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Jul 6

McCartney II as a McLennon album

I've been on a real McCartney II kick recently and I'm just astonished by how much of a McLennon album it is? And, even more so, the fact that I haven't seen many people talking about it that way (save for @bodhbdearg, whose McLennonlens series is great—go check it out).

So anyway, I wanted to correct some wrongs and share my McLennon gospel with the masses. Without further ado, here's my semi-in depth analysis of this album through a McLennon Lens, if bodhbdearg will permit me to use the phrase!

"Coming Up"

This was a song John thought was personally directed at him, and it's not hard to see why. Even ignoring the reference to Paul's Beatle persona in the music video, it seems like a direct conversation with a certain someone, a personal message of hope and reconnection—something easily on par with the likes of "(Just Like) Starting Over."

There are a lot of lyrics in this song that tip me off to it being about John, but nothing convinces me quite as well as the third and fourth verse:

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

Like?? There is no doubt in my mind that this is about John and his political activism. All he was saying for this entire decade was to "give peace a chance," and in his only explicitly autobiographical work, "Two Virgins" (posthumously published in Skywriting By Word of Mouth), he emphasizes that the difference between him and others of his political leanings was that he could talk to people whereas his contemporaries refused to take part in any sort of dialogue—in other words, John had an "understanding" that his fellow activists simply lacked.

Now all of that might be a bit on the nose, but come on. "You want a better kind of future/One that everyone can share/You're not alone"? It's such an obvious callback to "Imagine," particularly the famous lines "You may say I'm a dreamer/But I'm not the only one." Paul's reinforcing that notion here, albeit nine years later, confirming to John that there are others out there who want to bring change just like him—that Paul is one of them, too.

This makes his plea for the continuation of their friendship multi-faceted, showing that Paul respects John on both a personal, professional, and political level. It brings to mind the March for Our Lives protest Paul took part in back in 2018, largely spurred on by John's death from gun violence. Though obviously this came about under quite different circumstances, we can still see today how John's vision for a greater future lies at the heart of Paul's own political messaging, something he's slightly hinting at here. And there's also the professional angle as well: reportedly John and Paul had plans to get together and have a jam session during the new year (1981). They were on the precipice of musical as well as a personal reunion before it was all cut tragically short.

Which brings us back to the bigger picture: forget music, forget politics; this is also incredibly personal at its core. There's no hint of legislative worries or lyrical dilemmas when Paul entreats John to believe that he'll "help [him] with [his] problem" of not having "a love [that will] last forever," nor when he urges John to "stick around" for what he believes could be a friendship that "will never fade away" if they just work at it. It shows that no matter what, Paul wants them to still be in each other's corners, which is such a radical and welcome shift away from all the ex-Beatles' attitudes (save perhaps forgiving Ringo) following the dissolution of the band.

"Temporary Secretary"

OK, so this one is a bit of a stretch. Admittedly there's nothing in this song that could point to it being autobiographical, unless you want to take the narrator's semi-professional womanizing as some manifestation of Paul's "hunting of the female hordes." But in a way, that vaguely self-telling story which is otherwise complete gibberish feels like something right up John's alley.

The very first words of the song are "Mr. Marks," who's supposed to help Paul figure out the whole temporary secretary sitch. The name doesn't come from nowhere, as Paul later recalled it as being a nod to Alfred Marks of the Alfred Marks Bureau: "He had the same name as a comedian on the radio when I was growing up. So it was just the funny paradox of seeing adverts for the Alfred Marks Bureau, the idea of some comedian having a bureau was just funny." This is quite similar to John's use of satire and confusion/conflation in his nonsense books like In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, both of which Paul read and loved, where he namedropped such notables as Princess Margaret ("Priceless Margarine") and Clyde Barrow ("Clive Burrow"). The names being just off what they're supposed to be is a hallmark of his work, whether it's for famous people or not (in one story of his, a housewife is referred to as having once been a "beauty queer"), and it is possible, though maybe a bit far-fetched, to think that John might have had some influence in this area.

