Fark Yeah!

"I love you so much more Thank you will ever know"

That's not in the song, is it?

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"check on" was originally "find out"

No one ever needs to find out What we do

A while back I wrote here of the "monumental moment" when Paul and John decided that anything they wrote, it would carry both their names: Saying "Anything I write I will put both of our names on," is like saying "we will be together FOREVER." It's pretty much akin to a marriage. It's a suggestion of the idea that in marriages partners become "one flesh". ... It might be a very hinge upon which this whole relationship should be researched and understood. A claiming of co-creation and co-custody of the fruit of their commingled sense of their selves -- their "marriage." With the release of the The Boys of Dungeon Lane, and of course the these lines: 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

I’ve been thinking, what if that secret code was the marriage of their names, the fact that they would present anything they created as from both of them, because they felt very much like a united couple, publicly declaring themselves in a committed relationship with each other, LEGALLY and OPENLY the only way boys could do that, back then? “My partner, my co-creator, my friend. Anything that comes from me, comes from him, too, because we are one.”

I wonder if it was not exactly that decision and promise that was behind Paul writing “World Without Love” when he was only sixteen years old. A while back I wrote wondering whether "World Without Love" was in fact the pro-gay anthem of a young man who realized that he was in love with a guy, and would not be abiding by the rules, that if gay love were illegal and he was meant to live without his relationship to John, then he would not be living in that world. Seen that way, the song is a nervy and brave thing for a boy to write. But, as usual with Paul, he took a serious thought and surrounded it with a jaunty tune and in that way distracted attention away from it. People liked the tune, barely heard the words which are so different from them. (I actually wrote a fanfic with exactly that being the case and with John mocking it for having serious words with a skippy tune. Not my best work but if can be found here.) I’ve long been agnostic on whether McLennon was real, figuring that if so it was their business and since Paul didn’t seem to want to admit it, that was his choice and there it was. But then I saw the lyrics to “Friends to Go” and realized: He has something he wants to say, is dying to tell, but he’s waiting, because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Specifically, he’s waiting for Yoko to pass, but the years were moving and who knew who would outlast who?

I've been waiting on the other side For your friends to leave so I don't have to hide I'd prefer they didn't know So I've been waiting on the other side For your friends to go

I've been sliding down a slippy slope I've been climbing up a slowly burning rope But the flame is getting low I've been waiting on the other side For your friends to go

These are such poignant lyrics, so full of longing and frustration and patience. And after I read them I really hoped he’d come out, that he’d find the peace of just saying what he wanted to say, in his own way, and finally be free. I think Dungeon Lane has been his declaration. In interviews he seems so at ease, so happy, so free. With these songs it seems like he’s saying “I’ve had three great loves, and I sing about all of them, here, but the longest love started in my youth and has never waned. I am a bisexual man and I love him. And I love them. And if you can come inside and hear it, you’re welcome to. And if you don’t, oh, well, you’ve been invited." He’s told his story, fully and finally, and he seems at peace, and he didn’t have to wait anymore, for someone to die, to tell it. I think when he married Nancy on John’s Birthday, in the same office where he married Linda, it was a way of putting all of his three great loves into the same heart-shaped shelf and saying: these are equal, these are real: I love John; I love Linda; I love Nancy. Do not mistake that, or think Heather ever came anywhere near into what my loves have been.

Q: The song talks about the beginning of your friendship with John Lennon, and you mention a secret that you kept. Are you able to tell us what that secret was? Paul: No, I mean, that's the secret, you know. The lyrics is, "We met at Forthlin Road and wrote a secret code." So I'm meaning we wrote songs, but you did, you had secrets that only you two know. That's what brings you together.

John and Paul being cute / doing a bit

Paul about to speak up...