Undying Love 💕

[undying-love]

Give me a fact or some facts that make me believe in McLennan completely!

Check out some of these previous posts:

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/747116547607314432?source=share (John seemingly hinting at it)

https://www.tumblr.com/i-am-the-oyster/745421073667031040?source=share (this post was made by @i-am-the-oyster. It's very compelling)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745845642958700544/is-arrow-through-me-about-john?source=share (Arrow Through Me is very likely about John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/744309254463324160/why-pauls-song-fuh-you-might-be-about-john?source=share (why Paul's song "Fuh You" is highly likely to be about John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/763072273237393408/they-always-make-it-sound-like-johns-ex-was-paul?source=share (why do they always talk like Paul was John's ex and not Cynthia?)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/743060695141203968/quotes-to-think-about?source=share (analysis of some quotes)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745385646421606400/paul-being-very-secure-about-his-sexuality-andor?source=share (someone who is an "immovable heterosexual" doesn't talk like this, imo)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/740604882160091136/in-these-four-months-pauls-attatchment-to-john?source=share (very interesting comments made by Francie)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/741853393262346240/bizarre-poem-written-by-paul?source=share (weird poem which may be about him and John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/740518716575563776/what-does-pattie-know?source=share ("What does Pattie know?")

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/746737159003832320/everything-that-paul-and-johns-girlfriendswives?source=share (comments made by almost all of their wives/girlfriends)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745712172768919552/paul-turned-to-linda-and-one-or-two-friends-and?source=share (do you think this might be normal platonic friends behavior?)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/792779835268284416/this-picture-comes-right-after-that-paragraph?source=share (this excerpt from Paul's book)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/744843356938682368/mpls-pauls-london-office-interior-style-is (Paul collecting John-related things)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/793332715686641664/you-often-say-that-biographers-know-much-more-than?source=share (even their biographers noticed it)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/748696306813386752/love-goes-both-ways?source=share (the way the look at each other—photos/gifs)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/787081409650196480?source=share. (The way they look at each other—videos)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/759985237305573376/hi-could-you-make-a-compilation-of-all-the-times?source=share (every time insiders compared their relationship to a marriage, love affair, etc)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/756850117398659072/some-lyrics-they-wrote-about-each-other?source=share (very revealing song lyrics)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/755299637557067776/paul-describing-john-a-compilation?source=share (Paul describing John's looks)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/759175217991057408/john-and-paul-being-normal-about-each-other-a?source=share (John and Paul revealing comments about each other)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760380417647984640/they-were-intensely-close-george-martin-it?source=share (an intensely close relationship, according to insiders)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760524606194974720/i-would-like-too-see-a-compilation-of-all-the?source=share (them being jealous of each others girlfriends, wives and friends)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760724033259061248/pauls-grief-over-time-a-compilation?source=share (Paul still not being over John's death)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/787442020649254912/has-any-insider-implied-that-there-were?source=share (Marianne Faithful's comment on the subject)

https://www.tumblr.com/amclennonblog/141798067000?source=share (John's Real Life demo)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/790611367689355264/can-you-make-a-compilation-of-all-the-times-paul?source=share (John/Paul/Yoko triangle)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/789973529785401344/i-have-seen-people-saying-that-paul-often-talks?source=share. (Paul's John mentionitis)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/792984721197088768/hello-theres-something-that-really-intrigues-me?source=share. (Insiders/biographers hinting at it, along with some new info)

[undying-love]

do you think maybe We Two is about linda and paul doesn't want to talk about it out of respect for nancy? he's talked about this

Yes, Paul is quite respectful regarding Nancy (I remember Howard Stern told him that he thinks Paul and Linda had one of the greatest love stories ever, and Paul replied, "Well, thank you. And now I've got Nancy.") And yes, this song could very well be about Linda. I actually ponder this a lot because, if you pay attention to the lyrics, all the lines that we would think could apply to John could also apply to Linda: "My thoughts return to you," "Last night I dreamed of you and all that we could do together, side by side," "Over, over again, I'll be in love with you," and even "Always, always, my friend, you'll be my only one." We know that Paul dreams about John a lot and thinks about him a lot, but he has also said that he dreams about Linda and about people he loves in general. And of course, the title We Two sounds to me like a callback to Two of Us, which I personally think is about both John and Linda (and that could very well be the case with We Two as well). The thing that personally tips the balance a bit in John's favor for me is the context of the album. It's supposed to be mainly about memories from Paul's early Liverpool years, hence the title The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Paul has publicly dedicated many of the songs to people who were from that period of his life: his parents (Salesman Saint), Ringo (Home to Us), George (Down South), and even a childhood crush (As You Lie There). But other than a single verse in Days We Left Behind, there isn't a single song that he has publicly identified as being about John. Now, of course, it could be that the only part of the entire album dedicated to John is that one verse. I just personally find that highly unlikely, given John's enormous importance in Paul's life. I don't even think I need to explain why. As I've said before, the only songs that Paul has consistently avoided discussing in terms of their inspiration—and instead keeps deflecting to technical details every time—are We Two, Never Know, and Lost Horizon (and Come Inside as well, although that's a different kind of song with a different theme). Because of that, I have a feeling that at least one of those three songs (if not all of them) is about John. Another interesting thing about We Two is that Paul recorded it using a four-track Studer machine, which is what the early Beatles recordings were made on. Then there's the tape rewinding at the end. The Beatles were the ones who really popularized that tape rewind effect, and they used it quite a bit. So this (and Never Know, interestingly) are the songs on the album where Paul deliberately included all these very Beatle-y touches (except for Mountain Top, a song about getting tripped out and stoned, which also uses tape loops). And if we're reaching just a little bit, there could even be some subtle parallels with Now and Then. For example, John's line "and if I make it through" compared with Paul's "we two came through." Maybe even the fact that both songs begin with Paul counting, "One, two, three." We Two is the only song on the album that starts that way. (But I'm aware this one is even more of a reach, lol.) Maybe, maybe not. But I'm also pretty sure that if Paul ever wanted to draw a parallel between one of his songs and one of John's, he'd do it subtly rather than make it obvious.

So yeah, it could absolutely be about Linda, or about both Linda and John. But for now, I think I lean more toward the John interpretation, mainly because of the general Liverpool theme of the album and the fact that Paul still hasn't publicly identified a single song as being dedicated to John, which is very intriguing. And as for the Beatles-style production, if I'm weighing a John interpretation against a Linda interpretation, those choices seem to point a little more toward John as well, because they're consciously invoking the world that John and Paul created together rather than Paul's relationship with Linda. However, I do admit that none of this is conclusive proof that the song couldn't be about Linda.

[undying-love]

It’s not really a question, more so a statement but it’s funny reading a post about mclennon in the early 70s and it will be like ‘John and Paul HATE each other!!’ But then you read a tumblr post and its like ‘John and Paul met up in NY’ or J+P had lunch. I know they were still dealing with heavy turmoil but it’s just something I observed.

