Brie✨

Im literally only here for McLennon lmao

[irisasis]

recent pinterest pauls <3

[hqbeatles]

[beatleswings]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIR RICHARD “RINGO STARR” STARKEY! (July 7, 1940)

[hqbeatles]

[undying-love]

i just read your last post, and I've wondering if you could list or talk about all the lesser known anecdotes/behind the scenes or gossip you said you've heard second hand about John and Paul. thank you

Sure!

Most of us already know about Yoko, just a few weeks into being in the studio, seeing this interaction between John and Paul and saying right afterward, "There is something definitely very strong between John and Paul." And I've talked before about what Ray Connolly cryptically said about witnessing "bizarre and revealing" moments between them without ever elaborating. There was also a journalist who met them during the filming of the Help! movie who said he tried for days to talk to Paul alone, but found it impossible to lead him away from John, and that George and Ringo just drifted away whenever John and Paul "were on". This matches the claim made by a someone whose uncle worked at Granada Studios on The Music of Lennon & McCartney special; he said that John and Paul were inseparable all the time—if one stood up, the other did, and they would follow each other around constantly, shocking the people who worked there (I'm mentioning all of this again just in case someone here hasn't read about it before). But as I said in my last post, there must be so many more things the numerous people who worked at Apple or EMI observed, which ultimately warranted the "John's princess" nickname. @packyourromanticmind mentioned said they have an acquaintance whose father was a part-time driver for the Beatles, and he heard talk among the Beatles entourage about John and Paul's relationship. @waveofahand just commented on my previous post saying they actually spoke to a guy who worked at EMI as a clerk in the 60s. After talking briefly about what each Beatle was like, they asked him about the "John's princess" nickname, and he simply replied: "John was besotted. Paul was obsessed." There was also a DataLounge user who wrote: "I worked in the music industry briefly from '67-'70 and I have seen for myself some very revealing things, but I don't find it appropriate to dish it out here. The most I can say for now is Yoko gave a very watered-down version of the names the Apple staff gave to Paul, though they also gave a very derogatory name for John as well." And regarding what I myself have heard second-hand, which supports the idea that there were other jokes and nicknames besides the "princess" thing, apparently people who frequented Paul's house at Cavendish Avenue would joke about John spending so much time there, making cracks about the area specifically being called "St. John's Wood," lol.

[butiloveher]

what is their PROBLEM they’re so pretty

[undying-love]

You always say that Paul is often evasive or downplays songs that are about John (or likely to be about John). Can you give some examples? Because he's been very straightforward about Dear Friend and Here Today.

There are songs like Two Of Us that most of us believe are about both John and Linda, but Paul has never acknowledged this (he always states it’s a love song for Linda) though he has said he understands why people think otherwise. However, whenever he discusses the song, such as in The Lyrics book where he breaks down almost every line, he completely skips over the lyric: "You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead." I think it makes sense why he avoids it; that line doesn't fit Linda at the time, given they had only been together for less than a year. Interestingly, while breaking down the line "You and me sending postcards, writing letters..." in that same book, he randomly notes that John was a "great postcard sender, so you would get some great stuff from him." It is interesting that he would casually bring John up if the song truly had nothing to do with him. Why else would that detail be relevant?

With Dear Friend, Paul was actually, at first, much less straightforward. He never openly admitted the song was a direct message to John until the 80s ("It was about John, to John"). In the 70s, he only said, "It’s just about a dear friend, whatever it means to you." Also in the 70s, when asked if there was a song on Wild Life that served as a reply to John, he claimed:

"I don't write anything consciously. Sometimes when I'm pissed off with John over Apple business a line might creep in. I suppose I wrote 'too many people preaching practices / don't let them tell you what you want to be' was at him. If there is something on this album, 'Dear Friend' is the nearest thing to that."

Regarding Too Many People, Paul claimed in a 1984 interview that only two lines in the song were actually about John: "Too many people preaching practices" and "You took your lucky break and broke it in two." He added, "There wasn't anything else on it that was about [John and Yoko]." If you actually read the lyrics, it’s glaringly obvious this isn't true, but typical Paul. (In The Lyrics, he finally discusses the track in a more general sense as a reaction to John "firing his missiles" at him through songs). In that same 1984 interview, he insisted those two lines were the only "tiny reference" to John on the entire RAM album. (Sigh).

Then there are the songs he rarely or never publicly acknowledges, almost acting as if they don't even exist. Perfect examples are Oh! Darling and Call Me Back Again. He has never performed "Oh! Darling" at his own concerts (the sole exception being a single performance at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert, simply because Hawkins loved the track). Paul has only ever made two real commentary about the song back in the 90s, and it strictly focused on technical aspects: how he wanted his voice to sound like he’d been singing all week. In Many Years From Now, he merely notes that what he "mainly remembers" is trying to get the vocals right. That was it. It was also the only one of his songs from Abbey Road that he completely excluded from The Lyrics. As for Call Me Back Again, the only time he ever discussed it was in 1975, offering brief technical details. He sang it live from 1975 to 1976, but has never performed it since, nor has he ever acknowledged it again to my knowledge. It was also left out of The Lyrics.

