This is the stupidity I know and love on tumblr. Ooo Paul. What a hero for sending a LETTER to Maggie Thatcher. Never mind the years he has kissed the ass of the royals and the establishment in general. Bonus points for throwing Johns name in to shit on him for no reason. No one in Johns camp ever compared the incident with the MBE to Paul’s no doubt slightly less than vanilla letter but Paul’s camp has to sling arrows that Paul is the true hero TM. Lol
“Did you know Paul sent a telegram to Margaret Thatcher in 1982? He did. It wasn’t friendly. He lost his temper over her treatment of health workers and fired off a long outraged message, comparing her to Ted Heath, the prime minister (tweaked in “Taxman”) felled by the 1974 coal strike. McCartney warned, “What the miners did to Ted Heath, the nurses will do to you.” This controversy is a curiously obscure footnote to his life—it seldom gets mentioned in even the fattest biographies. He doesn’t discuss it in Many Years from Now. I only know about it because I read it as a Random Note in Rolling Stone, not exactly a hotbed of pro-Paul propaganda at the time. (The item began, “Reports that Paul McCartney is intellectually brain-dead appear to have been premature.”) But the telegram was a major U.K. scandal, with Tory politicians denouncing him. In October 1982, Thatcher was at the height of her power, in the wake of her Falkland Islands blitz. Many rock stars talked shit about Maggie—Elvis Costello, Morrissey, Paul Weller—but Paul was the one more famous than she was. He had something to lose by hitting send on this, and nothing to gain. What, you think he was trying for coolness points? This is Paul McCartney, remember? He was in the middle of making Give My Regards to Broad Street. He could have clawed Thatcher’s still-beating heart out of her rib cage, impaled it on his Hofner on live TV, and everybody would have said, “Yeah, but ‘Silly Love Songs’ though.” Why did he feel so intensely about the nurses? He didn’t mention his mother in the telegram, but he must have been thinking of Mary McCartney’s life and death. So he snapped, even though it was off-message. (He was busy that week doing interviews for the twentieth anniversary of “Love Me Do”—the moment called for Cozy Lovable Paul, not Angry Paul.) He didn’t boast about it later, though fans today would be impressed that any English rock star of that generation—let alone Paul—had the gumption to send this. You can make a case that it was a braver, riskier, and more politically relevant move than John sending his MBE medal back to the Queen in 1970. Still, John’s gesture went down in history and Paul’s didn’t, though his fans would probably admire the move if they knew about it. He couldn’t win. He was Paul. All he could do was piss people off.”
—
Rob Sheffield, Dreaming the Beatles. (2017)
This is one of the best books I’ve read on them. Go get it.
September 2, 1980 ..
Top 3:
-Paris fics?
-Liverpool fics?
-modern AUs?
-sexiest fics?
-after Beatles divorce fics?
-time travel fics?
yeah alright then. under a cut to save everyone's eyes.
:)
ok listen. listing 18 of my favorite pieces of fanfiction feels a bit like walking naked through a crowded cafeteria so pls be gentle ok? also be sure to check any author tags in ao3. ty!
PARIS:
Backwards Traveller by @scurator & @paulmcfruity / john remembers paris 1961. When You Are Young They Assume You Know Nothing by @lilypadd23 / cute and charming paris 1961 adventure. We're In A World Apart by RedheadAmongWolves / yes it's an au but it's set in paris so i'm including it here are you can't stop me. john & paul but it's 1966 and they're spies assigned to work together on a very important mission (still updating; 4/6 chapters available).
LIVERPOOL/EARLY DAYS:
non nobis solum by @downtothe-lastdrop / midday rendezvous in 1960. Put My Heart Around the Bend by @strwbryfeels / a journey through 1960. I really wanted to include this one in my hamburg list, but since it splits time between liverpool & hamburg I didn't. so I'm including it now. On The Way to Work by roundthatcorner / life in december 1960.
MODERN AU:
I recently rec'd some by @javelinbk and @theoldmixer which you should absolutely check out and here are 3 more :)
blood on the tracks by @backbenttulips / john & paul fall in love and get married super young, the beatles still happen, and then a double divorce. what then. my love (let me go again) [orphaned] / john & paul meet, really hit it off, and then paul falls into a coma. inspired by the movie The Big Sick. i enjoy the niche genre of j/p aus based loosely on movies and this was a fun one. we push and pull like a magnet do by toppermostofthepoppermost / college au. john is a hot mess and paul is a slightly older hot mess. very cute and silly and features a tattooed paul which I enjoy a lot. for reasons.
SEXIEST OTHER:
oh my god i'm way too embarrassed to admit what I find sexiest! i don't want anyone reading into my obvious [redacted] issues so instead i'm just adding 3 more that I really like :)
Tessellate by cloudy_blue / cyn on john & paul over the years it's good to touch by @pauls1967moustache / john & paul are trapped in a closet where feelings and other things arise. i made a special request for this one so it will always be a favorite ;) 5 Thomas Lane by @chut-je-dors / modern au with extremely domestic john and paul just being dads with a bunch of kids, a dog, and some cats. there's a 'flashback' chapter set in the 90s that I think is the most adorable thing i've ever read.
POST-DIVORCE:
that which resembles the gave but isn't! by @monkberries / from the author notes: 'what if the break-up but EVEN WORSE'. yeah. Adventures In Total Honesty by @merseydreams / john & paul meet up at an after party in 1975. six hours in august by stonedlennon - john & paul run into each other at a gay bar in nyc in 1979.
TIME TRAVEL:
(I've Still Got) You All Over Me by @muzaktomyears / paul has a doppelganger. or does he.... i was a younger man then (now) (post hoc) by @fingersfallingupwards / time-travelers's wife au on our way back home by @purechocolade / obviously! I read this again recently and enjoyed it just as much the second time around.
My fellow John girls doing the Lords work
John Girls mobilising in 1963 (from the Evening News and Chronicle, 12 December)
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
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!!!
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
Ah yes the typical tumblr experience. Thousands of posts where John is reduced to nothing more than the sum of his faults…crickets. One article about Paul that throws a few softball shots (in a sea of articles defending Paul’s every action as being completely justified) and the comments are full of essays defending Paul. And yet people around here keep saying that Paul is a victim that needs defending because of what happened back in the 80s when John had just been murdered and people in their horror may have gone too far one way. It’s kind of silly when you think about it.
Paul liked to keep his options open and this applied to friendship. Just when you thought you were getting to know him, to feel a commitment from him, he'd slip behind a smiling mask. Finally I came to accept this aspect of his nature and we worked together, travelled together in a relaxed fashion, but never with any developed contact.
Paul had a real appetite for life -- an exuberant optimism and a buoyant enthusiasm that was admirable even if at times it overwhelmed his sceptical partner, John.
...He lived in his head to create music or lived to create music in his head. This process or activity could account for a certain distance in his contact with people, however pleasant and engaging he might appear.
Robert Freeman, The Beatles: A Private View
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.”
Keep reading
Look at these children.