Yeah, it's funny (and a bit frustrating) that the media (and even most people today) still think they were actively feuding until their 1974 jam session. Even May Pang said she was shocked when she saw them together there because of how casually they were talking and interacting. She said that it didn't match the image the media had been presenting at all. What most people didn't know is that they had actually been on much better terms since early 1972, when they met in New York and agreed to stop attacking each other publicly. And around that same time, studio engineers working on one of John's albums recalled that Paul would regularly call the studio, and John would stop whatever he was doing, even the album recording sessions, to talk with him for hours, just like two best friends. The engineers themselves were surprised because the press was still insisting that the two hated each other. And of course, as I mentioned on an earlier post, there's also the account of them chatting and laughing together backstage at the L.A. Grammys just days before the jam session. And Paul himself, in Many Years From Now, said that by then, he and John would just laugh at all the media stories. He said:

"When John and I used to meet during that period, he would tell me, 'Do they try and set you against me like they try and set me against you?' And I'd say, 'Yes, often.' People would say, 'Did you hear that Lennon threw up before he went on stage in Toronto?' They'd always tell me the juicy things, in case I wanted to go, 'Did he? What a bastard! Well, serve him right, ha ha.' We'd hear it just as gossip and derive some petty satisfaction from it."

Interestingly, they never seemed to be in much of a rush to correct the public perception that they were still feuding. I think there were probably a few reasons for that, one of them being that if people knew they were spending time together and getting along again, the speculation about a Beatles reunion would only become even more intense. But overall, their relationship seems to have been quite good from roughly 1972 to 1976. Yet we still see biographies claiming they were feuding until 1974, or even saying that the jam session was the first time they had seen each other since the Beatles broke up. It's like they don't bother doing their own research and instead decide to just repeat the same old narrative. That's the reason why I dislike most Beatles books.

[undying-love]

Interviewer: So Paul, tell us about 'We Two.'

Paul's brain: I am singing about dreaming of John, standing side-by-side with him, and promising to be in love with him until the day I die.

Paul's mouth: Well, we used a Studer four-track machine. And the thing we loved most about it was the snare drum sound. Oh, and we also stuck the tape rewinding at the end because nobody hears that, you know. There isn't much more to say about it.

[undying-love]

Hii just want to start by saying ur absolutely amazing!! I just saw this snippet of an interview and want to one your take on it.

I: Let me ask you about one of your new songs, ‘This One’. About a marriage?

P: A relationship, yeah.

I: And about not expressing emotions and feelings. 

P: You get those moments where you always think; “I’m saving it up. I’ll tell him one day.” And you know what happens. A lot of people, John for instance, getting back to that subject. He died. Um.. I was lucky. The last few we- months that he was alive we’d managed to get our relationship back on track. We were talking, having real good conversations. Real, nice and friendly. George, actually, didn’t get get his relationship right. I think they were arguing ‘till the end, which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure in the feeling of this song that George was always planning to tell John he loved him, but time ran out. That’s what the song’s about. Like, there could never be a better moment than this one. Y’ know now. Take this moment to say… “I love you”

Hi!

Sigh. To be honest, reading that interview has always made me cringe a little because, in my opinion, Paul is obviously projecting his own feelings onto George. (Btw, I think I should make a post about that. He's done this many times, and even John did it once when he was trying not to mention Paul directly, lmao). That whole theme of not telling someone you love them—or not saying it enough—appears countless times throughout Paul's songwriting. So I highly doubt that, every time this theme comes up, he's simply writing about how George felt about John and regretting that he never got the chance to tell him he loved him. But this is also a very typical Paul answer. Over the years, Paul has clearly struggled with talking openly about songs that are highly likely to be about John. He either avoids discussing them altogether (Call Me Back Again, Oh! Darling, We Two, Get Enough, Never Know), gives rather ambiguous or cryptic explanations (Arrow Through Me, I'm Carrying), is hesitant to acknowledge any intentionality while admitting there are parallels (Tug of War), downplays them at first before later acknowledging them (Dear Friend), or completely denies any connection before gradually opening up over time (Let Me Roll It). All of these songs that have emotionally loaded lyrics, it's no wonder he often seems cagey or hesitant to discuss them. Paul is a very private person who doesn't like exposing too much about himself. As he once said:"Why should anyone know my innermost feelings? [...] But in a song you can put it." But when you keep seeing the same theme appear throughout his songwriting:

"She never knew how much I loved her..." "Words couldn't get my feelings through..." "If I never did it, I was only waiting for a better moment that didn't come..." "We used to hide away our feelings..." "I was scared to say 'I love you'..." "The simplest words won't come out of my mouth..." "I can't tell you how I feel..."

And the list goes on. I think it's fair to say this is something deeply personal that has haunted him for years. And it's not just the songs. We also hear him saying very similar things in interviews over and over again, and he does it every time he performs Here Today. So seeing him frame This One as though it he was kind of talking from George's POV is kind of funny, but also understandable. I just don't think he was ready at the time to openly admit how personal the song really was.

One subtle thing that has always stood out to me is the verse, which to me doesn't in any way sound like he was speaking from George's POV:

"What opportunities did we allow to float by, feeling that the timing wasn't quite right? What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm? Couldn't I have given you a better life?"

If you listen to that part, it sounds rather wordy and rushed just to fit the rhythm of the song. Because of this, I have always gotten the feeling that these lyrics are something so personal that Paul felt he had to express them anyways, even if they didn't really fit with the flow of the song and ended up sounding a bit clunky. You can interpret those lines however you like, but I've always thought they reflect the conflicts between him and John in the late 60s: how everything seemed to go downhill so quickly, how they both acted impulsively, made rushed decisions, drifted apart, and became increasingly bitter. It sounds like Paul wondering how different things might have been if they had slowed down, communicated better, and talked things through. Another thing I almost forgot to mention from that interview excerpt is the way Paul says that he and John had sorted things out and that he was "lucky," before immediately shifting the focus to George being the one who didn't get the chance to patch things up with John. To me, again, that also feels like a clear deflection. Because if you read Paul's interviews from the early 80s, even though he says they were on better terms, he also explicitly admits that they hadn't sorted everything out. He says there was still a lot left unsaid, and that he wished they had talked more and resolved their remaining issues. So the later narrative that he has repeated over the following decades—that everything was basically back on track—doesn't completely align with what he said much closer to John's death. But I actually think that's understandable. Paul himself admitted that he didn't know how he would have coped if John had died while they were still on bad terms, that it would have been the worst thing in the world for him. I think, over the years, he's naturally gravitated toward remembering the positive side of those last months, emphasizing that they had fully reconciled, because that's simply an easier memory to live with. Now, I do think they were on the right path by the very end, given how John was speaking very warmly about Paul during the last days of his life, and if Carl Perkins' account is accurate, they even met a few weeks before John's murder. But I don't think they had worked through everything. There were still conversations they needed to have, old wounds they never got the chance to fully heal. And I think that's exactly what has haunted Paul ever since. Not that they were on bad terms, but that there was still so much left unsaid. And that's why this is one of the recurring themes in his songwriting ever since. It's a regret that never really went away.