And then there's just the premise of the song itself. Paul chose it precisely because it was zany, certainly within the realm of possibility but for all intents and purposes more farcical than realistic. This is precisely what John did in his works, too. He distorts reality just enough to make it seem fictitious while still being able to ground it in some sense of truth. So does Paul guide this hypothetical scenario into slightly bonkers territory with his descriptions of his prospective secretary's possible past careers:

She can be a belly dancer I don't need a true romancer She can be a diplomat But I don't need a girl like that She can be a neurosurgeon If she's doin' nothing urgent

After all, what's a diplomat or a neurosurgeon doing being a secretary—and a temporary one at that? Maybe Paul is just predicting the future state of the job market. More likely, he's moving the ridiculous level up to 11, just as John would've done.

"On the Way"

Harking back to the album opener's sentiment of reconciliation, "On the Way" depicts the narrator's relationship with its intended audience—or possibly Paul's relationship with John—during its rougher periods, which Paul and John would've just been coming out of following a bad telephone argument over Apple Corps in the late 70s. Specifically, Paul discusses all the things he's said about this person—again, possibly John—in public just to hurt them, even though he didn't mean half of what he said:

Though I said some things to hurt you Well, it was only out of fear Wouldn't want to see you crying So I hope you don't mind the things I say

Considering they both started the decade sending blow after blow at one another through their music and in the press, this tracks with the trajectory of their relationship in the early 70s, something which was briefly patched during the Lost Weekend only to be completely destroyed again following the aforementioned business dispute.

However, this could also throw some of Paul's jabs at John into a new light. I'm sure he meant every word of what he said on "Too Many People," at least at the time, but in some ways maybe it was also an attempt to scare John straight, over-exaggerating the severity of the things Paul disagreed with as a way to wake John up. "Don't let them tell you what you wanna be" could have just as well been aimed at the people John was preaching to as well as to John himself, imploring him to get out from underneath Yoko's thumb; in the next line, he accuses John of "holding back/This is crazy, and baby, it's not like me," just like how it's never been like John to be dominated so thoroughly by someone else before—save, perhaps, Paul.

But we're getting off-track here. Back to 1980.

Well, you know I'll always love you But it would have been a lie If I said that I could please you Every moment that I try

If there's one word that's been used over and over again to describe John's personality, it's mercurial. He was infamously wishy washy, feeling something one moment before completely pivoting the next. One can only imagine how difficult this made navigating a personal relationship with the man, and being seen as the only person who could "get" to John, Paul's role as his pacifier for many years must have only added to this strain.

Paul would've been exposed to this side of John countless times during their long, personal history as they grew from boys to men, leaving the country for the very first time together only to see the world at one another's sides. "Well, we've been traveling for a long time," Paul sings, "and we finally finished here"—a reference both to the state of their relationship since their first meeting at the Woolton Fete, somewhat à la "Two of Us" and its "road that stretches out ahead;" and the fact that they were separated by a body of ocean, two boys who once constantly spent their nights "top to tail" now living on opposite sides of the pond. In recalling the days of their youthful intimacy, Paul isn't sugarcoating things—he mentions the good times just as much as the bad—but he's also trying to use it as emotional leverage to bring back some of their closeness, even if it's just in an emotional and not a physical sense. The plea he started in "Coming Up" returns full-force.

"Waterfalls"

John might have previously slammed Paul's solo output as being nothing more than "granny music" (which thank god he did, because that gave us the masterpiece that is "Silly Love Songs"), but Paul is not ashamed of that fact in the slightest. Indeed, he centers his romanticism as being one of the most important parts of his life on the next song, "Waterfalls," almost like he's daring John to disagree with him:

And I need love Yeah, I need love Like a second needs an hour Like a raindrop needs a shower Yeah, I need love Every minute of the day

It's a powerful statement of vulnerability, one that's in direct contrast with John's unsentimental façade, and almost like he fears he might be driving John away with it, Paul quickly brings him back into the loop again by adding: "And it wouldn't be the same/If you ever should decide to go away." Paul might have all this love inside of him, and he might give it to many people—including his wife and children—but nothing, Paul says, will ever be the same as his relationship with John. It's an eery and somewhat foreboding admission in the wake of subsequent events.

