formerly Paul's Right Hand

[elvisqueso]

john calling paul "gorgeous" in the novelization of a hard day's night

[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!

[thecoleopterawithana]

Released on 15 September 1980 as the B-side to “Temporary Secretary”, “Secret Friend” was created during the experimental McCartney II sessions (June - July 1979).   

Feel like you’ve never fit before Here we are Where are we Cast adrift on some uncharted sea I know we’ll find our way I know we’ll reach the end If you will say you’ll be my secret friend Night draws in, once again As she turns her velvet collar up A perfect day will end If you will say you’ll be my secret friend Feel like you’ve never felt before, once more I need ya I need ya

Here we seem to have another reach out from Paul. Filled with the optimistic certainty that they will find a way to work it out and find themselves on a whole better place for it, the song echoes feelings similarly expressed in the contemporaneous “Coming Up”:

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

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

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

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

But in the middle of another bottled message, some specific verses caught my eye. 

For example, “Here we are / Where are we / Cast adrift on some uncharted sea” instantly brought to mind the specific phrasing John used in the Playboy interview when talking about the aftermath of falling out of relationships, which happened right around the release of “Secret Friend”:

When I was kicked out, I realised where I was, which was on a raft in the middle of the universe

More than that – in another happening of strange coincidences in their lives – Paul seems to predict John’s life-changing experience of having to sail a 43-foot sloop through the 20-foot waves of a mid-Atlantic storm, on the summer of 1980:

I was there driving the boat for six hours, keeping it on course. I was buried under water. I was smashed in the face by waves for six solid hours. It won’t go away. You can’t change your mind. It’s like being on stage; once you’re on there’s no gettin’ off. A couple of the waves had me on my knees. I was just hanging on with my hands on the wheel – it’s very powerful weather – and I was having the time of my life. I was screaming sea chanteys and shoutin’ at the gods! I felt like the Viking, you know, Jason and the Golden Fleece. I arrived in Bermuda. Once I got there, I was so centered after the experience at sea that I was tuned in, or whatever, to the cosmos. And all these songs came!

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

John came out of it reinvigorated. It’s not hard to imagine how being faced with possible death at the hands of nature’s forces and then conquering them single-handedly, could have given John a new appreciation for his own life and for his own person. The episode seemed to instil in him the confidence that he was capable, he could do it, and there’s no time like the Now for it!

Oh yes, it all seemed so bloody easier then You know, like what to wear very serious like, you know, am I gonna get the little pimples? Does she really love me? All the crap But now I don’t bother about that shit no more, I know she loves me! All I gotta bother about is standing up!

— “Borrowed Time”, written June - July 1980.  

Willing to overcome his insecurities and accept that the love he is receiving from across the sea is genuine and true, John restarts his side of the correspondence. He sings his heart.

Our life together is so precious together We have grown, we have grown Although our love is still special Let’s take a chance and fly away somewhere alone 

It’s been too long since we took the time No-one’s to blame, I know time flies so quickly But when I see you darling It’s like we both are falling in love again It’ll be just like starting over, starting over

— “(Just Like) Starting Over”, written June - July 1980.

John not only to accepts Paul’s offer from “Coming Up”, but he goes on in a more direct declaration of his own feelings that seems to answer “Secret Friend”’s “Feel like you’ve never felt before, once more”.

Considering that “Secret Friend” was only released mid-September and “(Just Like) Starting Over” was written at least a month prior, we have two ways to explain the apparent back-and-forth: 

Either John and Paul were communicating far more actively and openly during 1980 than any of us has ever guessed, to the point of Paul actually showing John his songs prior to public release (and boy, is that a significant step!), OR we stand before another curious case of “writing together though apart” (and honestly, I wouldn’t even put it past them).

[orangeskiesfly]

made a cute john edit because this is how i perceive him

[decadent-hag]

Happy Mclennon Monday/Woolton Fete Anniversary. Here is my favorite jp pic.

[foryouwereinmysong]

John and Paul

[bodhbdearg]

Book review: Dakota Days

I avoided reading memoirs by ex-Dakota employees for a long time as they seemed so depressing, and had a reputation for being distorted. But I finally decided to because it's so difficult to get anything that seems like accurate information about those years. "Official" accounts like Elliot Mintz's book are so obviously whitewashed, while Goldman's biography seems the opposite extreme - ridiculously negative. So I read Dakota Days (1983) by John Green aka Charlie Swan, one of the many tarot readers that Yoko employed in the late 1970s, and The Last Days of John Lennon (1991) by Fred Seaman, who worked as John's assistant in 1979-80 and was embroiled in an insane saga involving purloining John's diaries after his death and endless lawsuits. Both slightly disreputable characters, so obviously their accounts should be approached with healthy scepticism. The following is a review of Dakota Days; Seaman's book review will be in a later post.

