The Beatles Being Menaces In Ireland, 7th November 1963 - Part 1 (part 2)

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.)

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?

100 percent agree. People aren’t even allowed to change. That’s the sad part

i know you're done with this topic, but i just want to get some things out of my system: you're right in saying that kids don't care about women/victims and i bet they have no idea about what cynthia, may or yoko etc have had to say about that subject and they wouldn't care to find out anyway. plus: what happened to the concept of restorative justice? i guess the kids aren't aware of it, but the whole "cancelling" philosophy is pretty silly anyway. i don't think kids on twitter/tik tok have the right to destroy someone's life and/or legacy forever because of colossal mistakes they made in the past, no matter how big and serious they were... kids seem to believe they do have that right nowadays, but that only serves to stroke their ego, to make them believe in their moral superiority. but is that behavior actually changing the fucking world? is that feminist activism? is that helping change men's systemic treatment of us? no, it isn't, but if kids want to continue to be self-indulgent and childish, so be it.

I am done with this topic but this was a nice ask so I’m posting it :)

I’m also so immune to internet activism thinking that calling a dead guy a wifebeater makes them woke or that disliking his annoying ass wife is misogynistic or whatever. When you’re actually doing things to try and help disenfranchised women, like I was doing before the pandemic, you’re just open to a whole new reality. It’s insane how whole movements have been reduced to jokes bc of this type of """activism""". Like, my 15yo tiktok addicted sister genuinely can’t hear the word feminism without laughing and tbh, I’m pretty close to that as well. How activism, instead of actively and practically trying to improve people’s lives, became a fucking punchline. Like yeah, this guy was violent to women decades ago. He was shot dead in front of his house. There, misogyny solved, except for the fifteen thousand jokes about his abuse (making fun of the victims!) and the fact he died from gun violence.

Is this really an argument. Paul is a man and widely accepted as a straight man ( I’m not saying he is straight but widely accepted as one by the public). He is not a victim of misogyny. For the love of God

new hdb haute take: paul is only a chauvinist because society was misogynistic to him first

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.

I love your stories and the Rise and Fall of John Lennon is one of my fav stories in the fandom. It was such a great mix of humiliation, angst, fluff and intimacy. I really hope you continue with your stories. I’ve never re read a story more than that one lol

i might elaborate later but fanfic replies literally develop writer’s metacognition and make them better writers

If people want to say Mark Lewisohn is a John Lennon fan boy and to take everything he says with a grain of salt, it’s only right to say that Erin Torkelson Weber is the same for Paul McCartney. She’s often quoted on tumblr and she may use real life quotes but please understand that quotes, interviews and anecdotes can be arranged in a way to result in implicit bias toward a particular subject and excluding other anecdotes that contradict your version of events is a bias in and of itself.

“Some of those who eulogised Lennon seemingly could not do so without denigrating McCartney, Harrison and Starr or devaluing their contributions to the Beatles. “He [Lennon] stood for a mixture of tough minded realism… wit and intellect. Paul on the other hand was a pretty boy.” The most famous example of this came from the Village Voice’s Christgau, one of America’s most powerful rock critics. In a piece shortly following Lennon’s death, Christgau referred to the three remaining Beatles as “hacks” and blamed their refusal to accept Ono into the band for the breakup. He also repeated a number of misconceptions about Lennon that, while widely accepted, were untrue. This included praising Lennon, the only middle-class born Beatle, as a “working-class” hero and declaring that Lennon had always been the only artistic, avant-garde Beatle because “the others just didn’t have the stuff.” His obituary of Lennon stated that the wrong Beatle had been killed. “Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon? Why isn’t it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?”

Erin Torkelson Weber, The Beatles and the Historians

Paul McCartney on hearing ‘Free As A Bird’ for the first time and working on it for The Anthology. Interview for Access Hollywood, 24 May 1997.  

Paul: I heard it and I was very emotional. Sort of: “Wow! Yeah! The boy, Johnny!” You know, I loved- ‘Cus I loved him, you know. And I spoke to Ringo on the phone and I said: “Better keep your hankie handy for this one, ‘cus it’s pretty emotional when you hear it!”

It was fantastic for me! Having John in the headphones? It was like he was here! ‘Cus when you’re working, he’d be in a booth over there and you’re not necessarily looking at him. He’s here in the headphones…

Disclaimer: I’ve seen this quote float around but never the corresponding clip. If someone has made it available before, I apologise. If not, please enjoy, like I did, another addition to the tag #then you were here today, where Paul talks about feeling John’s presence. 

I agree! The reality is that all these authors have bias but if it’s in favour of Paul McCartney it’s ok because he’s seen as being victimised by the rock journalists of an earlier era. Erin Torkelson Weber has a quote I’ve often seen here that just because something came later it’s not necessarily untrue. But the important thing to keep in mind is it’s not necessarily true either. Paul McCartney has a huge advantage over John Lennon in that when he tells his story, the emotions of the situation have settled which makes him seem like a more rational source, unlike John who was still working through his emotions in the 70s as the events were still in recent memory. Paul has also had time to think about how to make his story palatable to today’s audiences where times have changed, which John never had given he died 40 years ago. He also has his legacy to preserve and of course will twist things to his advantage as who is going to challenge him? Yoko is ill and Sean doesn’t know the full story as he was only 5 when his dad died. I just think people need to think critically about this and realise that just because this is the latest version of events doesn’t necessarily make it true. The truth is always something in between

“Some of those who eulogised Lennon seemingly could not do so without denigrating McCartney, Harrison and Starr or devaluing their contributions to the Beatles. “He [Lennon] stood for a mixture of tough minded realism… wit and intellect. Paul on the other hand was a pretty boy.” The most famous example of this came from the Village Voice’s Christgau, one of America’s most powerful rock critics. In a piece shortly following Lennon’s death, Christgau referred to the three remaining Beatles as “hacks” and blamed their refusal to accept Ono into the band for the breakup. He also repeated a number of misconceptions about Lennon that, while widely accepted, were untrue. This included praising Lennon, the only middle-class born Beatle, as a “working-class” hero and declaring that Lennon had always been the only artistic, avant-garde Beatle because “the others just didn’t have the stuff.” His obituary of Lennon stated that the wrong Beatle had been killed. “Why is it always Bobby Kennedy or John Lennon? Why isn’t it Richard Nixon or Paul McCartney?”

Erin Torkelson Weber, The Beatles and the Historians