Sharing Because I’m A John Girl And I Need To Represent

Reblogging because of Bob Spitz being yet another person who has no idea what Working Class Hero is about. In the song when John says “a working class hero is something to be” he is being sarcastic. A working class hero is a sucker who believes the lies of the upper classes that if they keep working harder and harder that corner office will be theirs when of course the upper classes have no intention of ever giving them “room at the top”. Not only is John not saying he’s a working class hero, he’s criticising people who are. If you post things about Paul being the “true working class hero” it shows you have no idea what the song is about. I’m not referencing the original OP for this post when I say this but rather similar quotes I’ve seen around here. Listen to the song! It’s very powerful and it helps to educate yourself

No doubt about it, they were tuned to the same groove. But aside from a musical passion and amiability, they filled enormous gaps in each other's lives. Where John was impatient and careless, Paul was a perfec-tionist-or, at least, appeared to be- in his methodical approach to music and the way he dealt with the world. Where John was moody and aloof, Paul was blithe and outgoing, gregarious, and irrepressibly cheerful. Where John was straightforward if brutally frank, Paul practiced diplomacy to manipulate a situation. Where John had attitude, Paul's artistic nature was a work in progress. Where John's upbringing was comfortably middle-Class (according to musician Howie Casey," the only claim he had to being a working-class hero was on sheet music"), Paul was truly blue-collar Where John was struggling to become a musician, Paul seemed born to it.

And John gave Paul someone to look up to. Their age difference and the fact that John was in art college- a man of the world! - made John "a particularly attractive character" in Paul's eyes. There was a feral force in his manner, a sense of "fuck it all" that emanated great strength. He had a style of arrogance that dazed people and started things in motion. And he scorned any sign of fear. John's response to any tentativeness was a sneer, a sneer with humbling consequences.

John occasionally felt the need to reinforce his dominance, but he never required that Paul cede his individuality. He gave the younger boy plenty of room in which to leave his imprint. The Quarry Men would try a new song, and John would immediately seek Paul's opinion. He'd allow Paul to change keys to suit his register, propose certain variations, reconfigure arrangements. "After a while, they'd finish each other's sentences," Eric Griffiths says. "That's when we knew how strong their friendship had become. They'd grown that dependent on one another."

Dependent--and unified. They consolidated their individual strengths into a productive collaboration and grew resentful of those who questioned it. Thereafter, it was John and Paul who brought in all the new material; they assigned each musician his part, chose the songs, sequenced the sets-they literally dictated how rehearsals went down. "The rest of us hadn't a clue as far as arrangements went," Hanton says slowly. "And they seemed to have everything right there, at their fingertips, which was all right by me, because their ideas were good and I enjoyed playing with them." But the two could be unforgiving and relentless. "Say the wrong thing, contradict them, and you were frozen out. A look would pass between them, and afterwards it was as if you didn't exist.

Even in social situations, the Lennon-McCartney bond seemed well defined. The unlikely pair spent many evenings together browsing through the record stacks in the basement of NEMS, hunting for new releases that captured the aggressiveness, the intensity, and the physical tug about which they debated talmudically afterward over coffce. Occasionally, John invited Paul and his girlfriend, a Welsh nurse named Rhiannon, to double-date.

To John's further delight, he discovered that Paul was corruptible. In no time, he groomed his young cohort to shoplift cigarettes and candy, as well as stimulating in him an appetite for pranks. On one occasion that still resonates for those involved, the Quarry Men went to a party in Ford, a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, out past the Aintree Racecourse.

"John and Paul were inseparable that night, like Siamese twins," says Charles Roberts, who met them en route on the upper deck of a cherry red Ripple bus. "It was like the rest of us didn't exist." They spent most of the evening talking, conducting a whispery summit in one corner, Roberts recalls. And it wasn't just music on their agenda, but mischief. "In the middle of the party they went out, ostensibly looking for a cigarette machine, and appeared some time later 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."

Through the rest of the year and into the brutal cold spell that blighted early February -every day that winter seemed more blustery than the last-the two boys reinforced the parameters of their friendship. Afterschool hours were set aside for practice and rehearsal, with weekends devoted to parties and the random gig. It left little time for studies, but then neither boy was academically motivated anyway.

John’s theme song is clearly You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. It’s literally his life story both from the LGTBQ angle and in general with his difficulty allowing himself to get close to people and show how much he loved them

the way While My Guitar Gently Weeps is such a George song like it's his theme song it encompasses his personality!!!

This is such a weird take that John’s mom dying horrifically in a car accident right underneath his bedroom window counts as hagiography regardless of whether the driver was drunk or not. It was still a traumatic thing for John. Also why is it never acknowledged there is massive hagiography for Paul “everything can be explained away as his actions are always right” McCartney?