With all that in mind, does Dakota Days ring true? To a certain extent, yes. Dakota Days is based on many hours of conversation between John Green and Yoko and John (separately). The book is largely made up of dialogue, the accuracy of which Green ascribes to his "excellent memory". That already sounds pretty sus - no one could remember conversations that precisely. It seems more likely that Green either (a) took notes during his conversations, which would be facilitated by many of them taking place over the phone; (b) invented the conversations wholesale based on his recollections; or (c) secretly recorded his phone calls and transcribed them. Options (a) and (c) would lend credence to claims of their accuracy, while (b) would be closer to fanfic. I can't tell which option is more likely. He does say in his introduction that he altered some things and modified timelines for readability, so he gets ahead of accusations of making it all up. I will say that his John and Yoko do largely sound like the real people. His John uses wordplay and grandstands a lot, and his Yoko is scattershot and indiscreet.

With the above caveats taken into consideration, Green's picture of JY is both interesting and perhaps more bizarre than depressing. The overwhelming sense is of two people who suffer from a chronic inability to communicate (sound familiar?) and also don't seem to understand each other on a fundamental level. One of Yoko's most frequent questions to Green is to use the cards to find out what John is thinking. She could just ask him, but seemingly such simple communication is impossible. There seems to be an assumption that neither will be honest with the other about how they really feel. John, for his part, seems to cycle between pulling away from Yoko and wanting desperately for her to give him all of her attention. Green observes a pattern where John initially gives support to Yoko when she starts a new venture, for example being the Lennon representative in business meetings with Apple, but as she gets more successful, starts pulling away and undermining her. I couldn't help but wonder if he exhibited the same behaviour in his relationship with Paul. Yoko's reaction to his mind games is to plan out things, (with input from psychics at every step) such as their summer trips to Japan, which she is sure will be great for all of them, meanwhile John is complaining that he doesn't want to go but "has to" because "that's what husbands do." Yoko just barrels on though, even when it becomes increasingly obvious her plans aren't working out (again, sound familiar??). She often says things that sound so delusional you wonder if she's being serious, but it seems she is. You get the sense of a couple that do care about each other but seem to have an image of each other in their heads that doesn't gel with their actual personalities. One of their most common appeals to Green is not to tell the other what they said in their conversation with Green, something Green only sporadically adheres to.

Green observes John go through three distinct stages: at first, in the immediate post-reconciliation period, John is running hot and cold - living in the Dakota but frequently disappearing to go out on the town, but telling Green that he has to make his marriage work this time. Sean's birth shakes things up a bit, but John appears to go into a kind of post-natal depression when the reality of caring for a small baby hits him, and he withdraws. Later he becomes more active again, and is always approaching Green with new ideas for things he wants to research and even a short-lived art project idea, while bemoaning the loss of his musical muse. On the first trip to Japan in 1977, Yoko calls Green in a panic because John has gone into some kind of catatonic state, not talking, staying in bed and making strange sounds. Eventually he comes out of it and is OK for a bit when they return, before going into what Green calls a fifteen month depression. The last stage is his rejuvenation in Bermuda and writing songs, during which Yoko is displeased and thinks that her songs are better than his. There is often a dynamic between them where if one of them is thriving, the other is suffering. Green posits himself as a savvy business guru to JY, which is probably grandstanding on his part, but he does emphasise the many times he tried to get John to be proactive in his business affairs (to no avail). Green also indicates that JY were spending way more than they were bringing in and putting themselves on the brink of ruin.

There's also the promised hi-jinks: the intricately planned but inevitably chaotic trips; the visit by Green and Yoko to a bruja in Colombia (that whole section is hysterical); Yoko's mother playing scheduling mind games with her in Japan (I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree!). It's very funny, but also sad, as both JY took all this terribly seriously and suffered with chronic inability to make decisions without the input of various psychics, readers etc. It sounds like no way to live. Meanwhile Sean seems emotionally neglected - well-looked after by his nanny, indulged to the point of being spoiled, but with not much of a relationship with his mother. He has a closer relationship with John, but John can run hot and cold in a way that must have been very confusing for a small child. The Dakota is always full of people, but everyone living there seems fundamentally alone.

