - the opening is great, it’s just(inaudible) (1)
Paul goes on to talk with the others a bit - it’s mainly inaudible. Meanwhile, John talks about the reels.
JOHN: And on each of my two reels, “by John Lennon - Productions” written on those two reels.
SOMEONE: (Inaudible).
JOHN: I’ve had it - he’s got a few reels, too. But these are(?) my reels, luv, “By John Lennon” all through ‘em, with like subtitles. John Lennon’s reel.
SOMEONE (Paul?): (Laughing) Shut up, John. (2)
GEORGE(?): Here’s a little bit, it’s (inaudible) together, and they make a great… (?)
PAUL: Yeah, sure.
SOMEONE: So, uh… Great-
PAUL: (Talks about the film again, directed at John) It’s incredible, you know, to just sorta(?) see us. What we’re doing. It’s unbelievable.
GEORGE: What were you doing?
JOHN: (Teasingly) Yes, what were we doing?
Paul scratches his head and combs his fingers through his hair.
PAUL: Well, uh- I don’t really know, you know, but it’s like- we totally sort of put our own personalities under, for the sake of it, and you’d(?) really see, you know-
Paul pantomimes a stereotypical obedient school-boy.
JOHN: Who was that writing all them songs?
PAUL: (taken out of it) Oh that was uh- that was probably (inaudible)-
JOHN: In your room…
PAUL: Yeah, right. (Laughs and nods at John) I remember, yeah. (Serious again) But just sort of, uh- there’s a shot- there’s a long shot of you walking (points at John)-
GEORGE: (To Paul) Do you regret having gone there?
PAUL: No, no. Oh, no, no. I mean, you know-
GEORGE: Well, I feel as though I (inaudible).
PAUL: No, I just think what we did there-
JOHN: I don’t regret anything, ever… Not even Bob Wooler. (3)
PAUL: (Facing George but looking at John) No, I just think what we did there- we did, we uh, we didn’t take-
Close-up of John - he looks directly at Paul while he begins to fellate the microphone lewdly. (4)
PAUL: We weren’t sort of really truthful. You know. I mean, we could’ve, I mean- Rishikesh(?), you know there’s things like sneaking behind his back and sorta saying, “it’s a bit like school, isn’t it?” But you can see on the film that it is very like school, and that really we shoulda sorta said-
JOHN: (stops mouthing the mic) You wanna call it-
PAUL: Like we needed(?)-
JOHN: You wanna call it, “what we did on our holidays”. (5)
PAUL: (Glances at camera) Well, you know.
JOHN: (Laughs) I bet you’d love(?) (inaudible) to get it over(?).
PAUL: (Looking away) Yup, yeah… (At John again) But it is very like- there’s a long shot of you sort of walking with him, and it’s just not you, you know-
John also pantomimes an obedient school-boy.
PAUL: It’s just- (laughs) Yeah! Sort of all, “tell me, O’ master.” And that-
JOHN: (Amused) “Tell me, old master.”
PAUL: And that thing- Linda remembered that thing you said the other night as well (laughs) about when you went in the helicopter with him- you just thought he might slip you the answer.
They all laugh.
JOHN: I thought he might fly home.
(1) In the 2021 doc, at this point, additional footage is included, where we see the film from the reels with a voiceover of Paul describing them in greater detail.
(2) They’re saying that Paul didn’t film, so John thought to do it instead. At some point, Paul noticed John filming during a helicopter ride and decided to keep the tapes. Someone is confused and asks John whose tapes they were; he then goes on to clarify that they both used the camera, but jokes about his proprietary rights of the bits he filmed.
(3) The incident at Paul’s 21st birthday party, where John beat Bob Wooler in a drunken fit of rage over Wooler insinuating John and Epstein had had an affair on their holiday in Spain - John apologised for it but despite this, it still made the press. In 71, Lennon said this about the incident: “[...] obviously I must have been frightened of the fag in me to get so angry. You know, when you’re twenty-one, you want to be a man, and all that. If somebody said it now, I wouldn’t give a shit. [...]”