It’s also massively problematic for anyone to diagnose anyone else without a formal mental health evaluation and even more wrong for a mental health clinician to do it via taking pieces of biographies out of context. Also Erin Torkelson Weber is biased. Ugh. So many things I hate about this and once again it’s taking a complex person like John and taking out his worst pieces out of context to form a half baked conclusion.

Hi :) my friend just sent me a link to a podcast episode called "The Psychology of John Lennon" by Psychology in Seattle. I'm kind of interested but seeing as the episode so awfully long and I have no experience with that podcast idk if it's worth a listen. So I wanted to ask if you have given that one a go and if so what are your thoughts on it? Is it insightful?

P.S.: I love your blog, I really appreciate all the hard work that goes into your posts and they're always so interesting to read!!

Hiya anon!

Thank you for the lovely “PS” message btw — I really appreciate hearing that!! :)

I have listened to this podcast a few times, and I’ve actually recommended this specific episode (which can be found here (x)) quite a bit – so I’m pretty familiar with it! The short answer here is that I would recommend it. It’s a decent illustration of the key arguments concerning a diagnosis for borderline personality disorder, albeit, not a comprehensive one. But id say the host gets the job done, and it’s a good starting point for wider discussion.

The long answer, is that the episode does have a handful of flaws. There were two main issues I recall having with it, the first being that Dr Honda assumes Mimi’s parenting was not in any way problematic or abusive. He discusses Julia’s parenting, establishing it as chaotic, and also discusses Alfred's parenting —or lack thereof, really— and illustrates how both these early abandonments would have affected John. He even mentions an intergenerational aspect to the family-line which I thought was interesting (I’m actually working on whole post dedicated to that topic!). But then he brushes off Mimi’s parenting as “good-enough”, when it evidently had a more substantial impact on John.

In discussing how a borderline personality might have developed for John throughout his childhood, I just don’t believe you can dismiss Mimi in this way, since she was such a pivotal figure in the formation of his personality. Her treatment of him appears to have been emotionally and verbal abusive — and that isn’t a judgement of her, nor is it to say that she didn’t love him (or that he didn’t love her), but simply that if you read the various accounts of her parenting styles, it seems fairly apparent that it is what would be considered abusive today. I do appreciate that John was probably always going to be difficult, and that she had her own issues largely stemming mainly from her father — but these things don’t ultimately dispel the argument that her parenting could be abusive. So essentially, Mimi's needed to be discussed in more depth for this to be a comprehensive outlook on John’s childhood. As well as this, the episode would have been improved had he dedicated more time into discussing the impact of Uncle George and his death.

The second issue I had with the episode, was that the host largely neglects to discuss John’s relationship with Paul. There are parts of the podcast where he does discuss their closeness, but overall it didn’t feel to me as though he had really recognised the depth of this relationship. Im aware that he recently did an episode on Get Back, which I haven’t gotten round to listening to just yet — but I’m interested to see to see if perhaps his perspective has changed/grown.

There are other things in the podcast which I take issue with (for instance, his understanding of the relationship between John and Yoko could be fairly shallow and one-sided), but it seems to me as though these things tended to be more-or-less related to a problematic historiography. I appreciate that Dr Kirk Honda has done dozens of these kinds of episodes, where he analyses the psychology of various celebrities and characters, and offers potential diagnosis’s for them – and therefore, I’m not expecting him to be an absolute expert on John Lennon. When you’re running a podcast which is fairly miscellaneous in its subjects, there’s an extent to which you can research each topic, and so I cant really expect the host to have studied practically Every Single Area of John Lennon’s life. There are things which I would have been more attentive towards — but I’ve dedicated, frankly, an amount of time into researching him which therapists would find concerning (*kidding*…..but not really). Additionally, I would presume that the shows hosts haven’t read most of the biographies in which they gathered their information from with much critical thought, because they’re not The Almighty Great Erin Torkelson-Webber. So effectively, their understanding of John Lennon is going to blindsided by hagiography — an example of this would be when the host cites that John’s mother was killed by a drunk-driver, which contemporary reports would disagree with. But I wouldn’t say that this flaw is so much so that it spoils their entire overarching argument, its just a notable blindspot and something to keep in mind when listening to their analysis’s.

On a more positive note, there were merits to this podcast. As a professional psychologist, he is able to offer valuable insights into things such as Janov’s Primal Scream Therapy, and illustrate in laymen’s terms, essentially why its a quack. And despite his arguments being, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed since they neglect to account for two massively crucial figures (Mimi and Paul), he’s still able to conclude with a solid, evidenced argument for John having had BPD.