Now Let Me Roll It. The first time an interviewer asked him about his vocals sounding like John's style, Paul was very dismissive, saying, "I still don't think it sounds like him, but that's your opinion." As the years passed, he shifted his narrative, admitting that when he heard the completed track for the first time, he immediately thought it sounded like John, though he claimed it wasn't intentional, before adding that the song was about nothing more than "rolling a joint." Finally, in The Lyrics, the truth changes again: he admits he used the tape echo on his voice intentionally to "acknowledge" the fact that John loved tape echo. For the first time, he also confesses that Let Me Roll It is primarily a love song "about wanting to reach out to someone" but being "hesitant" to express your feelings.

As for Arrow Through Me, he did include it in The Lyrics, but he spends about 90% of the entry talking about everything except the song itself. In the final paragraph, he drops a cryptic commentary stating that the "character" in the song has been wounded, and that it could have been "a great relationship," before adding that there was nobody "more down" than him at the moment of writing it. This is fascinating context, because Wings drummer Steve Holley noted that during the 1979 recording sessions for this song, Paul was deeply depressed and missing John intensely, describing it as "a huge hole in his life."

With Coming Up (which I agree with John on interpreting it as a personal message to him), Paul has never acknowledged the subtext or any deliberate nod to John. He only ever likes to recall how much John loved the track and how it partly motivated him to get back into the studio for Double Fantasy. Tug of War practically screams John (at least to me), yet Paul has always refused to admit it was inspired by him. He says he understands why the public thinks it is, but he oddly uses the defense that the song was written before John’s death rather than after, using the timeline to imply he wasn't thinking of John at all when he wrote it, lol. Here Today is the first track where he acknowledged the subject matter from the very beginning without any downplaying, though he has claimed on at least two separate occasions that this was the first song he "EVER" wrote about John. (Sigh). Even then, he noted that he "could always deny the song was about him" and "burn the tapes."

Of course, the most recent example is "The Boys of Dungeon Lane." He surprisingly and unprompted stated that the middle verse from Days We Left Behind was about his memories with John, yet he hasn't openly dedicated a single full song on the album to him. Meanwhile, he has openly identified which tracks are about George, Ringo, his parents, Nancy, and even a childhood crush. The songs on that album that sound the most potentially connected to John are precisely the ones he hasn't discussed beyond basic technical details.

PS: By the way, this isn't by any means meant to be a dig at Paul. He has every right to keep to himself and not share the inspiration behind his songs. I just find the contradictions and evasiveness rather funny, because they mostly occur when a song could be about John.

[englishwalrus]

Those evil lesbians your trying to ignore

[p2nnylan2]

It's funny how, after the beatles broke up, Paul wanted to create a new band and the only way he knew how to recreate their success was by going back to where it all started. Doing gigs, touring, ect. But what I find the most interesting is how the only person who could simulate the connection he and John shared... was Linda, his wife. It gets even funnier when you realize John did the same with Yoko.

And Paul always mentions how John wanted a "divorce" hmm....

[candicoated]

What is his problem?

[hqbeatles]

[dreamingofthepast]

Paul is so twinkish here

[michonnegrimes]

My idea is that you keep working. A lot of people want to get the hell out of the factory and retire. But I’m doing my hobby, so I don’t want to give it up. I’m going off now and I’ll pick up the electric guitar and play some rock and roll. I still feel the same thrill I used to feel. I’m allowed to play this really cool guitar through a brilliant amp and turn it up as loud as I like. I still love it, and it still seems like a privilege. – Paul McCartney (2009)          HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL! (JUNE 18, 1942)

[the-cosmic-empire]

The Beatles take a stroll through Hyde Park for a Time Magazine photo shoot on 18th May, 1967. 

Pics: Marvin Lichtner

[roseyinliverpool]

We need to talk about "Yvonne's The One" way more often because... to me it is so obviously about John. I mean...

When I first saw Yvonne, volcanoes erupted And laughter flowed into my life She seemed all right, nothing wrong Everything about her was so strong

and

But jealousy would never let us be So always gonna keep us apart

This is all I will say for now but I never see enough people talking about this.

[undying-love]

I'm reading into the whole Stuart/John/Paul triangle from some of your posts, this whole dynamic is very interessing; one thing I've noticed is that when Paul talks about there being jealousy for John's attention and friendship he always says "we" but we who? Did Pete and George ever mention this? Because to me it seems it was a Paul's only issue.

I also recall (but idk if it's true) they even threw hands one time during which Paul said something nasty about Astrid, which surprised me because I had never read about him being phisically violent before or after.

And I wonder just what John's thoughts were about this whole situation, a part of me wonders if maybe he simply felt flattened by having two guys he was clearly attracted/attached to fighting over him.

About their fight onstage, if I recall correctly, Stu owed Paul some money and Paul wanted him to pay it back (he used to borrow money from Paul just to not repay him), and Paul made a sarcastic remark about how Astrid could afford to pay it for him. Stu lost it and started the fight.

