The Great Thing About Me And John Is That It Was Me And John. End Of Story. That’s The One Great Thing

“I just saw a girl who said she saw John Lennon walking down the street in New York wearing a button that said, "I love Paul.” she asked him, “Why are you wearing an ‘I love Paul’ button?” and he said, “Because I love Paul." - Harry Nilsson

“The thing you must remember is that I’m the number one John Lennon fan. I love him to this day and I always did love him” - Paul McCartney

Scan - The Beatles, Germany, June 1966. Scanned from The Beatles: Inside Beatlemania.

“John loved George, and George loved John. Their friendship was a very special one.” - Yoko Ono, Rolling Stone, 17 January 2002 “‘The thing is, I knew George longer than any of the guys in the Beatles. Doesn’t mean I knew him any better, mind, but I knew him longer. He was the kid in the school uniform with the big quiff who got on the bus the stop after mine. And sometimes he’d sit down next to me and we’d start talking rock’n’roll. We shared our records, we learnt chords together, we even tried to make a guitar together. We did the whole teenage bonding thing, trying to pull birds, hitchhiking to Harlech, all the formative stuff.’ He falls silent for a moment. ‘I can’t quite believe it’s over. It’s just a really sad feeling sometimes. Same with John, except with John’s death there was all this anger too. The jerk of all jerks,’ he hisses, referring to Mark Chapman, Lennon’s murderer, ‘to shoot someone like John Lennon.’ He shakes his head. ‘And now Georgie’s gone too,’ he says, quietly, ‘It’s not a nice feeling, really. Not nice. At all.’”- The Observer interview with Paul McCartney, 18 September 2005 “I loved George, George loved me.” - Ringo Starr, Concert for George, 2002

When John and Paul met each other

           “That was the day, the day that I met Paul, that it started moving.” –John Lennon.

The Quarry Men was the Skiffle group featuring John Lennon, Pete Shotton, Eric Griffiths, Colin Hanton, Rod Davies, and Len Garry. They performed on the afternoon of 6th July 1957 at St Peter’s Church Fete, Woolton, Liverpool.

‘I remember coming into the fete and seeing all the sideshows. And also hearing all this great music wafting in from this little Tannoy system. It was John and the band.

I remember I was amazed and thought, ‘Oh great’, because I was obviously into the music. I remember John singing a song called Come Go With Me. He’d heard it on the radio. He didn’t really know the verses, but he knew the chorus. The rest he just made up himself.

I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member, all the rest kind of slipped away.’ –Paul McCartney, 1995.

It looks like a love at first sight story.

That evening, Ivan Vaughan (the Quarrymen’s sometime tea-chest bass player and John’s friend) introduced the band to one of his classmates from Liverpool Institute, that 15 little boy called Paul McCartney! So the magic happened… John Lennon and Paul McCartney met each other. Macca came wearing a white jacket with silver flecks to John, who wore a checked shirt. 

The pair chatted for a few minutes, and McCartney showed Lennon how to tune a guitar - the instruments owned by Lennon and Griffiths were in G banjo tuning. McCartney then sang Twenty Flight Rock.

 ‘Right off, I could see John was checking this kid out,’ says Pete Shotton (The Quarry Men), who was standing behind John, off to the side. ‘Paul came on as very attractive, very loose, very easy, very confident. – wildly confident. He played the guitar well. I could see that John was very impressed’. 

When I visited Liverpool, I had the chance to go at the St Peter’s church hall. And I saw this message that Paul sent to Church:

Ah yes, I remember it well.

I do, actually. My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear. My mate Ivan Vaughan took me along to Woolton here and there were The Quarry Men, playing on a little platform.

I can still see John – checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing Come Go With Me by The Del Vikings. He didn’t know all the words, so he was putting in stuff about penitentiaries – and making a good job of it.

I remember thinking ‘He looks good – I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him’.

A bit later we met up; I played him Twenty Flight Rock and he seemed pretty impressed – maybe because I DID know the words.

Then, as all you know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark.

I still remember his beery old breath when I met him here that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John. I always was and still am a great fan of John’s. We had a lot of fun together and I treasure all those beautiful memories.

 So I send you all in Woolton and Liddipool my best wishes today.

