Another Kind of Mind Podcast

I'm not saying this. Let me go back. I was listening to "Producing the Beatles" the other day, which is a really terrific podcast if you are interested in music production. I finally got to the "Now and Then" episode. The host, Jason Kruppa, had Beatle author Ken Womack and "Ranking the Beatles" podcast host Jonathan Pretus as guests to discuss it. They were talking about the origin of the song, and one of them (maybe Womack) said that the bridge ("I don't want to lose you, abuse you, or confuse you") which was left out of the released version of it, proves that the song couldn't have been for Paul, since it was obviously about a romantic relationship.

<sigh> I'm not someone who believes that John and Paul were having a physical relationship, or necessarily even a romantic one in the dating sense, since we have no proof of that. (Don't @ me, I am open to the possibility for sure, but I'm someone who deals in actual evidence, not wishful thinking, and there's little there.) HOWEVER I definitely know, and there's plenty of evidence for it, that they loved each other and had a very intense relationship which never let up, even until John's death, and Paul felt the same way, and still does. It's totally possible, and very likely, that John would direct/express the feelings he wrote about in the bridge to Paul, given the state of their relationship at the time, and the lyrics of the entire song only make sense if it's about Paul. Why else would he write a song which has lyrics about missing someone? It couldn't be about Yoko, because they were back together and had Sean. The only other person it could possibly be about would be May Pang, but as much as I like her and think John probably would have been better off staying with her, I don't think she's the person he's talking to in the song. It's too intense. Also, it explains Paul's 30-year relentless goal to clean up and release the song, if John is singing it to him.

It's sad that some Beatle people can't handle the possibility that these two guys had that close of a relationship (you might even call it obsessive), and especially that John Lennon, the coolest guy in the universe, would have those feelings for Paul McCartney. Beatle dudes, it's OK for men to feel that intensely about each other. Really!

Aside from that, they were all very complimentary about the song, and about Paul's work on it. They praised his producing skills, and especially his slide guitar work on it. Don't let that one small part deter you from listening to it, if production minutia is your thing.

@anotherkindofmindpod I listened to this podcast not long after listening to Ep. 1 of the new series, so it was timely!

Hello there, dear anon! 

I hope you’re still around to see this! As usual, I’ve taken an appalling amount of time answering this thought-provoking ask. However, in this instance, that “appalling amount of time” is probably over a year; a new record for me. Wherever you are now, I hope you are well, and if my ramblings don’t reach you, may they interest others. 

I also have to admit that at the time I received this ask, I was most likely not equipped to understand all the layers of meaning in this sentence. And it’d be quite presumptuous of me to assume that I am completely prepared now. But let’s just hope that my ability to perceive their nuances has grown since then, and will continue to do so in the future. 

Needless to say, this is only my current interpretation, and I welcome any commentaries that will help broaden it! (And please don’t fret for a second about offering your own interpretation and somehow “overstepping”; we’re all just having a decades-spanning conversation here.)

Now, on with your question.

First, let’s integrate that sentence in its full quote:

Q: So, John. You and Paul were probably the greatest songwriting team in a generation. And you had this huge falling out. Were there always huge differences between you and Paul, or was there a time when you had a lot in common?

JOHN: Well, Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother… and obviously missed his mother. […]

JOHN: So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that’s not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He’s in Scotland. He told me he doesn’t like English cities anymore. So that’s how it is.

Q: So you think with Linda he’s found what he wanted?

JOHN: I guess so. I guess so. I just don’t understand. I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty. But you don’t really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d married Jane (Asher) because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like – boom! She was in and that was the end of it.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So, the interviewer inquires about their differences and similarities during the relationship, probably to assess the pervasiveness of the clashes that supposedly led to the “huge falling out” in “the greatest songwriting team in a generation.”

And John answers that “Paul always wanted the home life.” 

At first glance, and following the logic of what was asked, one might assume John was pointing to a difference that always existed between them. And an irreconcilable difference at that, given that it’s the first thing he points out in answer to a question that is probing for sources of conflict that might explain their falling out.

So we get a feeling that John saw Paul having a family as incompatible with Paul maintaining a partnership with him. They were mutually exclusive; thus, Paul getting a family resulted in a falling out between them.

That right there carries a lot of implications already.

Because John himself also wanted the “complete family life”:

Q: But with that much experience behind you, now, would you like to have more children?

JOHN: Yeah, I – as – as many as come, you know. If Lennon roll out, as they. [thoughtful] I like large families. The idea of it.  

— John Lennon, interviewed by Brian Matthew (13 November 1965).

