bodhbdearg

David Hockney was a friend and an incredible painter. I knew him during the 1960s and kept a friendship going until he died on Thursday, the 11th of June. He was very clever witty and fun to be with.

His paintings often gave off a feeling of great joy. Nancy and I enjoyed visiting his studios in California where we took a drive along Mulholland Drive which he made famous all over again in his sensational paintings.

Or in his London studio. The rooms were filled with paintings. Often some of the most recent pictures that he had done. He would talk about them and his very particular views on art. He felt that it was important to see correctly. He wasn’t a great fan of perspective and was always involved in inventing new ways to view the world. His many paintings, drawings, films and other media like iPad drawing he took readily to and mastered.

He was a serious Chain Smoker and believed it was everyone’s right to smoke like the days when he and I had been brought up in smoke filled rooms. We visited him once in Bridlington, Yorkshire. He met us at the train station and drove us to his house in a smoke filled car.

We will miss his fabulous personality, his laconic wit and his erudite views on how to look at the world.

Rest in peace, David. We love you.

Paul

A Bigger Interior with Blue Terrace and Garden (2017)

or: What’s going on in this Lennon song, and why does McCartney not like it?

As part of an album full of repudiations ("I don’t believe in Beatles!”) and reckonings (“My Mummy’s Dead!”) the litanies of "you" in "Working Class Hero" deserve closer inspection.

Paul's commentators have noted how he switches from first person singular "I" into first person plural ("we") or third person "he or she." This is a defense mechanism when things get emotionally vulnerable.

Meanwhile, John shifts pronouns away from himself into second person. Look at what he does in "You've Got to Hide You're Love Away," withdrawing from the exposed "Here I stand, head in hand, turn my face to the wall" to the safety of "you've got to hide." It draws the listener close as it blurs the focus on his own feelings.

Firstly, is he saying that a ‘Working class hero’ is something to be, or not to be? Is this one of the identities he no longer wants to claim because the victories weren’t/aren’t worth it?

What did The Beatles get from becoming Carnegies of rock? They got all this money, fame, power, idolization.

But it was like drugs, enthralling; they were "still fucking peasants" with agency an illusion, elusive. They had “no time” that wasn’t supervised.

“If you want to be a hero, well just follow me” He is using sarcasm to ridicule the aspirational goals that had governed his life up to that point as false, as folly. Rethinking those ambitions expunges his shared past with Paul. “Follow me,” like he is still leading a band. He is asking himself and the listener: “What can I do for good with all this power, fame that I earned jointly. If being a survivor of structural abuse/class-based injustices is the price of leadership, I don't know if I want it. None of my efforts has gotten me what I really want.” No wonder he thought heroism was dehumanizing. These profound self-doubts come with hindsight as he lays blame for his present state of mind.

"They hurt you at home, and they hit you at school.” “They despise a fool" are all lines that might well allude to Paul. And/or himself.

The Folks on the Hill

“The Folks Who Live On the Hill” was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II in 1937 (during the US Great Depression). It is about a couple who get to live the dream - a cozy, loving, married family together their whole lives. The lyrics bear some similarity to “When I’m Sixty-Four” in that “smaller games” are valued over “lofty aims." The song is not about wanting to have the best house in town and lord it over everybody else; it is about ranking love over wealth.

(Hammerstein, Oscar. The complete lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008.)

This sort of "Working Class Hero" bit

Fast forward past 12/8/1980. Someone who never wavered from his loyalty to representing a-working-class-hero-as-something-to-be is Paul.  It is no coincidence that he rarely criticizes John’s work but occasionally makes his discomfort with “Working Class Hero” known. Paul sees “Working Class Hero” as a dig. Paul brings it up in the Liverpool Oratorio documentary to dismiss Lennon’s bona fides while defending his own. "This sort of "Working Class Hero" bit, it’s not quite true" he tells conductor Carl Davis, as if it is theater. However, McCartney still valorizes the working-class hero. “Not for ourselves alone but for the whole world are we born,” he writes in the oratorio’s libretto, placing civic duty on a pedestal above personal fulfillment. Paul alludes to John’s song again in the title of the subsequent classical album Working Classical (1999).

Part of his sense of dignity comes from The Beatles as a rags-to-riches narrative. He writes in 1964: Eyes of The Storm about The Beatles ‘conquest’ of America: “Common people…. are my people…This is where I’m from. I grew up in a working-class family” and, later, “as someone who came from a working-class estate in Liverpool, I’m proud.”

