John Lennon & George Harrison (1964)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono Bed-In for Peace 1969

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.

I know a lot of people will say How Do You Sleep, but I’d love to see John’s reaction to Mother. I think 1964 John would be amazed he allowed himself to get so vulnerable and have it be so public

Beatle (John) Hypotheticals #15

If you could show John four of his solo songs in 1964, which one of the following songs do you think would most surprise him and why?

Mother

How Do You Sleep

Woman Is The Ni**er of the World

Watching The Wheels

Are there any songs not listed above that you think would be more shocking to John? If so, which ones?

Shout out to @odearjohn for the inspo!

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.

"I mean that is so special for me. I know it's virtual, but there I am. There I am singing with John again. We're back together."

Love the Paul fans in the comments not getting things yet again. No John wasn’t an orphan. Yes he did have an awful childhood. He didn’t know his dad. His mum left him alone at night as a baby to go party and then come back to have sex with random men in front of him. He was taken away from his mother by Liverpool Social Services because at the age of 8 he didn’t have a bed to sleep in. His mothers last act on the night she died was to tell Mimi he wasn’t welcome to come around her house anymore because her husband didn’t like it. She walzed in and out of his life all the time. His aunt Mimi rarely showed him any physical affection, didn’t speak to him as a child for days at a time when she was angry and regularly removed photos of him from the house as a sign of removing her love when he was angry. You don’t think this is traumatic for a child? Saying that John had a rough childhood isn’t glorifying it and excusing anything he did. But it does help understand the traumatic lens of his behaviour. I think the Paul fans commenting need to take 30 steps back. I’m over it

“I’ve no idea if John wants to do anything again. I haven’t spoken to him for quite a while because he’s been keeping himself quiet.

But, if you think about it, there’s a fella whose father left home when he was a little kid, who lived with his aunt and his uncle. Then his uncle died, then his mother remarried and used to come to visit him but lived with another man. And while she was coming to visit him one night, when he was 16, she got knocked down by a car and killed. So that guy has grown up in a world where basically he’s never had any family.

He then got married to Cynthia but he was in the middle of all the Sixties dope and everything and he never really got with that family.

And he’s now married again to Yoko, who, for him, is the love of his life. He believes he’s found it and they now have a son. And I think he’s just taking every second that’s left to him to enjoy that —and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

— Paul McCartney, Liverpool Echo, December 4th, 1979

Paul being a narcissist again. I’m just as funny as John but only when I’m in a bad mood. So remember I’m just as funny as John but also John is a bad man/asshole. I’m over this man

“With me, how I wrote depended on my mood. The only way I would be sort of biting and witty like that was if I was in a bad mood! I was very good at sarcasm myself. I could really keep up with John then. If I was in a bad enough mood, I was right up there with him. We were terrific then. He could be as wicked as he wanted, and I could be as wicked, too.”

—

Paul McCartney to Playboy, 1984

Completely agree. This is why I’m not a Cyn fan. The woman wrote 2 exposes! The first because he husband at the time wanted a cash grab. Say what you will about Yoko and Sean but they’ve done an incredible job bringing John’s music to the next generation. That shows true love for John.

I just realized something.

Yoko never wrote an expose about John. Cyn, May Pang and Pete Shotton did, but Yoko didn't.

exposes kind of rub me the wrong way. This is someone who trusted you with everything, and then you turn around and write a tell-all about them. As a fan I love them, but I'd feel so betrayed if a friend wrote one about me.

Pattie Boyd, George Martin and Pete Best wrote books, but they were more about themselves and their connection to the boys than a fictionalized version of the past.

Ivan Vaughn, Jimmie Nicol, Jane Asher, Peter Asher and Maureen Starkey never did. They didn't even write autobiographies from what I can find.

I think that all speaks volumes.

Especially Yoko. No matter what you think of her, that shows a strong sense of character and respect that we just don't talk about enough when it comes to her.

The comments on this picture are hilarious. Paul has nowhere to lean because they’ve been asked to pose that way. I’m all for deep dive analysis but sometimes the simplest explanation is the real explanation. And they all supported each other. It wasn’t just one way.

The Beatles

I’m Sylvia wanting a lock of John’s hair. Also I’m Donna because I would totally buy Beatles records even without a record player just to have everything they ever produced. Yes I’m sad

tag yourself: beatles fan mail edition

(exert from “150 glimpses of the beatles” by craig brown)