And we shouldn’t take his disappointment with the suburban life in Weybridge as proof that he’d given up on that fantasy. It’s all about the circumstances, in the end; who you’re sharing your dream with. 

After all, Yoko herself came with a “ready-made family”: a six-year-old daughter named Kyoko, who she was fighting to get the custody of, after divorcing the father, Anthony Cox, in February 1969; by then John and Yoko would even have a baby of their own. 

This would all eventually fall through, as Yoko suffered a miscarriage in late November 1968, and Cox would disappear with Kyoko in 1971. Yoko would not see her daughter again until almost three decades later.

So you could see how John could have felt resentful of the family life Paul had built. Always perfect mirror images, Paul was living the dream, while John’s turned into a nightmare.

But with John, the situation is always doubly complicated. Because if he was often envious of Paul, John was also jealous. Note that “envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you’re worried someone’s trying to take what you have.”

So we have to go back to his first answer. We’ve established that wanting “the complete family life” was something they had in common rather than something they differed in. 

But Paul wanting a family is still presented here as a reason for their falling out, or at least tangentially related. And John goes on to present his theory about how Paul’s choice in life partner was based on who could provide that for him. It wouldn’t be the career-focused Jane, or the inconsequential groupies. 

And it couldn’t be John himself.

We should also note that, in answer to the second question, it is made clear that John’s previous declarations were but a retrospective interpretation of what happened. As he goes on to admit, at the time, John was surprised by Paul marrying Linda instead of Jane.

And that is how we finally get to the sentence in question: 

“I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.” 

A possible first layer of meaning is what I’m guessing you meant by this being “one of his most revealingly repressed-gay quotes.” 

1. The emphasis being placed on John never knowing what he wanted in a woman, and thus not being able to know what Paul would find more desirable in a wife.

He does go on to use admittedly questionable pronouns: “I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty.” It happened in other instances in this interview:

I just realized that [Yoko] knew everything I knew, and more, probably, and it was coming out of a woman’s head. It just sort of bowled me over, you know? And it was like finding gold or something. To find somebody that you can go and get pissed with, and have exactly the same relationship as any mate in Liverpool you’d ever had, but also you could go to bed with him, and it could stroke your head when you felt tired, or sick, or depressed. It could also be Mother. And obviously, that’s what the male-female – you know, you could take those roles with each other.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So one could see how, at this time, John was struggling to manage the differences between male and female partners. As Cynthia put it:

I think he was trying to find himself a… what he’d call a soulmate. Someone who had as mad ideas as he had. I think he felt that she had the talent… but that’s debatable. But he needed that— he didn’t need a ‘mumsie’ partner at that point. He needed a mate. And I think he actually said, at some stage, in an interview that, you know— She’s the nearest thing to a man — a mate; man — that he’s ever had in a woman.

— Cynthia Lennon, interviewed by Alex Belfield for BBC Radio (2006).

Another angle that I find curious is:

2. The parallel drawn between Linda’s knowledge of Paul’s wants (and her ability to satisfy them) versus John’s.

“[Linda] knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him.” / “I never knew what he wanted”

This one integrates a theme I’ve been interested in exploring recently: their epistemology of each other. Basically, assumptions of knowledge; when it works out and when it doesn’t.

1968: I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do

JOHN: Well, [‘How Do You Sleep’]’s an answer, you know? Paul, uh, personally doesn’t feel as though I insulted him or anything. ’Cause I had dinner with him last week, and he was quite happy.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Mike Douglas on The Mike Douglas Show (12 February 1972).

1973: And I know just how you feel / And I know now what I have done / And I know and I’m guilty (yes I am) / But I never could read your mind

In this specific case, he could be humbly admitting he never knew what Paul wanted. But another possible reading of the sentence is the exact opposite:

3. The assumption that they were so connected, so much like a single entity, that to know himself was to know Paul. That their wants and needs are aligned, and what John wants must be what Paul wants.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.

1967: I am he / As you are he / As you are me / And we are all together

1969: I know you, you know me

The mirror image of this interpretation would be Paul’s own thought-provoking declarations:

[T]he Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals— all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl.

— Paul McCartney, for Life Magazine (7 November 1969).

Q: Will Paul and Linda become John and Yoko?

PAUL: No, they will become Paul and Linda. 

— McCartney press release (9 April 1970).

And finally, I believe another very important facet expressed in this sentence is:

4. The theme of John not knowing what he wants for himself.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. […] But you don’t really know what you want until you find it.

This is a sentiment that John has expressed before.

JOHN: Weybridge won’t do at all. I’m just stopping at it […] I think of it every day — me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I’ll take my time; I’ll get my real house when I know what I want. You see there’s something else I’m going to do, something I must do — only I don’t know what it is. That’s why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn’t it for me.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard (4 March 1966).