Dakota Days is famous for the section when John is calling Green to talk about Paul's Japan drug bust and arrest, worrying if he is being mistreated while repeatedly saying "Not that I care!" This conversation (if accurate) encapsulates the wildly contradictory nature of John's emotions, especially towards Paul. In the space of one breath he says that he is affected because he knew Paul "long and intimately", then says "We were never close", then caveats that with "We were never close creatively" and ends with another anxious query as to whether Paul is being mistreated. These contradictions apply to his relationship with Yoko too, as he veers between mocking her superstition to wholly believing in it, expressing aggravation and frustration with her eccentricities yet bemoaning her distance from him. Whether the conversation about Paul occurred exactly as described or is an invention based on memory, it certainly sounds realistic.

John Green remained a rather mysterious figure after the book was published, not doing a whole lot of publicity and disappearing from public view. Apparently he is dead now. That could lend credence to his claim that he wanted to publish the book to counter the "Saint John" image being promoted by the Estate in the early 80s. But his status as a disgruntled ex-employee can't be discounted either - he left (or was fired from) Yoko's employ in around 1981. So he would have motivation to exaggerate or distort. Still, the general tenor of his account jibes with others, and the picture it paints makes you rather sorry for both John and Yoko. Yoko in particular seems rather a helpless figure, veering between authoritarianism and anxiety, constantly worried about how John's moods are going to affect things and about what the outside world thinks of her. Their concerns and neuroses are the domain of the super-rich and insecure, and both seem caught in a trap of their own making.

I'd say Dakota Days is worth a read, with the caveats about its accuracy and possible agendas as noted above.

[unreliable-narratives]

as if “i called your name every night since then” wasn’t already one of Paul’s lines with the heaviest erotic undertone, he had to moan “John” in the middle of it every single time he performed it live.

[undying-love]

I've noticed an interesting trend. John fans are much more receptive to McLennon, whereas Paul fans mostly prefer to think of Paul as straight, or that John's love for Paul was strictly one-sided. How? Even though we have more documented evidence regarding John's sexuality, it's always about other men. What makes people assume he had an unrequited romantic love for Paul? I mean, John even had sexual fantasies about George, but we haven't found any evidence like that regarding Paul, right? I just don't get it. If we're strictly talking about evidence, he had intimate, sexually charged encounters with Brian, Stu, George, and even Fred Seaman, but not Paul.

(Just to clarify this beforehand, I'm neither a John or Paul fan 🫣)

Yeah, in the few years I've been in the fandom, I've noticed the same thing. In my experience, the people who are most skeptical of mclennon are often Paul fans, who tend to view any romantic feelings as being one-sided from John's side. I think there are several reasons for this. First, we simply have much more information about John's sexuality than Paul's. We know about his intense relationships with Brian and Stuart as well as incidents involving men like Icke Braun and Tony Manero. John's own comments often hinted that he didn't see himself 100% heterosexual. He repeatedly explained his violent reaction toward Bob Wooler as stemming from fear of the "fag in me." Yoko also said that she and John believed everyone was bisexual, and recalled John telling her that one reason he liked her was because she looked like "a man in drag." Paul, by contrast, is much more guarded and has always been highly defensive about his sexuality. As I've pointed out many times before, there is far less ambiguity in the public record when it comes to Paul, and therefore much less discussion about questioning his heterosexuality, especially after 70s (the 60s are a different story, since there were plenty of rumors and accounts of people wondering whether Paul was gay, but that's another topic). So I completely understand why many people still see Paul as straight.

The other reason (and I know this is rather controversial), based purely on my own observations, is that a significant number of Paul fans (not most, but certainly some) simply don't like John very much, and don't seem to particularly like the fact that Paul does. I've seen people complaining that Paul "makes everything about John" and argue that he should move on, and that John didn't deserve Paul's love. If someone already dislikes the idea of John being that central to Paul's life even in a platonic sense, they're naturally going to be much less receptive to the idea that Paul's feelings may have been romantic or just as intense. Many of them focus on John's jealousy, possessiveness, hostility toward Linda, and obsessive behavior—which are all very real—while downplaying Paul's own jealousy and emotional investment (I've seen this even among Paul fans who do believe in mclennon). As a result, John becomes the obsessed one and Paul becomes the emotionally detached object of that obsession. I've seen quite a few people framing the dynamic as "John wanted Paul but could never have him," and they genuinely like that interpretation. Many even prefer to see the loving and constant way Paul talks about John as mainly a PR strategy rather than genuine love and evidence of intense feelings for John.

Now, as for your question, "What makes people assume he had an unrequited romantic love for Paul?" I think this largely came from Philip Norman's 2008 biography, where Yoko strongly implied the idea of one-sided feelings from John's point of view. Here's an excerpt:

“From chance remarks [John] had made, [Yoko] gathered there had even been a moment when—on the principle that bohemians should try everything—he had contemplated an affair with Paul, but had been deterred by Paul’s immovable heterosexuality. Nor, apparently, was Yoko the only one to have picked up on this. Around Apple, in her hearing, Paul would sometimes be called John’s Princess. She had also once heard a rehearsal tape with John’s voice calling out ‘Paul . . . Paul . . .’ in a strangely subservient, pleading way. ‘I knew there was something going on there,’ she remembers. ‘From his point of view, not from Paul’s. And he was so angry at Paul, I couldn’t help wondering what it was really about.’”