(4) In the 1971 film “Let It Be”, this footage is replaced with another clip of Lennon, where he wears a multi-coloured striped shirt - a shirt he did not wear on January the 25th and does not wear in any of the other clips from this conversation (instead, he wears a white t-shirt and vest). The audio has not been replaced, though, and one can still hear him mouthing at the microphone. The original footage is first included in the 2021 documentary series, where you can see from all the highlights that most of the actual conversation that took place is either edited out or moved around. This is significant, because in both films, at this moment, where Lennon refers to the Bob Wooler incident and then fellates the mic, he is directly referring to a significant historical incident in Beatles history - and yet both films choose to reframe this moment to obscure what Lennon is hinting at.
(5) It is interesting that the 2021 doc leaves this innuendo and the fellatio in, a clear reference to what Lennon and Epstein allegedly did on their holiday in Spain (and a potential double-meaning of what he and Paul did on their holiday in India), yet the mention of the Bob Wooler incident is removed. Was it an attempt to find a middle-ground, where they could include some reference to the alleged affair and simultaneously obscure it? There must have been discussions about what to include and what to leave out, and one can only wonder what the reasoning behind the final end result must have been (and who may have had final authority in the editing room…)
Originally, I meant to leave this analysis a bit open-ended and let people interpret it however they wanted.
But you know what? I’m going to add my own two cents on what I think about John’s behaviour because I want to hear if you guys think I’m reading too much into it.
So, when Paul first says what they were doing on the film was incredible, John chimes in with:
“Yes, what were we doing?”
And goes on to say, as if he’s reminding Paul of something:
“Who was writing all them songs then? In your room…”
The tone here feels very deliberately provocative. It sounds like John thinks Paul is trying to downplay or neutralize something emotionally significant that happened there by brushing it off as “we weren’t ourselves.”
Paul tries to steer the conversation back toward the broader point he was making. But John is still in a provoking and confrontational mood, so he runs with it and says:
“I don’t regret anything ever, not even Bob Wooler.”
Which is, frankly, insane.
First of all, Lennon beat Wooler badly enough that he went to the hospital (and Epstein had to drive him there, btw, poor man). It was serious.
Second, this is barely a year and a half after Epstein’s death. John is making light of this serious past incident which threatened to harm all of their reputations, including Epstein’s, and he’s doing it in front of the three other people apart from himself who were closest to and most hurt by Epstein’s passing. A passing that stemmed largely from Epstein having to hide his homosexuality away.
And he does this while AWARE that he’s being recorded.
And then, as if to underline the sexual implication even further, he literally starts fellating the microphone while staring directly at Paul.
Paul still keeps trying to move the conversation along normally, though, so John escalates even further, saying:
“You want to call it, ‘What We Did On Our Holidays’?”
On one level, he’s obviously referring to the India footage they’re discussing — you know, literally “what we did on our holiday.”
But at the same time, there’s a double meaning there, given the context of the Epstein Spain trip and the sexual innuendo he’s been leaning into.
Even outside a McLennon reading, to me this is historically significant in itself as a source on John’s feelings about the Bob Wooler incident (especially paired with the 1971 quote).
But inside a McLennon reading? It’s fascinating just how hard John seems to resist Paul trying to frame the India period as simply them being “not ourselves.” It’s like he keeps insisting: no, whatever happened there was real.
Now personally, I don’t subscribe to the theory that John and Paul had some kind of dramatic fallout in India. There are accounts that suggest they actually left on good terms. But that still doesn’t mean nothing emotionally significant happened there…
Anyway. I feel insane every time I revisit this exchange because I genuinely think it’s one of the most revealing interactions between them ever caught on tape, and I’m surprised more people don’t talk about it.
If anyone knows more about what else was happening around January 25th specifically, I’d love to hear it, because I feel like John’s mood here might be better understood in a broader context.
My insane analysis on like the most important McLennon moment ever caught on film
IN THIS ANALYSIS, I will compare the original 1969 footage of the Beatles discussing India with the edited footage of the same moment in the 2021 “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary.
