Can We All Just Weep At John’s Body Language In 3 & 4: “Constantly Transferring Your Weight From

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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I completely agree except my favourite is John and no I’m not going to apologise. That man is my soul lol

Having Paul as your favorite Beatle is perfectly natural unless you've been into the Beatles for more than a month in which case it is sufficient to diagnose you with a personality disorder

I am not sure John was a baby but he was a softie. He is missed

the softest guy i’ve ever met

Ugh I love the sentiment but I’m so fed up of this take that Paul was the patient hero who held on until he just couldn’t before he was forced to let go? How about this-they were all assholes at different times. They all were rubbing each other the wrong way. They all had different goals and objectives. They also at different moments thought they didn’t belong in the band end this exacerbated tensions. I just hate this boring view that Paul And to a certain extent Ringo were sitting around saving the day and the wayward children of John and George. Ringo quit the band first. Paul was off trying to get his biased in laws to be the bands manager and was more and more disconnected from the band in terms of the creative process. In other words all band members contributed to the break up and there was no hero. Agree it was a tragedy though as it could have been resolved and with communication

What breaks my heart (though a lot breaks my heart about these two) is that, whatever had transpired between John and Paul during the escape-hopefully-this-fixes-it trip to India, it's that neither had wanted the outcome of it to be what ended up happening.

I mean even with John clearly spiraling out of control of his mind and emotions, trying to deal with it all from childhood to then and now with drugs and alcohol and sex—I can't bring myself to believe he wanted to have the falling out, the divorce, the interpreted separation of connection from the soul, from Paul.

All complicated and dramatic and bluffing and lying to himself evidently points to no, he didn't.

He burned down the temple he loved so much because he loved it so much. He burned down the Beatles—and with it, he burned down what he and Paul essentially created together (as George said, it was in 1967 that John and Paul became a duo... That is, not super on the nose dig at apparently the innate dynamics of the Beatles George was privy too... Or at least believed he'd witnessed become the inevitable outcome of his band in 1967. Remember, 1967 was like, peak John and Paul attached-at-the-hip proximity probably similar to that of when they were just teenagers in Liverpool together)

Not to exclude the other two, because John was so desperate and in need of his friends, the people he had grown up with, he'd wanted them to buy an island and live together on it, just them, houses connected through tunnels.

But, as harsh as it sounds, John could live not working with or necessarily having George and Ringo... But Paul.

Now Paul and him, in many interviews, confidently proclaiming once The Beatles went bust, then that's alright—it'd be John and Paul, Paul and John, still writing music together, still creating together. Paul helping John with his books, John and Paul writing music together as old farts to so graciously hand off for younger musicians to play; John and Paul even having the audacity to mention maybe dabbling in creating a musical play, even when John apparently had no interest in musicals whatsoever.

It was John and Paul, JohnandPaul, and it was since 1957. George was just speaking the truth of it all out loud:

HADDAD: Then, your musical ambitions didn’t really begin to take form until the two of you joined with John Lennon?

GEORGE: Paul and John were the spark that ignited The Beatles. Of course, we weren’t The Beatles then, and we didn’t have Ringo, but that was the start. The air was filled with excitement, and even though we went through silly names like The Quarrymen Skiffle Group, The Moondogs, The Moonshiners, and The Silver Beatles, before evolving into that group everyone grew to know and love, the crucible was in 1967 [sic; 1957] when John and Paul became a duo.”

— George Harrison, interview w/ M. George Haddad for Men Only. (November, 1978) [X]

John and Paul were the spark that ignited The Beatles. The Beatles were John and Paul's, and George was simply aware of it. By 1967, John and Paul were a duo, at least in George's viewpoint: the inevitable happened, what George suspected to be, anyway.

So to tell me that John had actually wanted to burn it all down and destroy this Thing that was in fact his and Paul's, essentially burning Paul (and himself) in the proces, because he loved them, it, him, too much. He wanted that.

I refuse to believe it.

I refuse to believe it because even John couldn't buy in to his own lies about why he had actually been the one to finally bring an end to Lennon-McCartney. Yoko's validation of his lies and encouragement of letting go of the past and all those that hurt him (Paul) might've enabled him, but it didn't make the lies of it all stick. He couldn't justify it in the end, he couldn't let go.