The ex-Beatle rushed to help pull an unconscious 14-month-old girl from the mangled wreck of her pram, which had been slammed by a speeding car.

He then comforted the girls dying Japanese nanny for half an hour until the ambulance arrived.

“It occurred in October of 1980 in the tiny village of Tenterden, in Kent. Wings had been rehearsing in a manor house rented from prominent London publisher Martin Miller when they heard the terrible sounds of a car crash outside the main gates.

Laine recalls: “Apparently, this young Japanese au pair girl who worked for the Millers was taking their infant daughter, Cara, for a walk in her pram when this supposedly drunken driver tried to overtake another car and knocked them both down. The baby flew up into the air and landed unhurt by a hedgerow, but the poor au pair was very badly injured.”

“I was actually the first to reach her, but Paul dove right in and started nursing her, trying to do what he could.”

“Paul was just saying things like, ‘It’ll be alright, luv, don’t worry,’ but we were getting no response. At one point he glanced over at me and slowly shook his head. He knew. We both knew. Still, he just sat there stroking her long black hair, talking and sometimes even singing softly as she lay there dying.“

Apparently out of respect for the victim of the crash and family Paul had his team enforce a tight media ban on his involvement.

Much more detail here! (Warning for graphic descriptions of injury and death) I generally take Giuliano with a grain of salt but it appears to be corroborated in several places, this clipping and a blog post from an acquaintance of the child’s family.

This is original hand-drawn poster artwork by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The poster was used to help promote the Monterey Pop Festival, a star-studded three-day concert event that took place June 16-18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. [...] Artist, illustrator and photographer Tom Wilkes was hired to be the art director for the Monterey Pop Festival. One of his many responsibilities was to provide the design and layout of the program for the festival. When it was confirmed in February of 1967 that The Beatles would not perform, Wilkes asked Derek Taylor to see if they would be kind enough to contribute something which he could use in the program. Wilkes received this incredible poster in return, which was reproduced as a message to festival goers from The Beatles. The artwork appears on page 16 of the 80 page full-color festival program. Although previously attributed to all four members of The Beatles, in reality this poster was a collaboration between only Lennon and McCartney. Using colored pencils, felt tip marker and ballpoint pen, both jointly wrote from top to bottom down the center: “PEACE TO monterey FROM SGT. PEPPERS LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND LOVING YO you it happened in Monterey A LONG TIME AGO I LOVE YOU.” The line “it happened in Monterey A LONG TIME AGO” appears in the popular 1930 song “It Happened In Monterey,” later popularized by Frank Sinatra in 1956. Although both Lennon and McCartney are responsible for the artwork, it was Paul who signed on behalf of all The Beatles “Sincerely John, Paul, George and Harold.” John wrote vertically along the left side “congratulations elvis. say hello to uncle stan. how are you bob.” Below the “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club” lines, John also wrote the word “Beatles”, followed by a heart with an arrow through it, and the word “you.” The obvious message there being “Beatles love you.” John is also primarily responsible for the intricate psychedelic artwork on the right side of the poster. That area features one large head evocative of the Hindu god Krishna. Contained within that drawing — among many other things — are the heads of the four Beatles with green faces and their new mustached look. There are two pairs of round faces drawn along the top. One pair is more impressionistic and the other pair is more literal, but all 4 faces have holes punched through the eyes. Which of the two – Lennon or McCartney – did that is uncertain but it was clearly not done after the poster was used in the program, as that is how it appears there.

BEATLES | “Peace To Monterey” Pop Festival Original Artwork (listing no longer exists but the text is available on The Paul McCartney Project)

WYCOTP's First Annual "Your Story, Your Pride" Digital Zine!

A collection of essays from queer Beatles fans for the month of Pride! Coming out on June 16!!

✨🏳️‍🌈✨🏳️‍⚧️✨🏳️‍🌈✨🏳️‍⚧️✨🏳️‍🌈✨🏳️‍⚧️✨

Code

We met at Forthlin Road And wrote a secret code To never be spoken I stand by what I said The promise that I made Will never be broken

Paul McCartney - Days We Left Behind

A lot of what we, The Beatles, did was very much in an enclosed scene. Other people found it difficult - even John's wife, Cynthia, found it very difficult - to penetrate the screen that we had around us. As a kind of safety barrier we had a lot of 'in' jokes, little signs, references to music; we had a common bond in that and it was very difficult for any 'outsider' to penetrate. That possibly wasn't good for relationships back then.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

There was no point asking if they [the Beatles] really got on together. It’s obvious they do. When one makes a joke, the others roar with laughter. They have their own “inside” language when they want to keep something private. Mrs. Lennon says they tease her with it all the time. And they’ve been together so much, sometimes they don’t even have to talk in code. As Paul says, “we can just read each other’s thought waves.”