Now, I don't believe they never told each other "I love you." Paul has said that they did in Key West, and has hinted that similar moments happened a few more times afterwards. And it seems John would tell him "I love you" after his "It's only me" moment. But when you lose someone you love that much, especially someone with whom you had so many unresolved issues, it's natural to feel that you didn't express your love for them nearly enough, or in a way that truly matched the immense love you felt inside. So I don't think that the problem was that Paul never told John he loved him; I think it's that he feels he didn't tell him enough, especially during the 70s. That he simply wishes he had reminded John, at least once more, of just how much he meant to him. So I see the lyrics of This One, especially "Did I ever hold you in my arms, look you in the eye, tell you that I do?" and "Did I ever touch you on the cheek, say that you were mine, thank you for the smile?" as quite literal, and are things Paul wished he had said to John.

[undying-love]

Hi! First of all thank you for all the work you put into this blog. I’m relatively a new fan and your posts have been very helpful. 

More and more biopic filming leaks are coming out lately and I’d like to ask: which anecdotes/stories of John&Paul would you like to be adapted to the screen and why? Though I’m sure there won’t be anything groundbreaking, personally I'm thinking "It's only me" scene is in the cards because Paul mentioned it so many times over the years and apparently they were filming an argument scene.

Good question! I honestly haven't given the biopics too much thought because I don't expect them to portray John and Paul's relationship nearly as intense and complicated (besides their creative rivalry) as it really was. But I do hope they include at least some emotionally loaded scenes (like the "It's only me" moment you mentioned) that, even if they're not clearly romantic, are at least ambiguous enough to leave the audience curious about their relationship.

I hope they show the Paris trip, the whole John-Paul-Stu triangle, and even if they don't openly suggest any "romantic jealousy," I hope they at least hint that some of the bad blood between Paul and Stu was over John's friendship, and not just the fact that Stu was a poor bass player. I'd also love to see scenes of John and Paul sitting across from each other during their famous "eyeball to eyeball" songwriting sessions, as John himself described them. They probably won't, but if there's one single anecdote I wish they would bring to life, it would be the Key West "night we cried" scene, especially given how often Paul has mentioned it over the last decade. Just imagine them hugging each other in a hotel room at night, drunkenly telling each other, "I love you," over and over again...😭 I'd also like them to show John and Paul being especially close in 1967, with John spending a lot of time at Paul's house, as well as the night they took LSD together. I really hope they portray the clear correlation between Paul's wedding to Linda and John's marriage to Yoko; that they directly show how they spurred each other into marriage, especially John, because it's very well documented how desperately he wanted to get married as soon as he heard the news. I'm also very interested in how they portray the John-Paul-Yoko dynamic. Of course, they'll show the tension that came from Yoko replacing Paul as John's new creative partner, as most biographies describe it, but I hope they hint that the tension went deeper than that, however subtly. I don't really care how they do it, just that it doesn't come across as Paul simply being annoyed that Yoko was always in the studio, or that it was purely about professional and creative differences. I'm also looking forward to seeing how they portray Paul and Jane, and especially how Jane perceived John, because she explicitly said in Hunter Davies' biography that she was jealous of Paul's relationship with John. I really hope they hint at that (and now that I think of it, I'm really curious about how they will portray John and Brian's relationship and their trip to Spain...). I'm almost sure they won't include this, but it would be nice if they showed a scene where John lets Paul know that Jealous Guy was about him, as well as the showing the "old estranged fiancée" comment John made onstage. As for the rest of the '70s, I just hope they imply that some of the songs (other than the obvious Dear Friend, Too Many People and HDYS) they wrote during that decade were about each other: I Know (I Know), Call Me Back Again, Let Me Roll It, and maybe even Now and Then, since Paul has publicly said he likes thinking the song was about him. I think showing all of that—the songs, the jealousy dynamics, the "It's only me, I love you" moment, the "night we cried"—could be done in a way that doesn't scream romance right away, but still leaves the audience interested and curious about their relationship. I would be happy as long as it's portrayed as something that went beyond the old narrative of them just being bandmates/songwriting partners who had creative rivalry, and business disagreements, which is still how much of the general public sees them. I hope the films establish just how important they were to each other for over a decade, making it clear just how much they loved each other, and give us glimpses of how intense their relationship was. And who knows, maybe they could even include a few scenes where they look at each other lovingly—or at least ambiguously—for just a second too long. Nothing overtly romantic, just enough for it to stand out.

Also, something just came to mind while writing this. It would be hilarious if they included people around them teasing them about their "friendship". Something like the "John's Princess" nickname, or just the studio/apple staff joking about how close they were. But I know they likely won't, and they almost certainly won't include John's infamous tape, where he was just saying Paul's name over and over . But just imagine them portraying everything Yoko said in Philip Norman's book. That would be wild. I can already imagine a lot of Beatles fans who have never heard that bit of lore staring at the screen in complete disbelief (or even getting offended, as I know many of them would), only to look it up afterwards and realize it wasn't something the screenwriter invented 🫠.

[undying-love]

for scientific reasons: is there a photo or video or just a quote of mclennon that signed the deal for you and really convinced you there was something more there?

For me what made me scrunch my nose in thought was that photoshoot by David Bayley; I've already seen the iconic photo of John embracing Paul from behind with his chin resting on Paul's head and thought it looked quite intense, but discovering those photos were kept away for so many years is what planted the first seed of doubt in my mind, along with John specifically requesting Paul doing the photos hoot with him and then just doing all that and how David reacted to it.