It's heartbreaking to think how neither of them wanted it to go the way it did.

Paul probably didn't even fathom it. He's gotten into enough rows with John, and while this one could've definitely been different, been worse, been something that even stable and strong and level headed and perfectly centered Paul McCartney couldn't even withstand, he couldn't control, he couldn't neatly deal with. What he couldn't do for John. What he might not have been able to understand, for John, for whatever reason.

But they've had fights, they've had their trials and tribulations together... What's another one? Why wouldn't they be able to climb over it or sweep it under the rug? Or even come to a compromise, at some later date.

Paul certainly didn't want what ended up happening, with The Beatles, with John.

It damn near tore him up and left him a pitiful, pathetic, alcoholic of a man. He agonized over this impending doom of another loss he couldn't stop.

Of course the main strain between John and Paul after the India excursion was only made worse and exacerbated by other outside forces and John's dwindling psyche and general stability.

No matter how hard he tried, truly fought for it all, it was set up for failure by the inside out.

Ringo was the only one trying at points and Linda was literally his saving grace.

Paul felt he had to divorce The Beatles (divorce John) because he felt he had no choice. John tapped out. George was angry. John wasn't even trying, after all Paul did was try and try and try.

What I'm trying to say is, and not just beat this potential dead horse: what is truly heartbreaking, is that John and Paul since the time of their boundless partnership, friendship, collaboration, and essentially finding their soulmate in each other (Paul's word, not mine) they had it set it would be them, together, forever, creating and inspiring and being together, during and after The Beatles.

You could say it was unrealistic, that it was just the faulty and frivolous daydreaming boyish promises young men barely in their twenties make in the heat of the hour of that day and week and month and year.

But they meant it. You can tell they meant it, you can tell, especially from Paul, that he meant it truly and earnestly and with shameless affection and fondness for his relationship with John, that he wanted to continue whatever this was with him, after The Beatles and on.

It's heartbreaking, because whatever was transpiring between John and Paul and which came to a head in India, whatever happened in India, they didn't want it to turn out and end in the way that it had.

John and Paul loved each other, indescribably so.

It's so heartbreaking when two people who clearly loved each other and are like soulmates, can't end up staying together, have a falling out or life finds a way to tear them apart because life isn't fair.

It's tragic.

There's an extra heaviness to it when you come to fully realize "Nobody wanted what happened to happen."

Neither John or Paul planned for it, for that kind of falling out, for a divorce. By all accounts and records, it hit like an agonizing and sudden septic natural disaster.

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. 

Yes thank you!! The man is treated like a God. I especially like how everyone else’s actions are appalling but if Paul acts in a similar way there is always an excuse. The Beatles were all amazing and all bastards in equal measure. They all had flaws and sometimes were just plain wrong regardless if circumstance

The endless circle jerk of Paul discussion going on around here has made me roll my eyes to the point of a nauseated headache.

Going to dip out for a while

lennon and mccartney, a collection of pictures

This 100 percent nails how I feel. Who is attacking Paul’s talent now? Why do people think he needs defending? The thing that really annoys me is you are apparently never allowed to criticise anything Paul does. If you found him annoying at times in Get Back, people will come at you with pitchforks. But it’s perfectly ok to call George a whiner or criticise John’s whole existence and it’s fine. Lol!!

Re: the Paul divide; I always find it so strange how people are so either/or about the whole thing. I think people need to understand that yes, Paul is absolutely a brilliant, visionary creative figure, but that doesn't mean he isn't also a weird, neurotic gay mess, and vice versa. Both are true. Also that those things aren't mutually exclusive - it's actually not that unusual a combo. This isn't really directed at you per se, just a general observation.

Oh, no worries. You put it brilliantly, really, better than I could.

