"Possibly I (would) Have To Marry A Very Rich Old Lady... Or Man, You Know, To Look After Me.": John

My beautiful Johnny. This is why he was so beloved

Find someone who can make you laugh like this

John Lennon begins to realise that Paul McCartney is broken. The Beatles, interviewed by Jeremy James for Day By Day. Portsmouth Guildhall, 12th November 1963 - part 2 (part 1)

Can we all just weep at John’s body language in 3 & 4: “Constantly transferring your weight from one foot to the other or rocking forward and backward is a comforting movement that indicates you are anxious or upset…[rubbing your earlobes] is a soothing action to counter feelings of uneasiness or vulnerability.”

(Also in no.3, John and Paul’s synchronised head turning, ama cry over that as well, they were so attuned to each other goddamnit.)

I somehow have the feeling if John was alive and didn’t turn up at the Hall of Fame for whatever personal reason, people would have no problem calling him petty and immature. The media had no problem throwing him under the bus for years. Once again the daily reminder Paul at a human being and it’s ok to criticise him. And yeah taking more than his cut makes him the asshole. These weren’t his solo songs, this was music he made as part of a group. It doesn’t matter how much cash he thought he earned, he can’t pull a surprised pikachu face when he gets sued.

This is probably a weird question so apologies, but do you think Paul should have gone to the Beatles Hall of Fame award show? I know he didn't and I've seen it described as the petulant act of a child and understandable given the legal situation and hurt feelings. I would love to know what you thought of it?

Not a weird question at all!

I don’t think Paul should ever do anything he doesn’t want, to be honest. He’s earned being as petty as he wants. Not that I think that’s what he was doing, but even if he was, so what? I wouldn’t want to hang out with three people that were all suing me either. I’m sure he felt it was The Breakup 2.0 and I can’t imagine how shitty that must have felt. Also, this should have been such a special moment for him and then they sued him right before and ruined it. I doubt that was on purpose (the timing) but… I can see how it might have felt pointed.

I don’t know if George’s speech should be taken at face value. Personally it seems a little… disingenuous of him to suggest he’s surprised. But, perhaps he genuinely assumed Paul would always just roll over and put a brave face on/wasn’t capable of being hurt by that sort of thing/there was no reason for him to take it personally because really they were suing EMI/Capitol and not him.

Do I think Paul should have gone to make himself/The Beatles look better? Maybe? They had sort of been suing each other and everyone else for nearly two decades by that point, so perhaps they should have all just carried on like it was business as usual and that would have stopped some of the backlash. But it is also possible that people would have slagged him off for daring to be there when he was shitting all over their legacy for ‘stealing their money’.

I guess the other question is if Paul was trying to get one over on them with the royalties and therefore should have been there (or not been there) to apologise. I mean, if Capitol was just giving him more out of its own profits and it wasn’t taking anything from the others, he certainly had less to feel bad about. Of course I’m sure they all thought (and John almost certainly would have felt) there was a gentleman’s agreement not to take more. But, who can say. Paul was making a lot of money for Capitol and obviously it’s his right to negotiate whatever he wanted. I do get why people would feel that a) he didn’t need more money and b) The Beatles should be a completely separate thing and it’s almost petty to ask for a bigger cut of that because he (arguably) can’t deserve more of it now than he did before. I say arguably because there’s something to the idea that Paul being as successful as he was, was keeping the Beatles more in the public eye and therefore selling more. But how you figure out THAT I have no idea because John dying did as much as anything for that, and obviously Ringo and George released music too (along with other things).

But in summation, Paul often couldn’t win in the eyes of the press so it was almost certainly just better for him to do what made him personally happiest.

Always happy to hear other’s thoughts though.

As per usual high praise for every Beatle except John. And then these write ups get bandied around as being even handed. Seems like he wanted the get in with John and be part of the cool kids crowd and because John was selective about who he opened up to, he was off handed or referred to as brooding. Where is mention of John’s intelligence, humour, daring/pushing the boundaries and kindness that we know existed in abundance? This crap pisses me off

The Beatles and Martha during the Mad Day Out photoshoot (1968)

Q: Give a brief thumbnail sketch of each Beatle as you perceived him.

Ken Mansfield: Paul was the energetic one, the one that seemed like the popular kid in high school. He was the one whom you would cruise main street with your arms hanging over the car door edge, pressing tight to make your muscles look bigger. He would be the guy who would wave at the girls and slow down so they could jump in the back. I never felt a strong personal agenda coming from Paul, and by that I mean that it didn’t feel like you had to figure out who he was or where he was coming from. He was always presenting the next project or place to go. It was the sheer impetus of purpose that put things in motion so what you saw was an idea and a goal, and none of it needed complicated examination. “Here’s what we are about to do and that was exactly what we were about to do.”

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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

This is such a weird take. Why would Julian not love having these memories of his dad? Why, even if John was an imperfect father, is he not worthy of his son’s love? I’m relieved Julian has chosen to let any bitterness go. I’m also even more excited for Get Back as some truly beautiful aspects of John’s personality are clearly on display given Julian’s reactions.

sidenote: julian is such a good person i admire him a lot because if it was me i think i'd be bitter as fuck

John and Jane would be great but I also wouldn’t mind Paul and Stu lol. You could cut the tension with a knife lol

Beatle Hypotheticals #19

If you could be a fly on the wall in a broken lift for an hour, which one of the following pairs would you want to be trapped in a lift with and why?

John and Jane Asher

Paul and Brian Epstein

George and Magic Alex

Ringo and Pete Best

Is there another pairing not listed above that you would want to be trapped in a lift with? If so, which pairing and why?

Yes thank you for the love of God! I also love how he casually wrote his Lyrics book and didn’t even mention John’s contributions to A Day in the Life (which are glaringly obvious) yet people still seem to think he’s the paragon of truth when it comes to who does what on any Beatles song. I know he does the same for George’s contributions as well.

Sometimes I think Paul needs to be reminded that it wasn't

Paul McCartney and the Beatles.

He doesn't own the legacy.

And I'm sure Pattie would love to call him on certain things but chooses not to.

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!!!