There wasn't a singular picture, video, or even a single quote. It was the accumulation of many different things over time. There were certainly photos, footage, and random quotes that made me raise an eyebrow at first, but none of those alone convinced me. They just increased my curiosity. What really convinced me was gradually learning about their relationship around 1968–1969: how jealous they seemed to be of each other's respective romantic partners, how Paul said they "spurred each other into marriage," how John rushed to get married immediately after Paul did (even though he and Yoko had previously said they didn't believe in marriage), etc. Then their girlfriends during this period also seemed to interpret their relationship in a similar way. Yoko strongly implied that she believed John was in love with Paul, while Francie and Maggie suggested something similar from Paul's side. At that point I started thinking it couldn't just be a coincidence that multiple partners independently felt that one was in love with the other. Then you have them constantly talking about how John couldn't have both Paul and Yoko in his life in the same way at the same time, John describing how he had been "on a boat called Paul" before moving onto a "boat called Yoko,"him saying that Paul was jealous because he was the one who had all of Johns "attention and love" before Yoko, insiders making very similar observations, John crossing out the word "wedding" and writing "funeral" under a picture of Paul and Linda getting married, John yelling, "I wish I was back with Paul..." I could go on forever. So no, it wasn't one quote or one picture that convinced me. It was the accumulation of anecdotes, songs, interviews, and things John and Paul themselves said that, taken together, just screamed to me that this wasn't an ordinary platonic relationship. And not a one-sided one, either (at least in my opinion), because there are so many equivalent examples from both sides: jealousy, possessiveness, admiration for each other's looks, emotionally loaded song lyrics, and so on. But again, if I had to choose what really sealed the deal for me, it would be their relationship dynamic in the late 60s: the extent to which they (at first) seemed to use Linda and Yoko to make the other jealous (even though they genuinely loved them), the rush to formalize those relationships once the other did, Paul saying, "Now what can be done for you? She's waiting for me," in Too Many People, or John interpreting Dear Boy (a song that expresses almost exactly the same sentiment) as being about him. Whether Dear Boy was actually about John or not is beside the point. The interesting part is that John thought it was. Everything points toward John and Paul having been each other's main person for years (and no, not just as "creative" partners), until Yoko and Linda came into their lives and replaced one another in that role. Both of them completely behaved like bitter exes during this period, like "two men scorned" in a marriage, as Paul once put it.

I'll stop now because otherwise I'll end up writing an essay, lol. There's just way too much.

P.S: As for what you mentioned about the David Bailey photoshoot, I've actually never seen the original source for the claim that Bailey only wanted John there and that John insisted on bringing Paul (though Bailey did once say that he only really liked John, not the Beatles in general). As for the idea that most of those photos were hidden away for years, I remember reading discussions about that on LiveJournal. Several users claimed the famous shots of John and Paul together weren't publicly available until the 90s, and that Brian had supposedly been horrified by how suggestive they looked. However, I'm no longer sure how true that is. I found a David Bailey photo book published in the mid-60s that already included the John-and-Paul photos, and of course we also know about the large print of one of those pictures hanging in John's studio in 1967. So most of what gets repeated about the Bailey photoshoot seems to be hearsay, sadly.

[undying-love]

Hi! First of all, thank you so much for your meticulous work of compiling the quotes and getting all the sources linked + for your measured and level-headed responses. We are as a fandom truely in luck to have a responsable and careful person in charge of tinhatting.

You possibly had it posted already, and I just might have missed it - but do you have a compilation of rumours or/and unverified gossip? Definitely not trying to make them seem true and make decisive conclusions based on them, but I'm curious if there's any overlap in reports.

I don't think I've ever made a post exclusively about rumors/unverified gossip, but I do know quite a few that I've read or heard myself:

Paul and John were reportedly seen holding hands backstage during the filming of The Music of Lennon & McCartney TV special. Another person said their granddad worked on the special and claimed that John and Paul were extremely intensely close: if one sat down, the other did too; if one got up, the other did as well. They also said John and Paul would stare at each other for long periods of time, and that people working in production made jokes about it.

Someone who was friends with a celebrity who was once at an event where Paul was said that, at one point, Paul started talking about John and how much he missed him. That he went on and on saying that it bothered him that he missed John more as time went on, that it just didn't heal, and that he missed everything about John, even the arguments.

There are rumors that John and Paul were sometimes seen walking Martha around London while holding hands.

That one of the reasons Paul and Jane broke up was because Jane was uncomfortable with Paul and John's relationship (and, btw, they seem to have ended their engagement before Paul was with Francie, so it wasn't because she supposedly found them in bed together.) Ray Connolly (who knew Jane and spoke to her after the breakup, also hinted at this.

Someone claimed that his grandfather was a taxi driver in Liverpool, and that a few days after John's murder, Paul went to Liverpool and took his taxi. He supposedly wanted to visit many random places around Liverpool that seemed particularly memorable or important to him and John.

A woman claimed to be acquainted with a music producer who knew Paul. They started talking about John and Paul, and he said that Paul does believe Just Like Starting Over is about him. She then said to him that she believed John and Paul had been "a couple," and he replied, "Well, no shit!"

In the 80s, Paul apparently used to go to Liverpool a lot, according to locals, to take nostalgic walks around Merseyside (which, of course, is very reminiscent of the lyrics of Get Enough).

A fellow Tumblr user said that an acquaintance's father used to be a part-time driver for the Beatles, and that he heard rumors among the staff about John and Paul's relationship.

A person who claimed to have worked in the industry between roughly 1967 and 1970 said that Yoko gave a very watered-down version of the names the studio staff had for Paul, and that they also had a very derogatory nickname for John.

They also apparently used to make jokes about how much time John spent at Paul's house around 1967 (this is something I was told).

Diana Ross supposedly saw John and Paul together at a gay bar in Los Angeles around 1974. Tom Doyle's 70s book, Man on the Run, claims that John and Paul were seen together backstage at the 1974 Grammy Awards, also in LA, talking and laughing together.

An Apple Scruff said that she and her friends did notice there was something unusual about John and Paul's dynamic, but they didn't quite understand it at the time because they were quite naive about homosexuality.

That Ringo and George were supposedly uncomfortable with the subject if someone asked them anything, however indirectly, about John and Paul's relationship, and generally preferred to remain silent.

That John and Paul "being more than friends" is kind of an open secret in the music industry, and that this is why you see people like Howard Stern often pressing Paul about it. (Btw, something interesting I found is that Tony Manero—the guy who claimed John made advances toward him at a bar in the 70s and that he supposedly told him, "You're prettier than Paulie. You have a nicer mouth than him. Paulie's got a small mouth."—actually went to Howard's show in the 90s).

Eric Griffiths (who was there at the fete) supposedly said that when Paul started playing for John, he was visibly nervous and his voice cracked at one point, and that John (who was drunk) reached over and stroked his hair. He also allegedly called him "Little Elvis."

A person who claimed to know a woman who was one of Paul's assistants in the early 2000s said that Paul is bisexual and makes no secret of it within his inner circle. They also claimed that Paul often talks about John in the present tense (saying things like, "John thinks the music should be like this"). This, of course, reminds me of what Peter Cox said after meeting Paul in the late 80s: that Paul would say things like, "John thinks this," or "John says that."

Someone said they had a friend who met Paul at a party in LA. They chatted for a long time, hugged at one point, and Paul supposedly whispered to her, "Nobody has hugged me like that since John."

Supposedly, around 1966–1967, Paul hosted a lot of parties at Cavendish, and some guests were shocked by John and Paul's behavior there, saying they acted almost like a couple.

