Ghosting In Progress

[usermovies]

Roman Holiday — 1953, dir. William Wyler

[lenetaylor]

John Lennon's collage "for" Paul

I was very curious about the collage image going around tumblr (e.g., here, here, and here) that was identified as being made "for Paul" and titled "I Only Have Eyes for You", and done by John Lennon "at art school". Here it is; I scanned this from Julian Lennon's book Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection (by Brian Southall and Julian Lennon, 2010)

You can see that Paul has written at the bottom "J.L. Collage - To Julian - love Paul x".

The book caption reads

A distinct and original collage of faces and bodies dedicated to Julian from Paul. It was created by John and given to Paul.

But the first time this previously unseen collage surfaced was in 2000. It was included in a show held by artist Peter Blake at the Tate Liverpool, called About Collage.

An article in The Independent at the time says

A John Lennon collage never seen in public is to feature in an exhibition that opens 30 years ago to the day the Beatles split... Lennon's collage, done at art school in the 1950s, comprises faces and figures cut from magazines, and features a number of eyes and lips pasted on images of girls. Blake said: "The style tied in with my Sgt Pepper's album cover, which was simply a more organised version, with bigger heads." Natalie Rudd, who helped curate the exhibition, said: "No one really knows much about Lennon's collage. … It has no title and is rather dark, with a lot of black and red and we can only guess at what he was trying to say."

In this 2009 Guardian article, Blake says,

By then I knew that Paul McCartney owned a collage that John Lennon had done, so I borrowed that. Paul also made a sound collage of Liverpool, and he made an artwork too.

Another quote from Eye Magazine in 2000:

He hopes to borrow an unseen art school collage by John Lennon, owned by Paul McCartney.

There was a book produced to accompany the show, called Peter Blake: About Collage (2000). The collage is reproduced in the book:

The credit reads "John Lennon 1940-1980, Untitled, late 1950s, Paper collage, 970 x 675mm, Private Collection". It does not have the handwritten note by Paul at the bottom.

Peter Blake's comments say:

I have followed Paul McCartney's career as an artist, so when About Collage emerged, I suggested that he made a collage, perhaps from sound, which he has pursued. John Lennon made a collage at art school during the late 1950s which is included in the show.

Paul did make a sound collage for the show, and released it as an album called Liverpool Sound Collage; some of it is on YouTube. (There used to be a website for it, long gone now, but you can see bits of it at the Internet Archive). Here's his artwork, titled The World, mentioned by Blake above (the central image is a back and white photo of Jerry Lewis):

So, to summarize:

The collage does NOT have an official title. I don't know where the "I Only Have Eyes for You" title came from

It's not clear that the collage was made for Paul specifically, only that it was given to Paul, date unknown

It's not clear if the collage Paul gave to Julian is the original or a copy

It seems unlikely that it was made at art school, as some of the images are of women in classically mid-1960s clothes and hairstyles. The only source for the date of composition seems to be Paul

It's not stated who gave the collage to Paul - it might have been John, but it could easily have been Julia or Yoko (or even Cyn?)

Paul's artwork was NOT made for John

PS. I looked through the book Paul McCartney: Paintings but the collage isn't mentioned.

PPS. I tried doing some image searches on the clearer photos of women in the collage, but got no results. Perhaps someone else will have better luck.

[beebfreeb]

Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.

[scribe-cas]

Reblog if you're okay with people coming into your DMs with the "you seem really odd and your blog intrigues me, do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters"

[fictionadventurer]

I dream of one day being able to craft characters as vividly and efficiently as Billy Joel in “Piano Man.”

Paul “the real-estate novelist”. Three words! That’s all we need to build a complete picture of this man’s personality and history. And then it just rounds out the picture with “never had time for a wife”.

And we don’t even pause a beat before jumping to the equally vivid tragedy of “Davy who’s still in the navy and probably will be for life.”

And these two are talking together! Because of course they are, these kindred souls stuck in their lives of mediocrity.

The whole song’s nothing but lightning-fast character sketches. The old man whose song is “sad and sweet and knew it complete when I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

John at the bar, so firmly established as cheerful and friendly and exuberant before the 180 turn to “Bill, I believe this is killing me.”

The waitress practicing politics.

Even the businessmen “sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it’s better than drinking alone.”

All these tiny little tragicomic figures gathered around a bar’s piano. Sketched in five minutes and thirty-nine seconds–and that’s counting the choruses and harmonica breaks.

I dunno, I just think about it every time I hear the song and think he deserves more credit for it.

[neocities]

me when I fucking GET you

[nostalgia-eh52]

David Crosby, Neil Young + Stephen Stills 🎸 🎶

[falsedetective]

i love the conclave. what do you mean the entire world has tv cameras trained on the chimney of an old italian palace waiting for days or weeks until the color of the smoke changes and we find out who’s been elected as the next supreme dictator of catholicism

[falsedetective]

the secret rites have chosen bob, from chicago. impeccable

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

David Crosby & Joni Mitchell, February 1969 © Henry Diltz.

[shadowland]

where do you get coffee here? how do you get coffee?

[harmonicawizard]

[strangebrew]

[mayplantstarrwaters]

It's fall....I'm thinking of 60s cloak/cape fashion trend

[rock--lobster]

I couldn’t think of one for Neil.

[tweeterwilbury]

Crosby, Stills And Nash are over, says Graham Nash//Wild Tales by Graham Nash//Run of the Mill by George Harrison//David Crosby: The Rolling Stone Interview//David Crosby on twitter//Wind on the Water by Crosby&Nash, cover and back cover, 1974//The Frost by Mitski//David Crosby by Graham Nash, 1969//David Crosby on twitter//David Crosby by Graham Nash, circa 1980s.

[harmonicawizard]

[harmonicawizard]

[meadow-dusk]

Graham Nash sculpting David Crosby | Miami, FL 1977 | ©️ Joel Bernstein