Hi! I was thinking about "the night se cried" and I saw some of your posts about it (thanks for the useful tags by the way). I was wondering, is Paul the first (and only) source about that event? And it was specifically Here Today the first time when he made reference to it? Because if it is, it seems to me quite telling that Paul would had chose his first open "John song" post John's death to introduce into the Beatle tale a brand new piece of information (cutting here for lack of space)
(following the last ask) And I think that by doing that Paul was trying to kick the table in some subtle way, by putting again in the center the love and closeness that existed between them. And this fact, makes think about this one is an example of how Paul want us to know some stuff, that he tells without noone asking. I mean, “the night we cried” wouldnt be part (and such an important part") of the Lennon/McCartney myth and fandom if Paul himself hadnt brought it in in the first place. Hugs!
Hey there @vairemelde ! Thanks so much for the ask! And I’m glad you found the #what about the night we cried? tag useful!
To the extent of my knowledge (and I looked around a bit when doing the compilation post of quotes about that episode) Paul is indeed the one and only Beatle to have publicly talked about that night. Though, it is worth noticing, that he was first asked about that episode only in 2001, almost 20 years after referencing it in ‘Here Today’.
And while Paul has certainly made the effort to, throughout the years, contradict the pervasive confrontational narrative and bring into focus the true love and intimacy between them, I can’t help but feel that ‘Here Today’ was more of a personal attempt at remembering just how close they were. About setting the record straight in his own mind first and foremost. I don’t see him as including this piece of information so much for the benefit of the general public, or to right their perception of them, as much as he was trying to “exorcise the demons in his own head”.
In ‘Here Today’ Paul seems to need to internalize two big ideas: you really loved me and I really loved you.
The need for the first one came about from his second-guessing of their relationship after John’s death, given all the media attacks John aimed at him post-breakup.
I did write a song just before I was going to build my studio – that I’ve done a lot of this album at – before we were actually getting the workmen in and stuff. And when it was still the old place, I just went up in one of the little rooms upstairs in the place, and did write the song called ‘Here Today’. Which was – kind of about my reaction at the time had been.
We’d been slagging each other off a lot, over the years coming up to it, and in fact we’d – we’d got on quite well personally, what turned out to be towards the end. But there had been a lot of slagging off and business stuff. John would’ve been sort of saying, “Oh, he just does all that,” “Oh, bloody hell,” “Oh, he’s like this…” and this sort of attitude, you know, me sort of feeling like I had to, “No, well, uh, I’m not that bad! I mean, uh, I’ve done that, and I’ve done that…” Feeling like I had to justify myself to him.
It was just not very pleasant, because you kind of thought, he’s bluffing. He’s – he’s just doing that sort of very bluffy thing he does. He’s just being very upfront, and he’s sort of… I always got the impression that he was trying to clear the decks for Yoko, and get rid of us lot. ‘Cause he had to devote all his attention to her. Which is fair enough, you know. I always sort of cherished the hope that I’d be able to kind of say to him, “Oh, come off it. You didn’t mean that, really, did you? I know you went a bit overboard, but you don’t think it’s like that, do you, really?”
And I heard, in fact, little bits from Yoko, who was kind of nice enough after he’d died to sort of clue me in on that. Realizing, perhaps, that those w– would be the kind of things that would hang me up, forever. “Did he, or didn’t he… hate what I did?” And she said some very nice things. She told me once that he’d sat her down with one of my albums, and they’d be sat down, and he’d be having a bit of a cry about it, and he’d be saying, “Ah… you know, I – I like him, really.” Because John was like that, you know. He could come at you, but really – he’d just lower his glasses a bit and sort of say, “It’s only me.” It was very two-sided like that. I like that about him. It’s a very interesting part of his personality, really.
But as I say, it really was gonna hang me up. This whole idea.
— Paul McCartney, interview with DJ Mike Reed (13 May 1989).
And the second arose from his need to clearly articulate his feelings, to finally overcome his fear of saying ‘I love you’, even if John was no longer here today to hear it (but we know that Paul keeps writing to “the great record player in the sky”).
It’s funnybecause just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not givetoo much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know myinnermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost.But in a song, that’s where you cando it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John“I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really,to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deepertruths – and sometimes awkwardtruths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that Ilike about songs.
— Paul McCartney,on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful andtruthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).
Paul even wrote an entire song addressing the fact:
Q: Like ‘Scared’ – a ‘hidden’ track on New – which is a stark confessional about baring your soul to another person. Did you find that easy to write?
Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song.
— Paul McCartney, interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).
So it’s no wonder that he included the night they cried in ‘Here Today’. This is not simply a general illustration of their closeness, by giving an example of how they allowed themselves to cry in front of another “Northern Lad”. That night was, in Paul’s eyes, an “important emotional landmark”, not only because they exposed themselves emotionally by crying, but because they actually said the big ‘I Love You’.
One night, we got pretty drunk and argued and laughed, and it ended up us both crying, because it was, you know at the height of your drunkenness, when you’re all, “Hey man, I love you, man. No, I love you, man.” That was probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other. It’s a male machismo embarrassment thing. I mean, you might say to a girl, “I love you”, but in my case, within the group, The Beatles, it would have been difficult, even though we all did love each other. You just all had to be guys to the full. We were all rough, tough cream puffs.
— Paul McCartney, interview with the Daily Mail (4 June 2016).
But I think that in the end, 1982 Paul (without the added interference of years of Beatle “history”), put it best:
[…] Even though he put me down, I’m not going for it. We were friends, and we got it on, we got a lot on. Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.
— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).
Here Paul perfectly summarizes and encapsulates the two truths he was personally wrestling with while writing ‘Here Today’: “Come on, you loved me, really, and I love you.”
So even if there are other anecdotes (“I slept with him”) and songs (’Early Days’) that seem to aim to get across to the public that only they know how close they were, I personally think that other songs like ‘Here Today’ and ‘This One’ serve a more personal therapeutic purpose. Like he’s talking to himself and to John, rather than to us.
Sure, both these songs are utterly revealing, but its public nature may be a side effect of the medium, rather than its main goal.
That we get a glimpse into this amazing relationship through their craft is a true blessing.