Going to go on a bit of a tangent here, because I'm trying to understand this a bit better lately, but I do wonder when precisely the either/or attitude towards Paul in fandom really started? And exactly what purposes it serves. Because, like you said, neurotic gay and visionary genius aren't mutually exclusive; often those two sets of characteristics come hand in hand (Bernstein is there to prove that, after all. Tchaikovsky, too.) Obviously, within fandom spaces, we are all trying to have fun in different ways, and friction is bound to happen, but it's still interesting to me to try and figure out whether this dichotomy based view re: Paul actually does still come from the Lennon Remembers etc. fallout (as reaction to it) or if its current incarnation is a more or less new construct based on the idea of "rehabilitating" Paul's image, but made more intense (and bound to get into echo loops) by internet fandom spaces, when whatever or whoever called Paul "villain" in the first place has long left the room, and the material consequences of that have been more or less neutralised (I would argue this has been the case since the 90's, since a lot of Paul Sympathy hinges on Beatles Popularity.) I dunno! I spent 10 years very deliberately liking the four of them on my lonesome, someone tell me what the fuck happened here lmao

It feels to me like something of that either/or attitude (which goes beyond just, he was gay and neurotic vs. he was a normie genius, which are both fairly Positive views) comes from an almost... hilarious translation of the Lennon-McCartney competitive game to Beatles fandom as a whole. And a translation of a very specific moment of their competition, when it was less playfully antagonistic and more Mozart vs. Salieri Showdown Picking One or the Other Will Show How Good You Are, Morally. The origins of the thing seem easy enough to understand, but its usefulness now, in 2021, when Paul is a billionaire and has been more than recognised for his brilliance, is what escapes me. Shouldn't we now move to a deeper understanding of him, now that the external validation bit has been taken care of? Shouldn't we move on and talk about how In Spite of All the Danger is such a beautiful song of gay teenage longing and loyalty look at him go his flat PR image was constructed in the first place? How the push for him to be seen as The genius (it's his turn to be 3/4 of the Beatles now!) isn't actually that helpful at all in terms of allowing him depth? I guess the thing I'm trying to understand is, who exactly do we think is attacking Paul now, or have we based our defence of him on things that got solved in 1997.

Such a beautiful friendship! We all need friends who inspire us to push our boundaries of what we think we can do

George Harrison & John Lennon | 1971

"I think that one of the things that I developed just by being in The Beatles was being bold and I think John had a lot to do with that. Because John Lennon, if he felt something strongly, he just did it. I picked up a lot of that by being a friend of John’s. Just that attitude of, 'Well, just go for it, just do it.'" ~ George Harrison

Firstly this anon is posting me off claiming they have a crystal ball and know exactly how John would have been politically had he lived and even insinuating it’s good John died so they wouldn’t have to see it. This is bullshit. If you want to pick on John, pick something from his life that actually happened instead of inventing fantasies of how you think John would be in the modern age and using them as a comparison against Paul who luckily didn’t get murdered and got to live in this era. Secondly Julian posted on Instagram when he got his vaccines. You can look it up. He is not anti vaccine at all. I thought when he posted the picture of ivermectin he was doing so out of sarcasm. I got nothing from his post he was being serious. Thirdly Sean has not posted anything anti vaccine so stop pulling him into this. Fourthly even if you disagree with Julian, this has nothing to do with John and his views. This whole argument is pathetic and I can’t believe people are buying into this rubbish.

“Would John have gotten politically weird if he lived” anon here and FRUSTRATED. I’m not saying I told you so, I’m just telling at these idiot men through the screen.

Also I do not understand how these rich famous people don’t know the difference between a parasite (what ivermectin treats) and a fucking virus. They are different.

Listen to your uncle Paul boys. Be cool, get vaxxed.

I have no clue where Julian gets this from tbh I don't know his social circles. I'll say that from what I can tell most of John's weirdness seemed to come from Yoko and her circle (not saying it's entirely her fault, just saying I feel like that might be why Sean's like this, though he may also be just trying to be supportive of his brother).

It's so hard to talk to these types of people cause they're so terrified generally and for whatever reason feel completely justified in their distrust of science. I don't know Julian or Sean's full educational background but often I think it's people who get overwhelmed about biology and don't have an intuition for it (see: people who clearly don't really know what RNA even is freaking out about it)

Honestly, probably Paul is also non-confrontational about this type of thing though, so I'm not sure he's the best bet to try and convince Julian and Sean otherwise.