Steve Brandt, “7 DAYS and 7 NIGHTS WITH THE BEATLES.” Photoplay Magazine (July 1964)

JOHN: We have met some new people since we've become famous, but we've never been able to stand them for more than two days. Some hang on a bit longer, perhaps a few weeks, but that's all. Most people don't get across to us. We can't go around with anybody for a long time unless they are a friend, because we're so closely knit. We talk in code to each other. We always did when we had strangers around us...

THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY

PAUL: If there was someone disastrous in the dressing room (because, occasionally, someone would get in who was a right pain and we didn't have time for all of that) we would have little signs. We'd say 'Mal...' and yawn, and that would be the sign to get rid of them. It was a very 'in' scene.

THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY

Malcolm Searle would be the last to complain - he, too, had fine moments with them as the tour progressed. His is a name that stays with me, because I made it a code-word for breaking up interviews. In order to protect the visitor’s feelings and also to relieve Paul (for it was usually Paul, the most consistently willing to undertake public relationships) of all responsibility for termination of the interview, I would say: ‘Paul, I know you could go on talking for hours/till the cows come home/till goats learn to play the tenor sax - but Malcolm Searle is still waiting for the interview you promised him. He's being very patient [as indeed he always was] but he has a deadline...’

Fifty Years Adrift, Derek Taylor (1984)

I’m a smoke-screen expert since John got shot. I lie all the time. It’s the price of fame. I used to laugh at that, but there’s a price for everything. We have code names in the family for places we own or like to go to, and you’ll never see photographs of my kids.”

Interview for Evening Standard The Gospel According to Paul

The Beatles were about humour, we had a great humour between us. There was an 'in' side to the track of humour that we would use as a protective thing.

Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now

"We've a very tight school, the Beatles. We're like a machine that goes boom, boomchick, chickboom, each of us with our own little job to do. We're just like dogs who can hear high-pitched sounds that humans can't. We can be talking to some character and, suddenly, if he becomes a drag, we can all put the shutters up, freeze him out and he would never know. It's amazing. Like radar. I can pick up Ringo's mood just by looking at him. It's our own mutual protection mechanism. If we didn't have it, we'd fall apart."

The Daily Mirror: The one that bites – Donald Zec dissects Mr J. Lennon. (March 1965)

Music

JOHN: Well, because of the situation we’re in, and I often express myself through song, or mainly through song, somebody can have – let’s call it— Let’s say he’s a brother of mine, in the family. Now, if two brothers argue and fight, for whatever reason, or even – write, the only way they can express themselves, because they’re not artists, is either through letters or through dialogue. One brother goes away to sea, not because they had a fight, but because he was going away to sea anyway. The last thing they did was have an argument. He, the brother away at sea – let’s call that me, ‘cause I went to America – might write to his brother…

...

Paul, you could say, his lyrics are very sort of... non-specific – if one knows the person, one knows what is coming down. You know, you can read what’s being said—

John Lennon, April 16th, 1973 (Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles)

"Though thinking of Paul caused John pain, he could never get McCartney out of his head; Pau's music was everywhere, and it always made him jealous, even the songs he enjoyed. In Bermuda, John was listening to all kinds of things on the radio, not just the Muzak and classical he listened to in New York. "Coming Up," Paul's hit single from McCartney II, was unavoidable. Every time he tuned in the BBC or one of the local stations, there it was. It began to drive John crackers. Paul was calling for a Beatles reunion, and every word of the song was addressed directly to him. Ultimately, he came to admire it and draw inspiration from it. The small room next door to the master bedroom had been converted to a two-track recording studio complete with rhythm box. To get into gear for the demo tape, John played "Coming Up" on his guitar over and over, sometimes improvising his own words, sometimes singing Paul's words, which spoke of peace and the possibility of again playing music together."

Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon

“But it was very painful, a bad period, there was a lot of deep messages in all the stuff we did then. I was really writing a lot of songs to John.”

Paul McCartney, 2001

"I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”.