However, this quote is rather problematic because it's not entirely clear how much of it comes from Yoko, John or Norman. We do now know that the term "immovable heterosexuality" was Norman's wording, which he admitted when the Beautiful Possibility podcast reached out to him. And I've said many times that I don't think Yoko really believes it was one-sided, but that's another topic.

You also said that, "If we're strictly talking about evidence, he had intimate, sexually charged encounters with Brian, Stu, George, and even Fred Seaman, but not Paul." With Brian and Stu, yes. But I've never heard anything remotely sexual happening between Fred and John (please tell me where you read about this, I'm intrigued). And regarding George, John did write in his diary that he had a sexual dream about him, though it deeply disturbed him, so I wouldn't call it a sexual fantasy. He never had a real-life sexual encounter with him, as far as we know. Now, since you added "but not Paul," in the excerpt I just showed you you can see how Yoko talked about hearing a tape of John basically moaning Paul's name over and over. We also have quotes from John himself talking about how he found Paul physically attractive and how he thought he looked like Elvis, whom he also found extremely attractive. He made constant jokes and innuendos about him and Paul throughout the years as well. And we also have plenty of evidence of him not being 100% straight. So it's not surprising that it's much easier for people to accept the idea that John was into Paul than the other way around, given all of this and Yoko's own testimony. The "evidence" from Paul's side is less direct, more subtle/understated and more open to interpretation by comparison. So I'm not surprised by the skepticism.

[undying-love]

We know that the infamous "nobody looked Paul the way John looked at him" quote is fake, but there is still an undeniable "Look" in John's eyes in many of the photos taken of him looking at Paul. Theres been many compilations as we have all seen. But something makes me wonder if we are misinterpreting John's expression as loving when it's really just cause he's not wearing his glasses. John was notoriously nearsighted and when you are trying to look closely at something when you are that nearsighted you squint your eyes, a look that can be misinterpreted as loving or romantic. At least in my opinion. Are there any photos of John looking at Paul with his glasses on? Does John make that same face when he's looking at someone other than Paul like George or Ringo? What about their wives, we know John was in love with Yoko and Cynthia, so if he's in love with Paul too, shouldn't he look at his other loves the same way?

I don't think it always had to do with his poor eyesight, because what makes the way he looks at Paul stand out is not really his eyes, but the way he smiles at Paul almost every time he looks at him. It's his entire facial expression. If he's not looking at him "lovingly" then I don't know what that word means...

And here's John looking at Paul without his glasses. There really isn't any difference:

I have seen pictures of him looking fondly at George and Ringo, but not nearly as often.

And yes, there are quite a few pictures of him looking at Cynthia and Yoko lovingly 💕:

But most of the pictures I could find were of them either kissing, or hugging each other/holding hands and smiling, but looking at the camera and not at each other (though they do look genuinely happy together), or Yoko/Cyn being the ones looking lovingly at John, while John is looking at the camera or somewhere else.

[epiphainie]

showing up to the watergate hearings looking like his face needs to be shoved in a pillow

[prettycoolbeagle]

Yoko "I didn't know who John was" Ono vs Paul "John isn't bi" Mccartney, who wins?

[i-am-the-oyster]

Oyster do you know where Crepesuzette went?? They just disappeared, very scary :(

Hi Nonny, Crepesuzette is fine & sends her love, she's just decided tumblr isn't the place for her. All Things Must Pass. She'll still be on ao3.

Thanks for asking! ❤️

[didwemeetsomewherebefore]

Keep on reading darling Crepe’s fics people!

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crepe_Suzette

[carolsturka]

i think these are genuinely sick people

[undying-love]

Throughout Get Back, you can see just how much eye contact there is between them—how intensely they look at each other. But in this particular scene, it stands out even more. They’re surrounded by many people, yet even when others are speaking directly to one of them, they often keep their eyes on each other instead of looking at the person who’s talking 🫠

[didwemeetsomewherebefore]

Speaking of the Mapplethorpe image that looks so much like JP… Does anyone remember this picture doing the rounds? I found it in my downloaded tumblr photos from ‘22 but not seen it again since. It’s clearly *meant* to be John and Paul.. but what’s the lore? Anyone know?

[oopshidaisyy]

can't believe "did you dream about me last night" made it into the book