Paul was allegedly often overly concerned about where John was and what he was doing. When he couldn't reach him, he would sometimes theorize about what John was up to and become angry. If someone questioned his behavior, he would snap at them

Many girls who dated Paul allegedly questioned his sexuality, which bothered him greatly. That he hated being called "queer" and tried to compensate by dating lots of women (which, tbh, kind of fits with his later "I'm secure in my sexuality" and "I'm obviously ungay due to my hunting of female hordes" mantra that he kept bringing up, unprompted, for decades. He would also tell John Dunbar that there were a lot of rumours about him being gay).

A woman who worked on the Help! music video claimed that John and Paul's behavior behind the scenes was "cute," and that after spending some time with them, it became clear to her that they were deeply in love. She also said that George and Ringo would sort of wander away whenever John and Paul began "chatting up each other" (journalist Phyllis Batelle described a somewhat similar dynamic, with John and Paul always together and "turning out" the other two whenever "they were on").

That John wrote in his diary that his dreams were usually about Liverpool and Paul.

[undying-love]

i would love some info about paul, john and pauls dad jim! maybe jim's relationship with paul, what he thought about john? im so peaked by their strange dynamic in the short time they knew eachother

Paul's relationship with his father is something really complex, and it's a whole other topic that I don't want to get into right now, so I'll just talk about what Jim thought of John. Jim never liked John. From the very beginning, he thought John was a bad influence on Paul. He even tried to get John out of his own group, according to John himself:

"And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things: he wouldn't go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind my back, I found out later. He'd say to George: 'Why don't you get rid of John, he's just a lot of trouble. Cut your hair nice and wear baggy trousers.' [...] His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, 'I need a steady career.'"

Jim was also reportedly "delighted" when Paul got Dot pregnant, which I believe had to do with the fact that this would force Paul to settle down, leave the band, and possibly get away from John. That bad blood seems to have lasted a long time because, in 1971, Ray Connolly was trying to deliver a friendly letter from John to Paul. One day he phoned Paul's London house, and Jim was the one who answered. He immediately and rather angrily shut him down, telling him not to get involved and that "things have already moved on." But I do think there was more to it than simply John's reputation, Jim worrying that he would be a bad influence and get Paul into trouble (which was very true, lol). I'm sure many of you remember that last year I mentioned receiving some second-hand information about someone who spoke to Jim around 1968. Jim apparently still didn't like John. According to this person, Jim said that he and Mimi used to be in somewhat constant contact in the late 50s because neither of them wanted their boys hanging around together, and both became increasingly uneasy about how intensely close they had become, and how quickly it happened. Jim was especially concerned because Paul stopped paying attention in school and was constantly sneaking around to meet John. The person who spoke to Jim got the impression that Jim believed something "taboo" might have been going on between them, and that this was one of the reasons he didn't want them spending so much time together. Colin Hanton also said that Jim made a rule that Paul and John couldn't be alone together in the house, that Jim himself had to be present for John to come inside. But, as we all know, whenever Jim was at work, John would come over anyway. According to Mike McCartney himself, John and Paul would often give him money to go to the movies so he "wouldn't interfere."

Something else I've noticed is that Paul often seems reluctant to admit either that Jim didn't like John or that he and John used to hang around the house while Jim was away at work. Paul does often say that they skipped school to play guitar and write songs together, but he usually doesn't specify that they HAD to sneak around behind Jim's back. Howard Stern actually brought this up in 2013, and Paul sounded a little hesitant:

Howard: Your father, by the way, didn't want you hanging around with John. Paul: Uhh... he... he didn't mind... he didn't mind John, you know. Howard: Didn't he say that John was a bad influence and you had to sneak out and meet with John when you guys were young kids? Paul: Well... almost, you know. But... by the time I met John, uh... I had some say on the matter.

And to end on a rather funny note, look at the Beatles picture in the background. It actually looks like Jim deliberately hid the right side of the photo—the part where John is supposed to appear—behind the other frame 😂

[undying-love]

Just saw two comments: "there is a new trend of complete randos (people who usually don't post about the beatles or even about 60s/70s music) making posts about mclennon and i don't think i like it" and "mclennon finally going mainstream with popular situationships i literally gasped so loudly and almost dropped my phone"

Why do you think there was this surge of mclennon content and interest? I'm kind of expecting a boom in fanarts and fanfictions and posts after the biopics, it wouldn't surprise me, but it does indeed surprise me that so many new people are jumping onto this train now.

Ps: since we're on the topic, do you have info about how mclennon was perceived in the '60? I know women created a whole shipping fandom for Kirk and Spock in those years, I get that it was illegal until 1967 but I also find it hard to believe there wasn't shipping content/speculation going around.

I think it is a combination of several things that have happened over the last decade. The Understanding Lennon & McCartney YouTube series was released in the mid-2010s and then reuploaded many times afterward, and it ended up getting a lot of views. Even skeptical people were surprised by how much they learned about John and Paul's relationship just from watching it. The creator didn't really have to argue for anything; they simply laid out real quotes and videos and let people draw their own conclusions. Then, around the late 2010s, you also had the OSD and AKOM podcasts, and of course, the Get Back documentary. I remember reading a lot of discussions about Get Back on the Beatles subreddit, and there were countless comments along the lines of, "I now know they were just friends, but not gonna lie, there were some scenes that made me think, 'Wait... were John and Paul ever...?'" I've also seen many people across social media share similar experiences, saying that friends or relatives who knew nothing about mclennon noticed the intensity between them while watching the documentary. That isn't really surprising because there are quite a few "WTF" moments in Get Back, especially during the conversations about India (not to mention the intense eye contant between them). Then you have Now and Then, with people involved in the project—like Giles Martin and Peter Jackson—describing it as a love letter from John to Paul, and even Paul himself saying that he prefers that interpretation. And, of course, Ian Leslie (who was heavily influenced by the OSD podcast)'s book became a bestseller and generated a lot of discussion in both the media and among celebrities. So it doesn't surprise me at all that mclennon has been attracting more curiosity from both Beatles fans and the general public after everything that has happened over the last decade.

Now, regarding your question about how McLennon was perceived in the 60s, the main things we have are insiders making suggestive comments, as well as people questioning John and Paul's sexuality. Yes, I do know about that magazine where fans listed the things they liked about each Beatle, and under Paul's section someone wrote, "his looks at John." But personally, I don't think that necessarily means they were "shipping" them or interpreting it romantically. I think they simply found it endearing and thought the way they looked at each other was cute. It's also important to remember that vast majority of young fans at the time were incredibly naive about homosexuality. Some people genuinely didn't even know what it was. Freda Kelly (who was the secretary of the Beatles Fan Club) is a good example. She said that when people were saying Brian Epstein was gay, she didn't even know what that meant until John explained it to her. On the other hand, many Apple Scruffs, such as Lizzie Bravo, noticed how intensely close John and Paul were, how in sync they seemed, and how often John went to Paul's house compared to the others. Yet Lizzie herself only saw them as friends and even expressed disgust when she heard people suggesting there was something romantic between them. Now, there is also an interesting anecdote shared by the user @mclennonwasreal. He said he had been in contact with a woman who had been an Apple Scruff, and she told him that she and her friends definitely noticed there was something unusual about John and Paul's relationship, but they didn't really understand what they were seeing at the time. It was such a taboo subject that they simply didn't discuss it until many years later, when they began looking back and wondering whether what John and Paul had really fit the definition of a purely platonic relationship.