Paul, BBC 4’s Mastertapes (2016)

Oh, for what it’s worth, no less than John Lennon loved the song. I spent a long time talking to [photographer] Bob Gruen once, it was great as we talked about a lot of stuff that he doesn’t usually get grilled on. One of the things that came up was the times he spent with John listening to the radio. Bob singled this song out as one he and John would listen to and how much John loved the song. John took the song quite personally, and saw it as Paul sending a message to him: ‘Yeah, I know you think I only write silly love songs, but I love you.’ Bob said John specifically mentioned the ‘I love you’ refrain as being a message from Paul to him. We can speculate all we want, but I have no reason to doubt the word or memory of a guy who sat in the Dakota bedroom with John and listened to this song with him.

gswan, c/o Steve Hoffman Music Forums. (October 28th, 2010)

JOHN: Because I’m human, and I get irritated, and I get angry. And I got so furious when I heard Ram the first time that I just wrote the song.

REPORTER: You were furious because you don’t think the level of music is—?

JOHN: No, I was furious because of – there’s messages to me and the others in it! Uh, the ‘Too Many People’—

YOKO: “You made the first mistake.”

JOHN: —“You made the first mistake”, all those lines are directly to us. It ain’t paranoia, it’s directed to us. Like, I think ‘Dear Friend’ is it… But we met the other week and we decided to stop it all, you know? Because we’d both had enough. The four of us have – I mean, including the wives. Yes, sorry?

February?, 1972: At a press conference to announce plans for a possible tour backed by Elephant’s Memory

Telepathy & Dreams

HINDLE: What do you think about language? JOHN: I think it’s a bit crummy, you know? It is a drag form of communication, really. We’ll get – we’ll get telepathy. I believe that. HINDLE: You believe that? JOHN: Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure as anything I believe. It’s too… Because now we need it so much. […] There are – there’s people everywhere of the same mind and it’s just… even amongst ourselves we can’t communicate. Which is the hard bit, you know. HINDLE: Yeah. JOHN: Amongst the people that sort of really agree. HINDLE: Just ’cause of words? JOHN: Just ’cause of words, and upbringing, and attitude, and how you express your… Well, it’s just some – you’ve got to find a mutual sort of language to express yourself, you know? And my language is that— HINDLE: Unless you fall in love it’s impossible to communicate like that. JOHN: I mean, I wasn’t in love last year, but I was communicating quite well with people. Not as well, or maybe not as powerfully. ’Cause now there’s two of us, doing that, brrmmm, whatever it is. Sending out a vibration or whatever. But before it was me and… or me and George, alright, or whatever it was; we weren’t in love, but. You know. There’s enough in you to shove it out. It is just that bit. If you – if somebody comes in a room and he’s uptight and that, he can make the whole room uptight.

John Lennon, interviewed by Maurice Hindle (December 1968).

JOHN: [‘How Do You Sleep’]’s not serious. Like, if Paul was really, really hurt by it, I’ll soo– I’ll know by the vibes, come round. Even if he doesn’t call, well, I’ll explain it to him. I’ll even write to him, you know. If he really really thinks it’s – thinks it’s really really serious.

September 9th, 1971 (St Regis Hotel, New York)

KANE: Do you ever have any, uh – this is another controversial question – any internal problems within The Beatles? Let’s say the four guys, you’re bound to have differences. Have any serious internal problems ever upset you? JOHN: [pause] Um… We get plenty of— KANE: It’s a tough question to ask. JOHN: It isn’t tough, because we can manage them. Because we have plenty of arguments, but we’re also so attuned to each other, and we know each other so well, through the years, that an argument never reaches a climax. Or it never reaches the point where somebody goes off ‘cause they’re done talking, you know. KANE: In other words, it’s forgotten. JOHN: It’s not forgotten. But we know each other so well, it’s like sort of mind-reading. If an argument’s building up between Ringo and I, say, there comes to a point where we know what’s coming next and it’s all – everybody packs in. Or something – some, “Okay, he wins,” you know. So we have ordinary arguments, like other people, but we don’t – there’s no sort of conflict. All the people who have conflict in show business either get married about nineteen times, they leave the group they’re in and go solo… and nothing ever happens.

John Lennon and Ringo Starr, interviewed by Larry Kane (2 September 1964).