And we can tell this is more likely to be about John than any other object of his affection because, much like the track before it, there's a marked distance between the narrator and his intended audience. He's not there to keep his lover out of trouble, so he has to advise them remotely not to go "jumping waterfalls" and to "please keep to the lake" instead. Meanwhile he has Linda and the kids right beside him at all times; this kind of warning shouldn't be necessary through song. (Which is precisely what Paul claims the song is in Lyrics. I can definitely understand that angle for the verses—I can imagine the kiddos particularly digging the one about polar bears—but the chorus plods into such mature, vulnerable territory that it doesn’t seem aimed at his kids at all, opening the possibility of there being multiple—and decidedly un-infantile—inspirations.)

This song finds Paul at his most unconfident, his most unassured, reminding the listener that while things were on the mend for him and John during this period, it was nowhere near perfect between them, though it might have been had they been given more time. As it stands, this was what the state of things was at the time of Paul putting out this album, with "Coming Up" being less reality and more hopeful fantasy—and it remains the state of things between Paul and John to this day.

"Nobody Knows"

We pick up the pace—and the mood—on the next track where Paul marvels at the fact that he's been able to hide some large secret for so long. Hmmm, I wonder what that secret might be...

For the most part, this song is pretty self-explanatory, though the fact that keeping things a secret is just "the way [Paul] like[s] it" is certainly something. Coming off of The Boys of Dungeon Lane, where Paul has been incredibly evasive about the lyrical inspiration behind the track "We Two"—one countless fans and reviewers have realized is most likely about John—we can still find Paul being incredibly reticent about discussing his relationship with his closest friend, often recycling the same safe anecdotes to the media rather than really interrogating their dynamic. That's certainly his prerogative, but it's interesting to see him outline it so starkly on this track, almost teasing the viewer as if to say I have secrets but I won't tell you what they are—which, hey, more power to him.

What might be the most telling part of the song, for me, is its final verse, which speaks less to the Lennon-McCartney relationship as a whole as it does its state during the strained decade which they'd just left behind:

Baby, nobody knows And that includes you, honey (nobody knows) I'll pay your rent I'll do you right (nobody knows) Most every night But still there's nobody knows

Not only is there a lack of understanding between Paul and the public here—presumably in that he and John have been making amends, whereas the press still peddles this antagonistic narrative—but also between Paul and John as well. This certainly makes sense, as following John's death Paul had to seek constant validation from friends and associates—including Yoko—to be certain that he and John had ever even been friendly with each other. It's not unlikely to think that such doubt existed before John's passing, such as when Paul went to visit him at the Dakota and was brusquely turned away.

I'm going to skip the instrumentals (and the very short "Summer's Day Song") because I'm not nearly music-savvy enough to make any comments on them, except to regurgitate bodhdearg's fantastic assertion that the title "Front Parlour" is a reference to Paul and John's songwriting days on Forthlin Road, and head straight into the next verbal track, which is the bizarre and enchanting

"Bogey Music"

Similarly to "On the Way," we're blasted back to the past on this track where Paul does his best attempt at the famous Elvis warble. Its weird vocal distortions and echo add a decidedly techno and experimental flavor to what would've otherwise been a rather nostalgic song, which almost baits John into a sense of security through its evocation of the rock 'n' roll craze that brought them together back in 1957:

Bogey music, bogey music Well, when the younger bogeys Hear that bogey sound Every little bogey Got to bogey down

It also might allude to the early days of the Beatles immediately after being signed with Brian Epstein. In particular, it seems to mention the earliest point of contention between Paul and John during the band's professional stage: whether or not they should clean their act up.

All you little bogeys I want you to sing along Clean your bogey act up And learn the bogey song

Ultimately, Paul rallied behind Brian, John capitulated, and the rest is history.

But, just like on "Waterfalls," Paul takes this potentially alienating recollection and quickly steers into more reassuring territory:

Without bogey music Life is incomplete You know, it is... suckers

If there's one thing John and Paul have made blatant throughout the years—if there's one thing Paul is making blatant through this album—it's that to one another, they represent rock 'n' roll. They each came to appreciate the genre independently, but ever since that day 69 years ago the two ideas—a life in music, or just music in general; and Lennon-McCartney—have forever been intertwined, both in the men's minds and in public consciousness. If Paul says life is "incomplete... without bogey music," then he's essentially saying that life is incomplete without John. Which the future would prove to be the case.

