hello i was hoping you could shed a little light on the whole "john wrote if i fell on a valentines day card to paul" fact. ive heard it mentioned here a few times but not much elsewhere.
yeah ! hysterically that's what started me posting about the beatles over on my main so i've got this on standby lol but
did john write the lyrics to "if i fell" on a valentine's card addressed to paul?
now was he serious? was he joking? did HE address the card to paul? those i can't answer, but he did write the lyrics on a card addressed to paul. this one's pretty short !
it mostly just shows up on here bc it's not really of interest outside of fandom circles like i don't think there's bound to be any articles or books mentioning it bc the average beatle fan truly would not give more than 2 fucks about it, but that might change with the new ian leslie book bc i know he has a bit on "if i fell" in there and i wouldn't be shocked if it was mentioned
the source is this auction site where it was sold and here's the image:
from the site, it says it was written on a card that was given to paul:
Autograph manuscript for "If I Fell", from "A Hard Days Night", aboard a U.S airline, c. late February, 1963. Written on the back of a valentine which had been given to Paul, and which was apparently the only suitable writing surface available at 30,000 feet, the manuscript is 1 page, written on the verso of the unfolded valentine on one half of the sheet, approximately 11 1/2 x 6 in. "If I Fell" is one of John's most powerfully poignant ballads, and one of the most important and early songs to appear at auction. Ostensibly written while the Beatles were in America for a famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, John, sitting in the plane seat next to Paul suddenly got the inspiration for one of the best songs which would be released on 1964's landmark "A Hard Days Night." By the cadence and subtleties of the lyrics you can tell that John already has the music in his head as he fits it with the perfect words. Time stands still, something very special is coming to life as he sits working on the back of Paul's valentine.
where they got any of that story, i have no idea, so the story itself i'm taking with a grain of salt buuuut you can flip & zoom in on the dedication and see that it says "to paul with love" with either a bunch of hearts (which is what i initially assumed) or x's for kisses
(which is, btw, the best and only quality you can find of this unfortunately, but last year i did my best to trace over it so it's easier to see)
to me the handwriting very clearly matches john's, especially if you look at the lyrics themselves or other samples of his handwriting, but it's not 100% confirmed to be john's handwriting on the dedication. it could've been a fan's! or john making a lil joke. or him being serious. that part's murky. but it Is addressed to paul
you've read it in fics, you've seen people quote it, but did the apple staff/others REALLY call paul john's princess?
well...
let's dig into it!
this one comes from two asks- one over on my main and one here!
there's actually several sources on this one!
the first one i'll bring up is from francie schwartz. she is, btw, a notoriously terrible source and that's why i'm getting her out of the way first. she like really openly dislikes paul & you should take a lot of what she says with a grain of salt. however, she does call him john's princess.
here's the full page (of many) from her november 1969 piece in rolling stone called "memories of an apple girl"
and the interesting bit in question:
"John and Paul can shoot looks at each other and exchange thoughts. John, full of Da Vinci-esque chutzpah and Lewis Carroll whimsy and Joycean logic, projects authority, sovereignty. Can you dig that Paul is his princess? Paul giggles. John smiles like Oedipus."
the second source is from john lennon: the life by philip norman (2008) where he says this:
"Indeed, John's anger was more that of an ex-spouse than ex-colleague, reinforcing a suspicion already in Yoko's mind that his feelings for Paul had been far more intense than the world at large had ever guessed. From chance remarks he had made, she 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."
(pg. 668-69)
and the last one (updated now bc someone did indeed have the screenshot you're a lifesaver i'm kissing your feet etc)
but! here's the quote! from apple insiders:
"With Yoko ever present, Paul McCartney's reign as Lennon's princess was doomed."
apple to the core: the unmaking of the beatles by peter mccabe & robert d. schonfeld (1972) pg. 107
so while none of these Alone would be enough for me to think it was a thing that happened often, i think the second quote from norman saying yoko heard him being called "john's princess" is backed up by francie calling him that herself AND the quote from apple to the core
this is a situation of "a bunch of mediocrely reliable sources coming together to make one big reliable source given their agreement on the same subject"
harry nilsson quotes double feature: fact or fiction?
"Someone told me a few minutes ago they saw John walking on the street [once] wearing a sign saying – a button, rather, saying 'I Love Paul'. And this girl who told me that said she asked him, 'Why are you wearing the button that says ‘I Love Paul’?' He said, 'Because I love Paul.'" -Harry Nilsson
"I'm just like everybody else, Harry, I fell for Paul's looks." Harry Nilsson (on John)
these quotes get passed around unsourced, or wrongly sourced, constantly. so...
are these harry nilsson quotes about john lennon real?
shockingly, after getting an anon correction on the first one and then discovering myself on the second one through the world's most random search engine imaginable bc SOMETHING felt unfinished...... the final verdict for both?
...ish? the second one is sort of neutral bc it's taken a bit out of context but i'll get to that
let's get into it, because this one took me on a journey!