NEIL: I’d just rather not say anything. It’s one of those situations. PAUL: Yeah. [pause] Well, that’s – that’s the trouble you see, there, ‘cause that’s it. It’s like, with our – heightened awareness, the answer is not to say anything, you know. But it isn’t. ‘Cause I mean, we screw each other up totally if we don’t do that. ‘Cause we’re not ready for your heightened… vows of silence. [laughs; hapless] We’re really not! Like, we don’t know what the fuck each other’s talking about, when that – we all just sort of get— NEIL: I think it’s just between the four of you, that get it. That’s what I’d pretend. PAUL: Oh yeah, right, yeah. But you see, that’s it, that’s why John doesn’t say anything. ‘Cause he, you know, he just… There was something the other day, when I said, “Well, what do you think?” And he just stood there and didn’t say anything. And then – and I know exactly why, you know. I mean, I wouldn’t, if… [long pause] Somehow. You know, there’s nothing really much to be said about it. You just – we all just have to do it, and all that, instead of like talking about it. But – but if one of us is talking about it, it’s a drag if the other three aren’t. Because then it sort of throws you off. [inaudible; voice marking tape slate] I mean, we’ve just been talking about it now for a few years, you know. Like this…

From the Get Back sessions (13 January 1969).

JOHN: Hey! Did you dream about me last night? PAUL: [long pause] I can’t remember. JOHN: Very strong dream. We both dreamt about it. It was amazing! Different dreams, you know, but I thought you must’ve been there. [inaudible] I was touching you. [inaudible] PAUL: Nothing to worry about, though? JOHN: Nothing to worry about, no.

January 26th, 1969

PAUL: I remember when John and I were first hanging out together, I had a dream about digging in the garden with my hands. I’d dreamt that before but I’d never found anything other than an old tin can. But in this dream I found a gold coin. I kept digging and I found another. And another. The next day I told John about this amazing dream I’d had and he said, ‘That’s funny, I had the same dream’. So both of us had this dream of finding this treasure. And I suppose you could say it came true. I remember years later talking about it – ‘Remember that dream we had?’; ‘Yeah, that was far out’. So the message of that dream was: keep digging lads.

Completely unedited thought dump mostly so I can remember as much as possible (I’m v tired so I’m gonna apologise for the typos before I even make them)

The most important info first: paul was in his usual hoodie and shirt combo which is NOT snazzy BUT he was wearing some snazzy socks and MOST importantly they were Wings socks

Second most important info: it was Rob fucking Brydon interviewing him which is so funny to me and honestly he was a great choice! Paul seemed pretty relaxed and even though it was all the same stories we’ve heard during the other interviews etc for the album, it was lovely to be in the same room while he told them and Rob managed get his silly side out as well

Because it was Rob Brydon (do I need to do a cultural explainer on Rob for non-brits? is he known elsewhere?) they had a bet on how many impressions Rob would do which ended up including Paul himself, Ringo, Ronnie Corbett (obvs) and Michael Cain (also obvs) all of which seemed to delight Paul

There was also a sweet moment where Rob was saying that people doing impressions of paul are doing it because they love him so much and that made the whole crowd erupt and Paul seemed genuinely touched and grateful and took a moment to formulate a reply 😭

He suggested at one point Rob had been watching porn

To the question ‘how do you put people are ease’ he answered ‘drugs’

Quite a few Nancy stories!!! I actually wanna hang out with her so bad

During the first song Rob had a moment of realisation that he and Paul were just gonna have to sit opposite each other while the songs played and he definitely didn’t know what to do with himself lmao

Paul really got into though and was doing that classic Paul wiggle and pretending to play the instruments

Paul just kept answering ‘I don’t know’ to most questions about how he writes songs, puts then together etc which made me giggle and tbh I believe him I do think he might just be magic

Hearing the album in such a great space just made me love it even more 😭

The first star of the night section was probably my fave bc I’d had a bit of stressful morning, but then from the moment I arrived in the queue I had such an amazing time and everyone was so friendly (shout out to Stephen who I spoke to for about 90mins in the queue and I really think I was supposed to meet him today 😭) ANYWAY my point was that being there with all the paul fans just made me feel so so happy and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world and then they played first star and I just had a little cry because yeah. things are gonna be alright man.

Paul also joked that just playing the records and having a sit down might be the way forward lmao

He did play that weird chord at the start of as you lie there AND the opening of life can be hard on his guitar!!! And got a big cheer obviously

I feel like I’m forgetting things already 😩

Oh before playing Come Inside Paul’s only explanation was ‘it’s a banger’ and then said ‘So this is come inside…. And please do’. ok paul!

Overall it was just so special and went by SO quick and I wanna do it again right now but a version where it’s just me and paul and I can ask him whatever I like and he tells me everything

Okay I’m gonna sleep and hopefully not miss my stop good night

Oh please send me questions if you wanna know anything else!!!!