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GET BACK, PART III — Ringo doesn’t talk much, but when he says he’s not going abroad, they are not going abroad. And when he says “I wanna go on the roof”, they’re going on the roof. (x)

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1 hour portrait

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Had to crosspost this Paul article excerpt from the KMM discord...

[From Paul's 'About Me' article in Today magazine, December 1963]

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ok I need you to discuss this John is My Son thing because like I also feel that Sometimes I Felt Like His Priest is also really underdischssed!

okay here we go!!!

The quote you're referring to is from the Foreword of The Lyrics. I grabbed some more of it because it's all quite interesting to me.

This was about the same time that I met John Lennon, and it’s pretty clear now that we were a huge influence on each other. Readers might detect duelling emotions in my recollections of John; that’s because my relationship with him was very mixed. Sometimes it was filled with great love and admiration, but other times not, especially around the time The Beatles were breaking up. In the beginning, though, the relationship was a young Liverpool guy looking up to another guy a year and a half older. It was hard not to admire John’s wit and wisdom. But as I came to see him as a person and a human being, there were, of course, arguments, though never anything violent. There’s even a movie out there in which John’s character punches my character, but the truth is that he never punched me. As with many friendships, there were disputes and there were arguments, but not many. Sometimes, though, I certainly thought John was being a complete idiot. Even though I was younger, I would try to explain to him why he was being stupid and why something he’d done was so unlike him. I remember him saying things to me like, ‘You know, Paul, I worry about how people are gonna remember me when I die.’ Thoughts like that shocked me, and I’d reply, ‘Hold on; just hold it right there. People are going to think you were great, and you’ve already done enough work to demonstrate that.’ I often felt like I was his priest and would have to say, ‘My son, you’re great. Just don’t worry about that.’

It's like… there's so much going on here, you know? John is almost paradoxical to Paul: the source of one of the biggest hurts of his life and also one of his great bringers of joy; he's forever petrified as a teenager in Paul's mind and also on some level remains his fairground hero whose shadow Paul cannot escape; a traitor and yet don't you dare depict him being violent towards me; wise and simultaneously stupid.

At its root, I think many of these contradictions exist because Paul is on some level aware that a lot of the pain John dealt him was at least in part due to something John could not help (i.e. mental illness). He can't bring himself to blame John entirely, in a similar way a lot of us fans wrestle with John's behaviour that we know came from a place of great anguish. This has contributed to Paul infantilizing the memory of John; he has an instinct to look after John, and it's exacerbated by the fact that he has aged whilst his conception of John has not (you can see this in the way Paul constantly circles back to the early days of their friendship), which is in great contrast to Paul's memory of, say, Brian:

"I find that one of the interesting aspects of ageing: Brian Epstein never got beyond thirty-two, but I think of him as an older guy even though I’m already twenty years older than he ever got to be." – Many Years From Now.

But there's another element to this… A lot of people on here speculate about why Paul "can't get over John". My answer:

1) John's death was uniquely traumatic to John's loved ones in a way we tend to gloss over.

2) We are not letting Paul get over it! Paul has been asked about John in interview after interview for four decades and his image directly suffered due to the lionization of John post-1980 as well as the way he (Paul) was judged for not grieving correctly. Perhaps he's started bringing John up a lot in interviews in part because he feels he has to, lest he be deemed callous and cold again. (and perhaps he is seeking to nip the Lennon Question in the bud before the questions become, ahem, horribly insensitive) That's not to say Paul isn't weird about John – I think he is! But I think the way he's been made to both carry John's legacy and accept criticism used to build John up and bury his own unresolved anger at John and grieve over a senseless murder publicly and defend John now that his image is being torn down… it accounts for a huge chunk of this weirdness, IMO. Again, I want to reiterate: I think these are generally Paul's genuine feelings and thoughts (and I certainly don't want to imply that all of this only started post-1980... but perhaps there's a reason Paul seemed more measured throughout the '70s) but I think it's naive to act like society didn't help shape the way Paul talks about John and sees him. When you live as publicly as he does and your childhood friendship is one of the most talked about relationships in music history, you are bound to be affected by the general reception.

I also think Paul is often doing reputation damage control. It is very important to him that he and John are remembered first and foremost as friends (hence the offense he takes in the depiction of John punching him in Nowhere Boy) and it seems like, since at least Goldman, he's been trying to emphasize John's softer, more lovable traits. I think this, mixed with the infantilization mentioned above, is where you get stuff like the clip of Paul calling John a little baby or a lovely broth of a boy.

It's all so damn complicated you know? And so fascinating.

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I posted this drawing on ig of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, so I'm posting it here too since they have better quality 😸💗💕 (I always forget to post the drawings on Tumblr, sorry 😭)

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the worst part is that I'm 1000% serious.

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Hey has anyone noticed that the opening lines of Broad Street are

"I know. I know."

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looking at all the shit he went through if i was paul mccartney i wouldve killed myself one hundred million billion times probably between 1968-1982

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This is what g-d looks like and does all day

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Beatles Games scanned from The Beatles are Back (1976)

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“Paul McCartney had a special look for his wife, Linda. It’s a look that is kinda wide-eyed, kinda relaxed, kinda goofy. It’s a look that shows a guy who’s really in love. Millions of photographs have been taken of the former Beatle, the most popular living songwriter of the rock ‘n’ roll era. But only one photographer captured that look on film – Linda McCartney. Paul McCartney laughs as he remembers how she did it. “I would start posing, doing those things the photographers tell you to do like `look over your shoulder’ or `look over there’ and she would say, `Oh, stop doing that. Just be natural,’” he said, calling from his recording studio in southern England, where he is wrapping up production on a new album. “I would say, `What? You don’t want my gorgeous look into the camera?’” McCartney continued. “And she would say, `No. No, thanks.’””

— interview with Paul McCartney, 1999

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someone: are you okay

me: so in 1964 john lennon wrote one of his only love ballads, "if I fell" and called it auto biographical even though it doesn't match w any of his public relationships. the lyrics can easily be flipped to be about him pining for someone already in a relationship with a woman which would most likely be a man (as seen in "across the universe" where they did the song from a woman's pov to a man without changing the lyrics and it still worked). he wrote the full lyrics for the first time on the inside of a valentines day card and in the corner you can see his handwriting that says "to: paul with love" with an arrow pointing inside and some doodled hearts. it was auctioned off in the 2000s, but the description only says it was written on a plane on a card "given to paul" as a spare paper, not acknowledging the little dedication with the hearts. years later he referred to it as a "silly love song," referring back to paul's song that was in turn referring to his mocking comments. and that's why he's a fa-

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Anyone recognise this statue? Or know any symbolic meanings for headless angels?

It appears in Broad Street immediately after Bostock's grave, but as far as I can tell from googling, it's not in the same cemetery.

It's repeated on Jim's mantelpiece, along with Bostock's grave and the bandstand.

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