JOHN: I think, in one way, all of us were under the slight illusion that we might— or maybe it wasn’t an illusion and maybe had we pushed harder we would have got what we wanted, but I’m not sure that anybody really knew what we wanted. We knew we didn’t like what was happening but nobody quite knew what it was that we wanted, cus we’d never had it!

This is another very fascinating avenue I’ve been wondering about. 

John Lennon, the Dreamer, not actually knowing how that dream would manifest. Him having a vague romantic idea of what he wanted, but not really knowing how to practically bring it about. 

[Imagine here a whole essay of John versus Paul in the studio, and their contrasting abilities to materialize the sounds they heard in their head and turn them into something that others could experience with them.]

In conclusion, these are about all the potential levels of nuance I can read in John’s statement at the moment. All of them fascinating and worth exploring. So I’m truly grateful to you for giving me the perfect opportunity to do so. 

Woke up this morning. Blues around my head. Ain't no need to ask the reason why. Went to the kitchen. Lit a cigarette. Blew the smoke rings in the sky. Just got to let it go. Just got to let it go.

Mm, it's real life. It's real. It's real life. It's real. Let go. Let go. Let go. (scats) Mm, let go. Mm, let go. Well, it's real life. It's real. Yes, it's real life. It's real. Let go. Let go. Like the mighty river flow. From the ocean to the shore. Let it go. Let go.

This whole article on the Beatles' debt to avant-garde composers is very interesting but i did smile at this bit...

John/Paul/Yoko

"I mean, 'cause [their problem] was, uh, about Yoko, really. [...] Let me tell you what I can remember is Paul and John were the best pals, really, right? They spent all their time together and stuff, and they had individual lives. But in the end they were the final sort of arbiters of everything between themselves. Yoko completely took over John. I mean, Paul just really felt left out and just hated it, you know what I mean? (John Dunbar)

"It was clear to Paul by this point that Yoko had become by far the most important person in John Lennon's life; even were she to somehow vaporize, John would not come running back to Paul after that unfortunate disappearance." (Danny fields)

“Paul and I had our differences early on, mostly creative ones, but we always got over them. Then I met Yoko and we fell in love. When I invited her to the recording studio during the Let It Be sessions, none of them took it well. This was a men’s club, and no women were allowed in the recording room. But Paul seemed the most bothered about Yoko, and part of me felt it was because he was jealous. Because up till then, he had all my attention, all my love when we were recording. And now there was another. Now there was Yoko.”(John)

"This was my best mate from my youth, the collaborator with whom I'd done some of the best work of the twentieth century. If he fell in love with this woman, what did that have to do with me? Not only did I have to let him do it, but I had to admire him for doing it. That was the position I eventually reached. There was nothing else I could do but be cool with it." (Paul)

"Being around Paul gave me a sense of stability. When I met Yoko, I knew it was time to cut myself loose. Paul hated me for turning my back on him and did everything he could to turn the others against me. He saw that he couldn't compete with Yoko, so he tried to stab us in the back. He was absolutely vicious, and it shattered whatever illusions I had about our so-called friendship." (John)

"I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love." (Paul)

"Paul wasn't happy. But the big things that were driving him mad were beyond me. He kept on working and writing, but when John came over, all he could talk about was how much he loved Yoko. That disturbed Paul. In spite of John's obvious happiness, Paul stifled his jealousy with not-very-cute bursts of racist crap." (Francie)

"Paul hates Yoko for stealing the love of his life away from him. No, not Linda…. John! Paul has never forgiven her for that." (Francie)

"John did put it that way, he was 'riding on the boat called Paul, and now I'm going to ride on a boat called Yoko." (Yoko)

"Yeah, I think we spurred each other into marriage. I mean, you know...They were very strong together, which left me out of the picture. So I got together with Linda and then we got our own kind of thing. [...] Um..and then yeah, I think they were a little bit peeved that we got married first. Probably. In a little way, you know, just minor jealousies. And so they got married. I don't know if that's ...I mean, who knows.."(Paul)

“I didn’t realise how sensitive the other Beatles were to John’s opinion. Paul worried about what John would say and was still longing for his friendship. [...] Those interviews were done before John’s death and Paul’s heart was broken, even then. It wasn’t just the break-up of the Beatles. It was more personal than that.” (Steven Gaines)

"Why this odd little Japanese lady? The reason, many people believed, was that more than a trophy wife, a model or an actress, John needed a chum. His love affair with Paul McCartney was ending." (Peter Brown)

"The Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals, all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl." (Paul)