If you happen to be someone fairly ‘iffy’ about diagnosing (or suggesting diagnosis’s) John with a mental illness—especially something as complicated as borderline personality disorder—id definitely recommend giving this as a listen! You might still conclude that diagnosing him is not the right course of action, or that it has little value, or that its just plain wrong etc. but I still think its a good thing for people to at least understand the arguments here, since I know that in the past when I have mentioned that I think John was a strong candidate for BPD, I am often met with a response telling me that I'm just projecting onto him, which does make me wonder if they’ve really understood the objective outlook in this discussion.

Someday I’ll have to sit down and write up an entire post on all this, collecting the strongest arguments for him having had BPD (and someday I will, I swear!) but for now I’ll just leave you a few other relevant links to this topic:

An overview of the John and BPD argument (x) — @thecoleopterawithana

Exposing the voice of truth: a psychological profile of John Lennon — Deborah Fade (x) + additionally you can read the @anotherkindofmindpod critique of it here (x)

A quote from Lesley Ann-Jones and (a more important) addition from @walkuntilthedaylight (x)

You forgot to mention Paul has a flower randomly placed on his head while being weird in 18 other ways. The tragedy if these 2 idiots is they spent a lifetime being obsessed with each other while pretending not to because of the toxicity of the times they lived in. It’s comical, tragic, bizarre and beautiful all at the same time

John Lennon, Peter Brown, Paul McCartney, Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall at the Apple Corps Headquarters, Savile Row , London 1968 © Jane Bown /TopFoto/ The Image Works

Say it louder for the people in the back!

anti john lennon propaganda is so lame how is paul supposed to appeal to anyone can't a crazy air sign just have his greatest beatle status like he literally already paid for his crimes who cares. he wrote help so get over it

Photo shoots like this make me realise how good John looked again an autumn backdrop. With his pale colouring and the auburn in his hair, he looks amazing against the reds and oranges of the leaves. It makes me think of the Beatles were seasons, John would be autumn (going to the darker part of his nature but lots of light underneath the surface), Ringo is definitely summer (warm and enjoying the simple things in life). George is winter because he likes the idea of tearing things apart to rebuild and Paul is spring (trying to repress his darker side to focus on the light but still fighting that darkness underneath). It also explains why Paul and John were so similar yet different-both individuals with darkness and light but reflected in different ways)

Photo session for the “Beatles For Sale” album. Photos by Robert Freeman in London’s Hyde Park, in the autumn of 1964 .

Dear friend! We already know his thoughts on Coming up from a few interviews and the same for Too Many People. I don’t entirely buy that Call Me Back Again is a McLennon song. But Dear Friend is 100 percent about John and given it came during a period of infighting, I want to know what John truly felt hearing that for the first time. Can I get Paul reacting to I Know, I Know as a bonus? And both of them reacting to I Don’t Know (Johnny, Johnny)?

Beatle (John) Hypotheticals #11

If you could be a fly on the wall when John listens to a song for the first time, which one of the following songs would you choose and why?

Too Many People

Dear Friend

Call Me Back Again

Coming Up

If you could choose another song, that isn’t listed above, which one would you choose and why?

Controversial option but in some ways I think George understood John even better than Paul did

John Lennon & George Harrison | 1969 © Bruce McBroom

"That was the great thing about John and what I got from him, from all those years. He saw that we are not just in the material world; he saw beyond death, that this life is just a little play that is going on. And he understood that." ~ George Harrison

Friendly reminder that John wrote Ticket to Ride and obviously due to Paul revisionism some people have fallen for a different story. So annoying

Today's really strange lyric theory...

We all know now that Paul wrote Ticket to Ride about trips to Ryde with John because he literally said it in "The Lyrics" and when he says a song is about John I'm inclined to believe him.

But you know what other song has "ride"? "Got to Get You Into My Life"

I was alone, I took a ride I didn't know what I would find there Another road where maybe I Could see another kind of mind there Ooh, then I suddenly see you Ooh, did I tell you I need you Every single day of my life?

I'm not saying the song isn't about weed, but I think it's also about John and that trip too.

I mean...this is Paul, fucking every song he's ever written since his first song is about John in some way.

So glad I’m not the only one thinking this. Let’s show equal respect to John and Paul for a change. It’s what they both deserve.

@bitchybillionaire yes that’s the one. I’ve had the same trajectory, honestly. I’m interested in some of what they’re saying, because some of it is also what I’ve been thinking for years. And I get the need to give Paul the credit and attention he is due, after so many books and articles overlook him or malign him. But a lot of this podcast does feel like okay, John was elevated beyond belief before, so we have to do the same for Paul now to balance it. And like, what if we just met in the middle with a true balance of the scales instead of it being like a seesaw where Paul is elevated now?

Also they really need to cite more sources. It bothers me when they say “NOBODY has ever talked about xyz” but like, you got that info from somewhere. Someone had to have talked about it! Or else you wouldn’t know about it!