As for Kirk and Spock, I do know people were shipping them in the 70s, but I think that's a little different because they were fictional characters. Shipping real people is a much more recent phenomenon and really became widespread after the 90s. And, as I mentioned, most young Beatles fans in the 60s were still very naïve about homosexuality. By the 70s, society had changed somewhat, but by then John and Paul were married to women, had kids, were living on different continents, and no longer performing together. If the Beatles had still existed as a band throughout the 70s and 80s, then yes, I think there probably would have been a greater chance of seeing fans speculating about them and scrutinizing their relationship more. But as far as the 60s go, what we mainly have are rumors, suggestive comments from people within their circle, and people working at Apple or in the studio coming up with nicknames that mocked their relationship (and apparently there were other nicknames besides "John's Princess," by the way). @packyourromanticmind mentioned knowing someone whose father worked part-time as a driver for the Beatles, and he said there were rumors among the staff and people in that circle about John and Paul being together. Then you have people like Yoko, Francie, and Maggie, all of whom noticed the intensity between them. Different insiders interpreted that intensity differently. Some—such as Peter Brown, Ruth McCartney, Marianne Faithfull, and Ray Connolly—made comments that at least suggest they believed John and Paul's relationship was much more emotionally loaded than an average "platonic" friendship, even if they didn't necessarily think they were lovers. Others, like Alistair Taylor, also spoke about how extraordinarily close they were, while still describing the Beatles as "rampantly heterosexual." So I think it's not surprising that there wasn't much fan speculation or fan-created content about John and Paul during the 60s. Most fans only saw them in televised interviews, concerts, films, and magazine photos. In those settings, they could certainly be playful and affectionate with each other, but probably not in a way that most people at the time would have interpreted as anything more than close friendship and playful banter. The people who really got to witness the relationship up close (family members, insiders, Apple staff, journalists who spent extended periods with them, and friends) were in a much better position to notice just how unusually intense that relationship actually was.

[undying-love]

have you discussed what may or may not have happened in india since that seemed to have been the turning point in the relationship

I have said many times before that I don't believe anything significant happened in India. And by that I mean I don't think they had some huge fight, moment of tension, or major turning-point argument there. By all accounts, they were getting along incredibly well: writing songs together, skinny-dipping together, and when Paul was about to leave, he and John gave each other a warm hug. John even strummed his guitar in farewell by the gate as Paul was leaving. And, by the way, there was a newspaper article from when the Beatles were first going to India in which Paul and Jane said they were already planning to leave earlier than the others because Jane had important rehearsals for a theater play that she couldn't miss. So the common theory that John and Paul had some kind of argument and that's why Paul left early is, in my opinion, nonsense. Yeah, John (and George) might have wanted Paul to stay longer, but by all accounts Paul (and also Ringo btw) had planned to leave early from the very beginning. I do think John was struggling a lot, mentally, during this period. He clearly had a lot on his mind, and you can tell by the songs he was writing in India. But Paul wasn't the only thing occupying his thoughts. He was also dealing with Brian's death (which he said affected him a lot), Yoko, his marriage to Cynthia, low self-esteem, a lack of confidence, and plenty of other personal issues. I just think most of what was happening was internal rather than the result of some argument with Paul in India. And by all accounts, they were still getting along for at least most of the New York trip, which took place about a month after John returned from India. Larry Kane, who was there, said he noticed nothing but genuine warmth between them. So I actually think a better question than the boring old "What happened in India?" is: What happened during or after the New York trip? What happened between John and Paul during those two weeks between their return from New York and the beginning of the White Album sessions, when the tension suddenly became evident to everyone working in the studio? If there was some tense moment, argument, or anything external that changed the relationship, I think it is much more likely to have happened during that period than in India. People also often claim that John was so jealous after seeing Paul with Linda in New York that as soon as he returned home he immediately sought Yoko out and finally slept with her. But that's not actually what the timeline suggests. According to Cynthia (and there is evidence that supports this), John had already slept with Yoko before the New York trip (some time after he returned from India). That's when she found them together in the house, after she returned from a trip. And there's also a real possibility that there wasn't one dramatic confrontation, argument, or single turning point at all. It may simply be that John suddenly made his relationship with Yoko official, and from that point onward his relationship with Paul drastically deteriorated. That's essentially what a lot of insiders seem to believe (as well as Paul himself): that Paul suddenly felt left out afterward. I don't think that's far-fetched. They had plenty of communication problems, and it's entirely possible they never had some big conversation where they explicitly discussed their relationship and mutually decided to drift apart or calmly "end" things. There's just so much acrimony, jealousy, weaponizing of their romantic partners, and bitterness afterward that I personally find it difficult to believe they simply decided to end such an intense relationship in a calm, mutually understood way, as many people seem to believe.

Anyway, I think we're still missing a lot of crucial information about the period between their return from India and the start of the White Album sessions. Because of that, there's really very little we can safely conclude with confidence. Enough of me yapping 😅 (if you'd like to know my personal take on what I THINK could have happened, you can read this, this, and/or this).

[undying-love]

"Well, [The Beatles] get along remarkably well under the circumstances", observed the wife of an important member of their movie crew, "But Paul and John have a way of turning out the others when they're on. George and Ringo sometimes sort of wander away." (Phyllis Batelle, during the filming of the Help! movie)

"I found this out from my mother who was a 'go for' for a music director in the 60's. She worked behind the scenes for the 'Help!' music video. She has seen John and Paul backstage and always refers to their behaviour around each other as cute, and claims after spending a few minutes with them it was obvious they were deeply in love. She said that George and Ringo would always excuse themselves whenever John and Paul began chatting up each other.” (Datalounge comment)

[undying-love]

Hi Undying!

Hope you’re doing well. I was wondering what your favorite moments or quotes about John and Paul being together were. Just anything you found cute, sweet or funny in regard to John and Paul’s relationship.

Love your blog ❤️☮️

Thanks!

"Paul told countless stories about the echo chamber. He said he’d hide out there with John, kind of giggling and laughing when there would be another session in another studio. If you solo’d any of those tracks you’d probably hear them laughing." (Greg Kurstin)

"Lennon uses others to bring him out of his moodiness. The one who does it best is Paul." (someone who worked on the set of Help!)