"Darkroom"

At first glance, it appears that this is just about the dim conditions used for developing photographs—something Paul himself would've been very familiar with, having a photographer for a wife. However, from the opening line we're plunged into a world of mystery and secrecy, one that feels decidedly illicit and sexy if only for the song's arrangement, which doesn't have anything to do with photography whatsoever.

Got a place We can go Lights are low Let me show you to my darkroom

If there's one thing a darkroom isn't, it's a place to hang out. What with the somewhat exacting conditions needed for photos to develop, you'd be better off spending your time elsewhere. And with all those negatives you need to carefully avoid, doing the sorts of activities that often follow "low[ering]" the "lights" would probably be tedious. Which knocks a literal darkroom out of the equation. So where could the narrator—or Paul—be meeting his lover? A hotel, perhaps?

This might sound like a stretch given that a dimly-lit place that's not an actual darkroom could be just about anything, but remember, this might not be just any song we're talking about. These songs are responses as much as they're declarations of outright feeling; there's some precedent that's been set up by the songs that come before it. Luckily for us, an early demo of "(Just Like) Starting Over" might point us in the direction of this room's identity:

Why don’t we… do it in the road?! (Laughs) A little hotel where we used to screw A little place down in Montauk

Now I'm not saying Paul had access to this particular demo of "Starting Over." On the contrary, this seems highly unlikely and he probably heard the song for the first time with the rest of us. But if we take "Starting Over" as being autobiographical on John's part, and it being about Paul—which not only seems likely given these and other lyrics, but also has been hinted at by May Pang—then we can assume that John and Paul spent time together in hotel rooms "screw[ing]," as John put it, during the last decade. And if John can draw from those memories in "Starting Over," even if it didn't make the final cut, then Paul certainly can on "Darkroom" as well.

For more info on the hotel story, I highly suggest you check out the linked post by @i-am-the-oyster!

"One of These Days"

Now we come to the end of our album, and boy, have we had quite the journey. From promises of a better future and rehashing their past disputes, to mentioning the past as far away as their Quarrymen days and as recent as their frequent (at least sexual) reunions in Montauk during the 70s, McCartney II is somewhat unprecedented in encompassing the full breadth of the McLennon relationship—and all before either of them knew it was shortly going to end.

It's only fitting to bring us back full circle to these aspirations for the future which, after all this reminiscing, are now remarkably more sober and levelheaded, lacking the punch of "Coming Up" but none of its wistfulness. In particular, Paul sings

One of these days When we both are at our ease When you've got time to please yourself See what's right and see what's there And breathe fresh air, ever after It's there, it's round It's to be found By you, by me It's all we ever wanted to see

There's no immediacy in it; none of the urgency of "Coming Up." But that's because Paul doesn't need it anymore. After everything he and John have been through—after everything he's remembered over the course of this album—Paul realizes that, to borrow words off The Boys of Dungeon Lane (and one of the songs that isn't even about John, anyway), "they're going to make it through; they're going to make it alright."

And what's his reasoning for believing that? Because they're Paul and John, for crying out loud. Because they're John and Paul. Because they're Lennon-McCartney, or McCartney-Lennon. It's what they've done before, and it's what they'll continue doing until the very end.

Of course, neither of them realized that the end was quite near. McCartney II, released on 16 May 1980, came only 206 days before John's brutal assassination on 8 December in front of his New York City home. But during that time, it managed to invigorate John—and, more than that, it really touched him. When John first heard "Coming Up" on the radio, he yelled, "Fuck a pig! That's Paul!" He called the song "a good piece of work," and it even inspired him to get back into the studio and write more songs again. Just as "Bogey Music" spells out, Paul is music for John, and John will always be music for Paul—and without bogey music, life is incomplete.

#paul mccartney #john lennon #mclennon #the beatles #mccartney ii

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