The original footage has significant historical relevance, where Lennon makes explicit references to the Bob Wooler incident and the holiday with Epstein in Spain. What’s more is, he does this after Epstein’s death. It’s a risky thing to hint at in casual conversation, and that’s knowing that they’re being filmed.
In mentioning these two incidents, Lennon simultaneously alludes to an, ahem, moment between him and McCartney in India.
Of course, the remarks Lennon makes could be ironic, self-sardonic witticisms - he was wont to make those.
But I find it interesting that exactly these remarks have been so heavily edited and / or entirely omitted. To me, this signals that the documentarists were aware that what Lennon said, if heard in its entirety, would lead to serious speculation.
Throughout the transcript below, there are some highlights to showcase where the documentary deviates from the original recording. I will explain these highlights:
Blue is when original audio has been left in, but as voiceover, meaning original visual footage is left out
Green means original footage has been moved and edited around
Red means original footage has been left out completely
The amount of highlights give a sense of how insanely heavily edited this moment is.
The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” is also guilty of this, but to avoid confusion, I only directly compare this transcript with the 2021 documentary.
If you watch the documentary, additional footage has also been added to the original recording. I don’t include these additions since this is a transcript of the original conversation, but I do point to moments where significant additions have been made in the footnotes.
(Edit: Added some more thoughts here)
Beatles transcript, original India discussion, Jan 25th, 1969, compared with the 2021 “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary:
Paul, John, George and Ringo are rehearsing, surrounded by sound- and film-crew. Paul is having an inaudible conversation with Ringo.
JOHN: (singing, unintelligible)
PAUL: Oh, I saw that film last night.
JOHN: What?
PAUL: Of us at the Maharishi’s - I’ve got all the film of it-
JOHN: Oh, yeah.
PAUL: And we all saw them(?) together. Incredible. It’s just got a great opening. (Nods at something) Yeah, (inaudible).
JOHN: The helicopter one, up in the sky.
PAUL: Yeah, I noticed you taking it, so I thought, “oh, I’ll get that.”
JOHN: Well that was the idea, you know, ‘cause you said you were making a film.
PAUL: Yeah. But it’s incredible - the opening is great, it’s just(inaudible) (1)
Paul goes on to talk with the others a bit - it’s mainly inaudible. Meanwhile, John talks about the reels.
JOHN: And on each of my two reels, “by John Lennon - Productions” written on those two reels.
SOMEONE: (Inaudible).
JOHN: I’ve had it - he’s got a few reels, too. But these are(?) my reels, luv, “By John Lennon” all through ‘em, with like subtitles. John Lennon’s reel.
SOMEONE (Paul?): (Laughing) Shut up, John. (2)
GEORGE(?): Here’s a little bit, it’s (inaudible) together, and they make a great… (?)
PAUL: Yeah, sure.
SOMEONE: So, uh… Great-
PAUL: (Talks about the film again, directed at John) It’s incredible, you know, to just sorta(?) see us. What we’re doing. It’s unbelievable.
GEORGE: What were you doing?
JOHN: (Teasingly) Yes, what were we doing?
Paul scratches his head and combs his fingers through his hair.
PAUL: Well, uh- I don’t really know, you know, but it’s like- we totally sort of put our own personalities under, for the sake of it, and you’d(?) really see, you know-
Paul pantomimes a stereotypical obedient school-boy.
JOHN: Who was that writing all them songs?
PAUL: (taken out of it) Oh that was uh- that was probably (inaudible)-
JOHN: In your room…
PAUL: Yeah, right. (Laughs and nods at John) I remember, yeah. (Serious again) But just sort of, uh- there’s a shot- there’s a long shot of you walking (points at John)-
GEORGE: (To Paul) Do you regret having gone there?
PAUL: No, no. Oh, no, no. I mean, you know-
GEORGE: Well, I feel as though I (inaudible).