"Lennon and McCartney were spotted together, chatting and laughing backstage, at the sixteenth annual Grammy Awards at the Hollywood Palladium [1974]." (Tom Doyle)

"Every week there was a rumor that the Beatles were going to get back together. It had nothing to do with it. But I didn't notice any animosity between John and Paul. The sessions at the Record Plant [in 1972] were interrupted whenever Paul called. They spent hours talking. The next day, an article appeared in the newspaper saying that they hated each other." (Gary Van Scyoc)

"John and Paul were inseparable that night, like Siamese twins. It was like the rest of us didn’t exist. They spent most of the evening talking, conducting a whispery summit in one corner. In the middle of the party they went out, ostensibly looking for a cigarette machine, and appeared some time after carrying a cocky-watchman’s lamp. The next morning, when it was time to leave, we couldn’t get out of the house because they had put cement stolen from the roadworks into the mortise lock so the front door wouldn’t open. And we had to escape through a window.” (Charles Robert)

"They were so tapped into what the other was doing and could sense their partner's next move, they just read each other like a book." (Johnny Gentle)

“Paul and John would come to my father’s place, go upstairs and lock themselves in for hours and hours, listening to records and thumping about up there.” (Julia Baird)

"Paul and John were the best pals. They spent all their time together and stuff, and they had individual lives. But in the end they were the final sort of arbiters of everything between themselves." (John Dunbar)

"Paul and John were so tight it was like one person at times." (Roger McGuinn)

“I was fortunate enough to see them together many times in the late 60’s, and have always been fascinated by what I saw/heard: they finished each other’s sentences, laughed together, just seemed totally in sync. I was a 15-year-old girl, but I did notice that about the two of them and will never forget it.” (Lizzie Bravo)

"The wife of an important member of their movie crew told me, "Paul and John have a way of turning out the others when they're on. George and Ringo sometimes sort of wander away." I observed this too. John and Paul, the songwriters, are often a duet, with George and Ringo acting as loners." (Phyllis Batelle)

"In 1964 the Beatles stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel on the banks of Loch Earn [...] They went to bed early - on Tuesday morning - and slept long after sunrise. John and Paul, who shared a chalet, were out and about first.They took a short walk on the shores of Loch Earn, whetting their appetite for lunch. They found the invigorating fresh air a bit chilly, but waited to try to entice a dog into the loch by throwing sticks for it to retrieve. They later tried their hand at boating and went out on Loch Earn. After some confusion at the start, until everyone had learned how to drive their boats, they went off and beat up the loch for half-an-hour or so. Later on Tuesday a party was held for the four Liverpool tourists by the manager of the hotel and his friends. Paul retired first and John followed." (X)

"They were intensely close, remember, and Paul would do almost anything for John. So, once they were safely inside, Paul took a tablet of LSD for the first time. 'So I could get with John to be with him in his misery and fear.' (George Martin)

"He asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark." (Paul)

[undying-love]

my friend is frying my brain. She's a big George stan and came across that quote where Paul says "me and John talked about including George as a songwriter but decided against it because three people to write a song was too complicated" and she went "just say you don't want to share your" songwriting" (she actually made quotation marks) partner you loser"

Jokes aside, I wasn't really able to explain to her why it's always been Lennon-McCartney on one side and Harrison on the other, the only thing that occurred to me is that they had two contracts (one with the Beatles and one with only them two) so maybe it was because of royalties. Because it wasn't a must that the songs had to be written together all the time (see Yesterday, it's still credited as Lennon-McCartney to this day), so Paul's statement never made sense to me.

Is it far fetched to just say they didn't want other people in on what they considered their thing? I do believe they genuily thought George didn't have much practice and they considered themselves simply better at the time, but I also strongly think they were a bit jealous when it came to their songwriting together.

I don't doubt that they considered themselves superior, but I do agree that they considered songwriting their thing and were protective of it, and jealous of anyone getting involved. Remember how rude John was to his good friend Pete Shotton when he started making suggestions for Eleanor Rigby. Or how hurt John was when Paul composed the soundtrack for The Family Way without him, even though Paul had asked him beforehand if he was okay with it and John had said yes. And I think this would be a good time to mention something I read on LiveJournal about 3 years ago (so take it with a grain of salt because my memory is a bit fuzzy). An user claimed that his great-uncle, who was a songwriter, met John and Paul backstage in the early 60s (I don't remember if it was pre-fame or not). Apparently he approached John while Paul was busy doing something else nearby, and he suggested to John that the two of them collaborate on a couple of songs. He then immediately noticed Paul glaring at him from across the room before Paul walked over. John either didn't notice or wasn't bothered, but he still declined the offer. And we can't forget what Mick Fleetwood said. This wasn't exactly about songwriting, but I think it gives you a good sense of how John and Paul could react when someone tried to insert themselves into something the two of them regarded as theirs:

"As you can well imagine, John Lennon in form, and Paul as well... it was catastrophic. If they wanted to rip you apart, you were a dead duck. One night we went to Paul's apartment, and they started reading Shakespeare parts between themselves. George started to get half involved, and they just cut him to shreds. They kept him out of it. I always remembered that. At that time they were the power within the band... I knew George just felt terrible. I thought, I would never want to get caught between these two. EVER. Count me out. They were on top, sharp as tacks."

If they could be that territorial over something as minor as reading Shakespeare together, then it's not hard for me to imagine how protective they were of their songwriting partnership, or why either of them might have felt uncomfortable seeing the other collaborate closely with someone else. It wasn't just a practical arrangement or a contract—it was their thing. And they were always possessive of each other in many ways.

[undying-love]

hi, first of all I love your page so much!! <3

I was wondering how do you keep all your information about mclennon and what are your favorite resources when it comes to researching them?

Thank you!

Before I started posting on my blog (around early 2024; before that I mostly just reposted things from other people), I basically started binge-reading and binge-watching every biography, interview, video, news article, or anything else I could find about them, and I would compile every relevant quote into a massive Word document, just for the sake of it. I also took quotes from the Understanding Lennon & McCartney YouTube series, as well as from Tumblr itself. I started reading every entry on the old JohnHeartPaul forum too, and found a lot of information there, along with references to old interviews and news articles that I hadn't really seen acknowledged elsewhere. Then one day I decided it would be a good idea to organize all of those quotes and use my Tumblr account to post them neatly, especially because I noticed there were tons of anecdotes and quotes in the Word document that had rarely, if ever, been acknowledged on Tumblr. That's why most of my earliest posts are simply quote compilations with little or none of my own opinions (that later changed after I started getting a lot of asks). At first, I only intended the blog to be a source of quotes, to compile pretty much everything there was to know about mclennon in one place. So the Word document I mentioned, and later the blog itself, became the main way I kept everything organized. The Word document was honestly a complete mess, lol, which is why I started making compilations on the blog instead, sorting quotes that expressed similar themes: like collections of quotes about John and Paul being jealous of each other's partners, insiders comparing their relationship to a marriage, Paul's grief over John throughout the years, and so on.