Now, about the "WE were jealous":

"WE were always slightly jealous of John’s other friendships. He was the older fellow; it was just the way it was. When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from GEORGE AND ME." "We’d had a few ding-dongs, partly out of jealousy for John’s friendship. WE ALL rather competed for John’s friendship, and Stuart, being his mate from art school, had a lot of his time and WE were jealous of that.”

I haven’t seen a single quote from Pete Best saying he was jealous of Stuart. And George stated quite a few times that they all genuinely liked Stu and got on well with him:

"Stuart was cool. He was great looking and had a great vibe about him, and was a very friendly bloke. I liked Stuart a lot; he was always very gentle ... We liked him in the band: he looked great and he'd learnt enough to get by, but he was never totally convinced he was going to be a musician."

It seems to have been mainly Paul who didn't like him at all. While Stu being a very bad bass player surely didn't help (Paul was a perfectionist, after all, making his frustration very understandable) the root of the problem was truly Stuart's closeness with John. Paul even admitted this himself: “[Stu] and I used to have a deadly rivalry. I don’t know why. He was older and a strong friend of John’s. When I look back on it I think we were probably fighting for John’s attention.” Paul’s girlfriend at the time, Dot, recalled, "Paul hated Stu. It's true that Paul had his eye on Stu's bass, but in fact, he was jealous of Stu, especially of Stu's friendship with John." Many people around them noticed it too. Even Cynthia, after noting that Paul felt Stu was holding the band back musically, added, "I think Paul was also a bit jealous of Stu; until then he had had most of John's attention."

The core issue here is that Paul seems to have a distinct tendency to universalize things: using "we" and "us" whenever a subject becomes too sensitive or when he feels self-conscious about the emotional implications (he also does this when he's asked about John's death. He often says "I felt like everyone felt"). He doesn't always do this though, as he has quite a few times said surprisingly candid and emotionally loaded things, like "I was like another girlfriend", "if I was a girl maybe I could go out and....", "I was jealous because of Yoko [...] it took ME a year to realize they were in love" and "he and Yoko were very close together, which left ME out of the picture". It just seems that his level of comfort when using this type of language and saying "I" and "me" varies a lot. He tended to be much more comfortable with it in the 80s, but became incresingly more careful and reluctant afterwards (btw, I don't know if anyone has noticed that he has long since stopped using romantic/marriage metaphors to illustrate his relationship with John). For example, he once started a sentence with "I thought..." before stopping himself to say, "we thought John looked pretty cool." More recently, when asked who his favorite Beatle was, he didn't say "my". Instead, he said, "I think WE all looked up to John. I think he was OUR favorite." When asked if John loved him and if their relationship was mostly heated, he replied, "No, it was very warm, very close, very loving," before quickly adding, "like ALL of the Beatles." Or being quote incosntisnt whenever he's telling the Keyt Wesy Story. Sometimes he says ALL of the Beatles were present and crying together, while other times it was him and John.

Other notable examples:

"It wasn’t too easy for ALL OF US because he was sort of leaving US and going off on a new life."

"John looked a bit like a Teddy Boy, and he had sideburns... which attracted US to him."

"I’m sure Brian was in love with John. WE were all in love with John."

"John was in love with Yoko and he’s no longer in love with THE THREE OF US."

"I just can’t let John control the situation and dump US as if WE are the jilted girlfriends."

The list goes on. If you remove his plural pronouns and replace them with "me" and "I" or the tone becomes far more loaded :

"John was in love with Yoko and he’s no longer in love with ME."

"...and dump ME as if I WAS a jilted girlfriend."

"It wasn’t too easy for ME because he was sort of leaving ME and going off on a new life."

"I’m sure Brian was in love with John. I WAS in love with John."

"John looked a bit like a Teddy Boy...which attracted ME to him."

"I rather competed for John’s friendship, and Stuart, being his mate from art school, had a lot of his time and I WAS jealous of that.”

And yes, I can definitely imagine John enjoying the spectacle of two guys fighting over him. Interestingly, John never claimed in interviews that Paul was jealous of Stu over him; instead, he deflated it by just saying that Paul was just jealous that Stu was dating Astrid. However, I highly doubt that he was unaware of the intense undercurrent of competition for his affection. And if he knew, then it's intersting that he decided not to mention it. He also never publicly claimed that Paul was jealous of Yoko, though he did say it, privately, to Elliot Mintz:

"When I invited Yoko to the recording studio during the Let It Be sessions, none of them took it well. But Paul seemed the most bothered about Yoko, and part of me felt it was because he was jealous. Because up till then, he had all my attention, all my love when we were recording. And now there was another. Now there was Yoko.”

So I'm pretty sure he was perceptive enough to notice when someone was jealous over him. And given how he, whenever he visited Paul's house, would apparently talk nonstop about how much he loved Yoko right in front of Paul, and Francie noticing that Paul looked "disturbed", I suspect he did it on purpose. And it's even possible that John occasionally leaned into that same dynamic with Stu. Dot recalled that Stu would flaunt his closeness with John in front of Paul, and if that's true, I wonder if John played along with it.

[eggieeggsta]

“Iiiiiii called your name (john..)”

WRAP IT UP.