PAUL: No, I just think what we did there-
JOHN: I don’t regret anything, ever… Not even Bob Wooler. (3)
PAUL: (Facing George but looking at John) No, I just think what we did there- we did, we uh, we didn’t take-
Close-up of John - he looks directly at Paul while he begins to fellate the microphone lewdly. (4)
PAUL: We weren’t sort of really truthful. You know. I mean, we could’ve, I mean- Rishikesh(?), you know there’s things like sneaking behind his back and sorta saying, “it’s a bit like school, isn’t it?” But you can see on the film that it is very like school, and that really we shoulda sorta said-
JOHN: (stops mouthing the mic) You wanna call it-
PAUL: Like we needed(?)-
JOHN: You wanna call it, “what we did on our holidays”. (5)
PAUL: (Glances at camera) Well, you know.
JOHN: (Laughs) I bet you’d love(?) (inaudible) to get it over(?).
PAUL: (Looking away) Yup, yeah… (At John again) But it is very like- there’s a long shot of you sort of walking with him, and it’s just not you, you know-
John also pantomimes an obedient school-boy.
PAUL: It’s just- (laughs) Yeah! Sort of all, “tell me, O’ master.” And that-
JOHN: (Amused) “Tell me, old master.”
PAUL: And that thing- Linda remembered that thing you said the other night as well (laughs) about when you went in the helicopter with him- you just thought he might slip you the answer.
They all laugh.
JOHN: I thought he might fly home.
(1) In the 2021 doc, at this point, additional footage is included, where we see the film from the reels with a voiceover of Paul describing them in greater detail.
(2) They’re saying that Paul didn’t film, so John thought to do it instead. At some point, Paul noticed John filming during a helicopter ride and decided to keep the tapes. Someone is confused and asks John whose tapes they were; he then goes on to clarify that they both used the camera, but jokes about his proprietary rights of the bits he filmed.
(3) The incident at Paul’s 21st birthday party, where John beat Bob Wooler in a drunken fit of rage over Wooler insinuating John and Epstein had had an affair on their holiday in Spain - John apologised for it but despite this, it still made the press. In 71, Lennon said this about the incident: “[...] obviously I must have been frightened of the fag in me to get so angry. You know, when you’re twenty-one, you want to be a man, and all that. If somebody said it now, I wouldn’t give a shit. [...]”
(4) In the 1971 film “Let It Be”, this footage is replaced with another clip of Lennon, where he wears a multi-coloured striped shirt - a shirt he did not wear on January the 25th and does not wear in any of the other clips from this conversation (instead, he wears a white t-shirt and vest). The audio has not been replaced, though, and one can still hear him mouthing at the microphone. The original footage is first included in the 2021 documentary series, where you can see from all the highlights that most of the actual conversation that took place is either edited out or moved around. This is significant, because in both films, at this moment, where Lennon refers to the Bob Wooler incident and then fellates the mic, he is directly referring to a significant historical incident in Beatles history - and yet both films choose to reframe this moment to obscure what Lennon is hinting at.
(5) It is interesting that the 2021 doc leaves this innuendo and the fellatio in, a clear reference to what Lennon and Epstein allegedly did on their holiday in Spain (and a potential double-meaning of what he and Paul did on their holiday in India), yet the mention of the Bob Wooler incident is removed. Was it an attempt to find a middle-ground, where they could include some reference to the alleged affair and simultaneously obscure it? There must have been discussions about what to include and what to leave out, and one can only wonder what the reasoning behind the final end result must have been (and who may have had final authority in the editing room…)
have you ever read All Flesh Is Weak by when_the_pawn? it's one of my faves, and I feel like you'd love it. I know it's technically explicit, but I imagine some wholesome priest paul and bohemian john😌
(❁´▽`❁) i have read All Flesh Is Weak by when_the_pawn and i do love it! ( • ̀ω ⁃᷄)✧ are explicit and wholesome mutually exclusive? but i'll be chaste i'll be good ε٩(๑> ₃ <)۶з
sorry but john lennon did indeed need to be micromanaged and people need to stop scorning paul for doing it like the second there were too many enablers around he started doing heroin
I made 20 forthlin road in Houseflipper 2! It is a mix of the actual irl floorplan and how the house is described in my fic. The house is slightly bigger than it was--only slightly, because I blocked off half of the upper floor to match how it is described in my fic. I might remake it to be totally IRL accurate later.