I don't really have a single favorite source. I just try to find relevant quotes and anecdotes wherever I can. That said, I probably had the most fun reading through the JohnHeartPaul forum because it's genuinely a treasure trove. There are countless discussions about interviews, news articles, and quotes that were coming out at the time (roughly 2006–2012) that I hadn't really seen mentioned anywhere else. For example, Paul's kids going to an auction and buying John's piano stool for him as a gift (which I ended up making a post about a while back), or an article about a guy who was working on one of Paul's albums in the 80s. He said he phoned Paul to talk about something work-related, and Paul just started rambling about John and the Beatles for hours instead. There were so many little anecdotes like that on the forum that I was genuinely surprised very few people—and often no one at all—ever brought them up again afterward. So I thought it would be a good idea to mention them in my blog.

[undying-love]

Maybe I’m just Mclennon-pilled but I feel like there’s no platonic explanation to John thinking “Dear Boy” was about him. Thoughts?

I'm glad you brought this up, because I don't think I have ever discussed that song on my blog before. I've always thought that, regardless of whether Paul wrote Dear Boy about Linda's ex-husband, John, or a mix of both, the really revealing thing is that John apparently believed it was about him. To be honest, I've never cared that much about who Dear Boy was "really" about. What we should be analyzing is why the lyrics made John think they were aimed at him in the first place. That's what makes the song relevant. Peter Brown, who seemed to have a rather clear understanding of the dynamics of Paul and John's relationship during the breakup, also thought the song was about John:

"The cover featured a Linda McCartney photo of Paul taking a ram by the horns, with an interior photo of two beetles fucking each other, a not so oblique reference to the way Paul felt his pals were treating him. Lyrically, the references were more direct. When Paul sang, “Too Many People Preaching Practices,” John knew he was singing it to him, and that he was just a “silly boy(s) breaking their lucky breaks in two.” And it was to John to whom Paul sang, “Dear Boy, I hope you never know how much you missed [me].”

If we assume for a moment that Paul really wrote Dear Boy about John, then the song starts to look almost like an expanded version of the last verse of Too Many People:

"That was your last mistake. I find my love awake and waiting to be… now what can be done for you? She's waiting for me."

Because if you look at the lyrics of Dear Boy, it's expressing a very similar theme:

I guess you never knew, dear boy What you had found I guess you never knew, dear boy That she was just the cutest thing around I guess you never knew what you had found, dear boy I guess you never saw, dear boy That love was there And maybe when you look too hard, dear boy You never do become aware I guess you never did become aware, dear boy When I stepped in My heart was down and out But her love came through and brought me around Got me up and about I hope you never know, dear boy How much you missed And even when you fall in love, dear boy It won't be half as good as this I hope you never know how much you missed Dear boy, how much you missed, dear boy

If John thought those lyrics were directed at him, then what he would have heard is Paul saying: You threw away something valuable [our relationship]. You failed to recognize the love that was there. I was hurt by it, but I've found someone new (to replace you), who transformed my life, and what I have now is better than anything you'll ever find elsewhere. Those are pretty heavy implications. Why would a former bandmate—or even a former best friend—write a song essentially bragging about his new romantic relationship and directing it at another man, telling him that he failed to recognize what they had and is now missing out on it? That kind of sentiment makes far more sense if the person being addressed had previously occupied an unusually important place in his life—one that, in many respects, had been replaced by the role now filled by his wife. Again, that's almost exactly the sentiment expressed in the final verse of Too Many People.

Now, there are alternative, more "platonic" explanations for John thinking the song was about him. One possibility is that John simply thought Paul was boasting that his relationship with Linda was stronger and much better than John's relationship with Yoko. Another theory that I've seen in some biographies is that the "she" in the song refers metaphorically to the Beatles, and that John had failed to appreciate what he had in the group. I don't personally find the Beatles interpretation very convincing, but I do think the first explanation has merit. I can perfectly imagine John interpreting the line "And even when you fall in love, dear boy, it won't be half as good as this" that way, and I actually think that's how he took it. The only thing is that the rest of the song sounds much more personal than that, and much more than just petty bragging or competitiveness. You have lines saying, "I guess you never knew what you had found", "I guess you never saw that love was there...I guess you never did become aware." From John's perspective, those lines would seem to describe him overlooking or discarding their relationship, which contained genuine love, and that he never fully recognized its value. And that Paul is then saying that, although he was devastated at the time ("When I stepped in, my heart was down and out"), he has recovered because Linda is now there for him. Even if you reject any romantic interpretation of John and Paul's relationship, that's still a remarkably loaded thing to say to a friend. It's not every day that you see someone use their current romantic relationship as a weapon in a song aimed at a former "friend", no matter how close they were. And this is where the broader context matters. You can't really look at this in isolation. There are countless comments from insiders, friends, and from John and Paul themselves describing their relationship in terms usually associated with romantic partnerships: comparisons to marriage, jealousy over new partners, and their basically replacing each other with Yoko and Linda. We have Paul saying that John couldn't continue seeing him in the same way after falling in love with Yoko because he was "like another girlfriend, almost" and that John needed to put him away in order to start a new relationship, and we have John saying he had been "riding on a boat called Paul" before moving onto a "boat called Yoko," and so on.

Given all of that, it makes perfect sense that John would hear Dear Boy as being about him, just like the "she's waiting for me" section of Too Many People. I wouldn't go so far as to say there is absolutely no platonic explanation, as I already mentioned a couple of them. But for me, the most compelling explanation—given everything else we know about their relationship—is that John heard Dear Boy as referring to how he disregarded what he and Paul had shared together, and that now Paul found someone else who is even better than him. Whatever label one wants to put on that relationship, it was clearly not an ordinary "platonic" friendship, to put it mildly, lol.

[undying-love]

"Paul and John have a way of turning out the others when they're on"

"They would have to be angels," observed a member of the film crew, "to get along privately as well as they get on publicly." The Beatles are decidedly not angels. Legend and press agentry have it that The Beatles are just one big, sardonic, incorrigible family full of laughs, but closer than brothers among themselves, yeah, yeah, yeah. "Well, they get along remarkably well under the circumstances", observed the wife of an important member of their movie crew, "But Paul and John have a way of turning out the others when they're on. George and Ringo sometimes sort of wander away." I observed this too. John and Paul, the songwriters, are often a duet, with George and Ringo acting as loners. "John," their manager Brian Epstein has said, "is the most intense and has a temper that reddens his face at the slightest rub". "Lennon," confides a publicity man, "uses others to bring him out of his moodiness. The one who does it best is Paul." [...] I found Paul to be glib and amusingly cynical, as contrasted to his cohort, John Lennon, who was amusingly, and sometimes bemusingly, dour. I felt Paul would be easier to talk to, if he could be led away from John, a feat that I was unable, with politeness, to accomplish." —My Three Days With The Beatles", by Phyllis Batelle (1965)