I was curious as to your theory about the "promise"?! I saw your post and I wanted to hear about it!
Hi anon! My theory—or thought—is that Paul at least feels, or remembers, that he and John made a promise to each other to be in each other’s lives forever. Whether that was as friends, closeted lovers, writing partners, or soulmates (or all of the above).
In “Get Enough,” Paul sings:
It was a time when we walked by the docks
I told you, “I need you all of my life”
And watching the tugs rolling by together
Do you remember?
I'm 100% sure this is a reference to a real event that occurred in their early days together. Paul writes about himself saying "I need you all my life" but I've no doubt it was mutual, otherwise it wouldn't mean so much to him. And to be fair, they managed to achieve that for a long time. Their success as Beatles, and the unusual life it allowed them to live, meant they achieved that. By that, I'm mostly suggesting living together as closeted lovers or romantic partners (on top of everything else). Until, of course, John left him for Yoko and broke that pact/promise, something that now, after the release of Man On The Run audiobook and film is quite obviously something that broke Paul's heart.
He admits to that heartbreak very plainly these days, and even to waiting for John to change his mind, to decide that the thing with Yoko was a fling and come back to him. He even mentions putting off building a table up in their Scotland farm during that period, one he eventually built when he realized John wasn't coming back after all.
That table even pops up in “Hey Diddle”:
I wouldn’t make her
Her wooden table
I wouldn’t care
The table story was only shared publicly for the first time in the Man On The Run audiobook, and honestly that detail sealed the deal for me. It paints a picture of Paul living with Linda but still emotionally waiting for John to come back. Only when that hope finally faded did he begin building a life with Linda properly—symbolized, in a very literal way, by building that table.
I’ve no doubt that Paul was nevertheless waiting, in one way or another, for John throughout much of the 1970s. After all, they had a pact. They made a promise. We’ll never know what might have happened if things had turned out differently.
In the new song, Paul sings:
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 admits this verse is about John. Geographically, the way I understand it, Dungeon Lane leads down to the Cast Iron Shore, which in my mind is exactly the kind of place where the scene by the docks in Get Enough takes place. It all seems to speak to the same memory—a promise he (they) made, kept secret in code, that he still stands by and never broke (after all, John was the one who broke the pact. Paul never actually 'left' John). These days, with John gone, I believe it means that he still considers John his soulmate and perhaps his first—albeit secret—love.
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