(and btw the sources on these were SUCH a pain in the ass to find due to lack of sourcing & wrong sourcing so i am on my hands and knees for these to get passed around w the proper sources now that they're in one place bc they're so good)
first of all, these quotes keep getting mixed up and messed around with different wording. which was my first road block on finding a proper source. second of all, they have been wrongly attributed to a) one single interview together and/or b) a rolling stone interview with nilsson. this made things aggravating. but in the end, an anon sent me the audio for the first quote and for the second one i FINALLY found someone a looong while back actually naming the book it's in & successfully found it!
made a post earlier concluding both were fake, but we just had to go a little deeper folks.
anyway, onto the good shit
who was harry nilsson? he was a friend of john's, specifically during his 1974 lost weekend era. they lived together for a while (along with others, including ringo!) and were pretty close.
"because i love paul"
this one gets misquoted the Most honestly like you'll find a bunch of different variations of it, but you can find it in a 1984 interview with geoffrey giuliano as such:
GIULIANO: Did he miss the Beatles? Was he mournful about what happened, over the, you know—?
HARRY: Someone told me a few minutes ago they saw John walking on the street [once] wearing a sign saying – a button, rather, saying ‘I Love Paul’. And this girl who told me that said she asked him, “Why are you wearing the button that says ‘I Love Paul’?” He said, “Because I love Paul.” [laughs]
(source) (and again, it's a tumblr blog, but given that it's audio, i'm marking it trustworthy. i just uploaded it to archive.org in case it ever gets deleted)
"i fell for paul's looks"
this one. this one was a goddamn journey and a half. this sent me on several rabbit holes and dead ends. the author of the last source said "nope it's definitely not from the tapes i found this audio from or i would've posted it too" and couldn't find the source either. no one had a source. until finally i found someone on a forum saying it was in the ballad of john and yoko published by rolling stone in 1984, in an essay titled "harry remembers" and thank christ it was on archive.org
so here's the full quote, found on page 236
"He spoke the way James Joyce wrote. And to me he was the Beatles. He was always the spark. In a late wee-hours-of-the-morning talk, he once told me: 'I'm just like everybody else, Harry. I fell for Paul's looks. George knew more chords, so he was in. And Ringo, he's just Ringo.'"
(source)
so this one gets a... true/neutral rating from me. why neutral? well, the "i fell for paul's looks" part is certainly there. but in the full context, he's talking about why he wanted each member in the beatles. basically, paul was the pretty face. however, he did say that verbatim and it is incredibly fucking gay imo. like specifically the "i fell for" wording is craaaaazy to me. but i do think the full context should be included if we're talking about it, as well as the actual source.
so no, they were not indeed both from the same interview. one isn't even FROM an interview. but they are both true! which is great bc i love both of these quotes and truly thought they were fake! pleasantly surprised on this one
now, take these with a grain of salt. the first quote is a third-hand source. it's nilsson recounting what some random fan told him john had done YEARS prior. the second one is a second-hand source and nilsson and john were like pretty infamous for getting drunk/high together. but the quotes themselves? certainly exist from harry nilsson, and that's the question. believe them if you want to, or leave them! i'm certainly taking them lmao
starting this blog off on a positive note because when i deep dived & found out this was real i was floored because it does genuinely sound like fanfiction but...
"did paul mccartney really have cats named pyramus & thisbe after the lovers him and john played?"
and let's go to a read more for the source/deep dive!
so this is one that floats around a lot un-sourced. in fact, when doing this deep dive, i found quite a few fan forums INSISTING it was fake because they only ever see mclennon shippers saying it. but lo and behold........
in this interview from Animals' Agenda, 1999:
P: Oh, I’d love to tell you about the animals. I personally never had a pet growing up, because my mom and dad both worked. And even the day we saw free puppies going and my brother and I thought, “Definite, we’ll get one,” we couldn’t have one. So my first pet was when I was living alone as one of the Beatles and I got an Old English sheepdog called Martha, and I loved her dearly, she was beautiful, she was really good for me; we were good for each other. I remember John Lennon coming ’round and saying, “God, I’ve never seen you with an animal before.” I was being so affectionate it took him aback, he’d not seen that side of my character. Because you don’t do that with humans-not as obviously anyway.
And then I had two cats called Pyramus and Thisbe, which showed my literate bent, and then I had three-they all had to be cool names, of course-that were called Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And then as a family, Linda and I, after Martha died, we then got another Old English sheepdog and we eventually had a litter by the one after her. We kept two of the puppies, so that meant we’ve got three now. I have four dogs at home, three English sheepdogs and Stella’s dog, the mutt. She’d hate me to say that!
(source)
now... did he gift john pyramus?
i can't find a source on that one that isn't a mclennon blog/forum. however there's just not enough to prove it one way or the other & it's not out of the realm of possibility that he would've given pyramus to john, especially since there don't seem to be any photos of paul & pyramus even though he mentions the cat as one that he owned. also, i do feel like i've seen some quote from john where he just casually mentions the cat by name floating around? but i can't find it, so if anyone wants to add it, go ahead! for now, that part of this is getting rated....