And thanks for remembering – there’s no way that when we met here we had any idea of what we’d be starting. But I’m very proud of what we did. And I’m very glad that I did it with John.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and God bless all who sail in you.

Paul McCartney

Thanks Lennon and McCartney. Thanks for everything you gave to the world.

           “The most important day in his life was the day he met me” – Paul McCartney. 

“I said that [playing down how much he and McCartney collaborated], but I was lying…. We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball…. In those days we absolutely used to write like that — both playing into each other’s noses”.

I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me - and my only real happy times.

I was a singer - not a very popular one. I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet. But upon an unfortunate series of events saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky, that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken. But I really didn't mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing to know what true freedom is. When people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living, they asked me why, but there's no use in talking to people who have a home. They have no idea whatitslike to seek safety in other people. For home to be wherever you lie your head.

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me that I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due north. No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. And if I said I didn't plan for it to turn out this way I'd be lying. Because I was born to be the other woman. Who belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone. Who had nothing, who wanted everything. With a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified me to the point that I couldn't even talk about it. And pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me.

Every night I used to pray that I'd find my people - and finally I did. On the open road. We had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore. Except to make our lives into a work of art. Live fast. Die young. Be wild. And have fun. I believe in the country America used to be. I believe in the person I want to become. I believe in the freedom of the open road. And my motto is the same as ever, "I believe in the kindness of strangers". And When I'm at war with myself, I ride, I just ride.

Who are you? Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them? I have. I am fucking crazy, but I am free.

- Lana Del Rey

“John didn’t look at anyone the way he looked at Paul.” — Cynthia Lennon

SOME LEGIT MCLENNON QUOTES:

“One of my great memories from John is from when we were having some argument. I was disagreeing and we were calling each other names. We let it settle for a second and then he lowered his glasses and he said, ‘It’s only me…’ and then he put his glasses back on again. To me, that was John.” -Paul

“We were each other’s intimates.” -Paul, The Beatles: A Biography

“Paul and I know each other on a lot of different levels that very few people know about.” -John

Q Magazine - 1998  Q: “If John Lennon could come back for a day, how would you spend it with him?” Paul: “In bed.”

“I have had two companions in my life. Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. That’s not bad” –John

Interview of 1975 for Hit parader Q: “Yeah, your friends…” John: “Yes, all your best friends let you know what’s going on. I was trying to put it ‘round that I was gay, you know– I thought that would throw them off… dancing at all the gay clubs in Los Angeles, flirting with the boys… but it never got off the ground.” Q: “I think I’ve only heard that lately about Paul.” John: “Oh, I’ve had him, he’s no good.” (laughter) 

John talking about when Paul first joined The Quarry Men: “But he was good, he was worth having. He looked like Elvis. I dug him.”

“Whatever bad things John said about me, he would also slip his glasses down to the end of his nose and say, ’I love you’. That’s really what I hold on to. That’s what I believe. The rest is showing off.” -Paul

 “A song by an old estranged fiancee of mine called Paul” -John speaking of “I Saw Her Standing There”

“She (Yoko) recalls hearing people in the Apple office who called McCartney 'John’s Princess.’” -Unknown (Cant find who said this but it was someone who worked at Apple)

“One time Paul had a chick in bed and John came in and got a pair of scissors and cut all her clothes into pieces calling her a whore and what not. He got like that occassionaly.”-George

“I just saw a girl who said she saw John Lennon walking down the street in New York wearing a button that said, "I love Paul.” she asked him, “Why are you wearing an 'I love Paul’ button?” and he said, “Because I love Paul.”-Harry Nillson

“He was always saying, 'I wonder what Paul is doing.’ When John and I were together, and this is about a week or two before our relationship ended, I remember him saying, 'Do you think I should write with Paul again?’ I said, 'Absolutely. You should because you want to. The two of you as solo performers are good, but together you can’t be beaten.” -May Pang

“We were recording the other night, and I just wasn’t there. Neither was Paul. We were like two robots going through the motions. We do need each other alot. When we used to get together after a month off, we used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances. Then we got to hugging each other.” -John

Im just saying if they aren't your OTP they should at least be your BROTP because hell they loved each other SO fucking much and that is obvious. Even after the break-up of the Beatles when they both were so stubborn and angry with each other they still cared for each other so much. Their friendship is golden and a beautiful, beautiful thing.