"When John and Paul split up (think of them as a couple for a moment) their second mates [Linda and Yoko] had to stand by them." (Francie)

"One week and one day after Paul married Linda, I received a phone call from John. He and Yoko were at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée in Paris and wanted to get married, immediately. People believe that John's desire to get married so soon after Paul's marriage was a knee-jerk reaction. Perhaps it was psychologically about breaking up with Paul." (Peter Brown)

"For a reason to hold a grudge [against Yoko], think about the possibility of this: She took John from him. And she didn't particularly want to share John with his "ex significant other" on certain levels." (Francie Schwartz)

"It's like a marriage. These two broke up. And it took Paul a long time to get over it. John too, but he was just too macho to show it. But they had a marriage before Yoko arrived, although they both had girlfriends before." (Ray Connolly)

"With Yoko present, Paul's reign as Lennon's princess was doomed."(Peter McCabe)

"The disruption really came with the women. When you have very close personal relationships between two men and one of them goes off and gets a girl there's divergence.' (George Martin)

"If you go to a party and the husband and wife have been having a row - there's a tension, an atmosphere. And you wonder whether you are making things worse by being there. I think that was kind of the situation we found with Ringo. He was probably feeling a little bit odd because of the mental strangeness with John and Yoko and Paul." (George Martin)

"One of my feelings even when he used to lay into me was that he really didn’t mean it. I could always see why he was doing it. There was this attempt [on John’s part] to get rid of the spectre of me, which I understand, because he had to clear the decks just like I did." (Paul)

"Then also we were like married, so you got the bitterness. It’s not a woman scorned this time, it’s two men scorned — probably even worse. And I had to make way for Yoko. My relationship with John could not have remained as it was and Yoko feel secure." (Paul)

"Really all that happened was that John fell in love. With Yoko. And so, with such a powerful alliance like that, it was difficult for him to still be seeing me. It was as if I was another girlfriend, almost. Our relationship was a strong relationship. And if he was to start a new relationship, he had to put this other one away." (Paul)

"I understood what happened when he met Yoko. He had to clear the decks of his old emotions. He went through all his old affairs, confessed them all. Me and Linda did that when we first met. You prove how much you love someone by confessing all that old stuff. John's method was to slag me off." (Paul)

"Of course, for me Yoko provoked all the echoes of the past, of Stuart and John. How Stuart was the one who was between John and Paul. We must all bring our own interpretations of what jealousies or fears did really lead to the abandonment of the Beatles. I would suggest that it had to do as much with personal relationships and power as with artistic ambition and financial awareness." (Pauline Stutcliffe)

"Perhaps Jane wanted Paul to be something other than what he was, more like the young man in the public image of the perfect couple. But that wasn’t what he wanted. More important to Paul than his relationship with Jane, was his partnership with John Lennon, whom he’d met shortly after his mother died of breast cancer (the same illness from which Linda was to die) when he was 14. And when John’s mother was also to die in a road accident just over a year later, the friendship had intensified with a shared sense of loss. And so it was to remain as adulthood and fame arrived, and the girls came and went. And, in John’s case, a wife as well. [...] Exactly a year after their first encounter, Paul met Linda again when he contacted her while he and John were on business in New York. A few weeks later Paul called and invited Linda to join him at another business meeting in Los Angeles. Slowly but surely, they were coming together, just as certainly as John and Paul were breaking apart. John had fallen in love with Yoko Ono, and, increasingly fuelled by hard drugs, seemed bent on destroying what Paul saw as their creation. Losing interest in the Beatles, John had less time for Paul. The two could no longer write or record freely together without Yoko offering advice. Her presence put Paul off and John didn’t care. Paul was finding himself abandoned. Outwardly super-confident, inwardly he was growing increasingly insecure. There were girls all around him, of course. He couldn’t get rid of some of them, but he needed someone special at his side. He sent for Linda. [...] Catching Paul at the Beatles’ Apple headquarters in Savile Row, he told me they wanted a quiet wedding. A quiet wedding for a Beatle in the centre of London in 1969 was impossible. Eight days later John and Yoko married in secret in Gibraltar. [...] Paul had always played on stage with his best friend. He couldn’t play with John Lennon anymore, so he turned his new best friend, Linda, into a keyboard musician in his new group, Wings." (Ray Connolly)

"The Beatles were having severe problems then, with Yoko Ono apparently having driven a wedge between Paul McCartney and the most important person in his life, John Lennon." (Danny Fields)

"The wedding [of Paul and Linda] was front-page news all over the world [...] Girls wore the black of mourning for weeks afterwards, and, like an answering move in a chess game, John and Yoko were married in Gibraltar eight days later." (Danny Fields)