*dhum tana intensifies*

February 17th, 1984: Upon the topic of John’s lingering emotional ties to the Beatles, John’s musician friend and erstwhile Lost Weekend companion Harry Nilsson tells writer Geoffrey Giuliano about a curious encounter a girl had with John in the ‘70s. (Note: If one takes Harry’s word for it, this was probably around the Lost Weekend period or after. As wholly disreputable a biographer and writer as Giuliano is, this clip at least proves that Harry did say what Giuliano printed and has since been shared in gleeful fannish circles.) 

HARRY: I miss him very much. I’d like to say I was a very close friend. I wasn’t a very close friend – no one was a very close friend to John other than the Beatles. 

GIULIANO: Did he miss the Beatles? Was he mournful about what happened, over the, you know—?

Poem by Paul McCartney, from his 2002 book Blackbird Singing.

Full poem:

"I felt Paul would be easier to talk to if he could be led away from John — a feat that I was unable, with politeness, to accomplish." (Phyllis Batelle)

“John and Paul were inseparable that night, like Siamese twins. It was like the rest of us didn’t exist. They spent most of the evening talking, conducting a whispery summit in one corner." (Charles Robert)

"Paul and John were so tight it was like one person at times." (Roger McGuinn)

"Paul and John were the best pals. They spent all their time together and stuff, and they had individual lives. But in the end they were the final arbiters of everything between themselves." (John Dunbar)

"My uncle was a sound engineer for Granada tv studios in 60's and actually met the Beatles because he worked on 'The Music of Lennon and McCartney' special. He actually chatted with Ringo behind the scenes briefly but didn't speak with the others. He also stated that John and Paul acted very strange throughout the evening. According to him they followed each other continuously even when it was not required, as one got up so did the other, as one sat so did the other, they would finish each sentences, and they were often seen staring at each other for excruciating periods of time (his exact words). He said behind the scenes people were joking about them being a couple because they seemed so close." (Anonymous user)

"I constantly saw Lennon & McCartney together because Paul came along to see that I wasn’t rude to John– who I can’t say I got on with.Paul didn’t want me to upset John." (Sir Joseph Lockwood)

At that time they were closer than any two men I've ever known." (Alistair Taylor)

"They were intensely close [..] Such an odd couple really, because they were different and yet very similar. Both had big egos, both very good songwriters. But they needed each other like mad.” (George Martin)

"They finished each other’s sentences, laughed together, just seemed totally in sync. I was a 15-year-old girl, but I did notice that about the two of them and will never forget it.” (Lizzie Bravo)"

"They were so busy being John and Paul that they forgot who else was around at the time." (George Harrison)

"[Linda]'s like John in that kind of way. She's like, 'Go on and do it. Try it.'"

"James reminds me very much of John in many ways: he's got beautiful hands. John had beautiful hands.”

"When me and Elvis Costello came together...there were similarities between him and John. They both got specs. People with glasses got a different sort of attitude to the world, I think. They could be a little more introverted...a litttle more of a pussycat on the inside and more aggressive on the outside. Which John was, and I think Elvis is a little bit. I like that in people."

"The nice thing for me is seeing John there, him being right-handed, me being left-handed, it felt to me like I was looking in a mirror. So that was a way I had learned to write and it was the way I liked to write and Elvis was very happy to work like that. So it was like a repeat of that process, and so he was John, basically, and I was Paul."

"I felt Elvis Costello was the nearest to John and I get a lot of journalists asking me this. But I got pissed off after a while and replied, ‘Yeah, they both wore glasses.’ No matter how anyone reminds me of John, they’re not John."

"Whenever I see John with these sorts of glasses, it reminds me of the way he would take him off when there were girls around. For some reason people think they look better without their glasses! And now, whenever other people do that it always reminds me of John."

"To lose a partner like that, that you’d been through so much with, to suddenly have the mat ripped from underneath your feet. He was friend of mine, but to my brother, he was a soulmate." (Mike McCartney)

"With a surer sense of self, and an awesome agony from the death of a soulmate in New York, it was time to fold Wings and emerge once again as Paul McCartney solo artist." (Mark Lewinsohn)

"....Paul, who until then had been his buddy, his soulmate..." (Hunter Davies)

"For a man who lost a soulmate and song-writing partner, you can imagine how the horrors of gun violence are an issue close to his heart." (Stuart Bell, Paul’s publicist)

"With John and I, it was so special, I think both of us knew we couldn’t get that again. [...] We developed, organically, together. And had the same sense of humour. And learned things at the same rate. Found out about Vietnam together. All of these little awarenesses pretty much hit us at the same time over a period of years. And you really become soulmates when that happens." (Paul)

“During the session Paul fell into a lugubrious mood. He said, ‘I’ve just realized that John is gone. John’s gone. He’s dead and he is not coming back.’ And he looked completely dismayed, like shocked at something that had just hit him. ‘Well, it’s been a few weeks now.’ He said, ‘I know, Eric, but I’ve just realized." (Eric Stewart, 1981)

"I just started singing [My Old Friend] again, and Paul really stated to cry. At the end of the song he walked outside the studio and stood by the pool and he was really going at it. And Linda put her arms around me and said, "thank you so much." She said Paul hadn't been able to cry, to really get it out since Lennon was killed the last December. This was February 2nd." (Carl Perkins, 1981)

“It’s still weird even to say, ‘before he died’. I still can’t come to terms with that. I still don’t believe it. It’s like, you know, those dreams you have, where he’s alive; then you wake up and… 'Oh’.” (Paul, 1986)

"It is five-and-a-half years since John Lennon was gunned down outside his New York home, but the memory of that great loss still makes Paul McCartney cry. “I haven’t really come to terms with it,” Paul admitted. “You might as well ask me how I coped with my mum’s death when I was 14 and she died from cancer at 40. I dealt with it badly. I occasionally cry, but the nice thing is I think of them with great warmth and great love, and that’s what counts.” There are moments, like when Paul is recalling some stories about John for his children, when memories become too much emotionally. “I choke up,” he said. “I care very deeply, but I don’t know what to do with my care.” (1986)

"Paul talked about John a a lot, but the strange thing was that it was in the present tense, “John says this" or "John thinks that. Very weird." (Peter Cox, 1987)

"Occasionally, it wells up. Y'know, and I'm at home on the weekend suddenly and I start thinking about him or talking to the kids about him and I can't handle it." (Paul, 1987)

"Is there a record you like to put on just to hear John’s voice?" I ask Paul the next day. Paul looks startled. He fumbles. “Oh, uh. There’s so much of it. I hear it on the car radio when I’m driving.” No, that’s not what I mean", I persist. "Isn’t there a time when you just wish you could talk to John, when you’d like to hear his voice again?" For some reason, he instead responds to the original question.“Oh sure,” he says and looks a little taken aback. ‘Beautiful Boy". (1990)

"Also not obvious is that McCartney [for the Liverpool Oratorio] has penned a gorgeous black-spiritual-like piece for mezzo-soprano that intones the last words spoken to John Lennon as he lay dying of gunshot wounds in the back of a New York police car -- "Do you know who you are?" McCartney gets a bit choked up at one point when he reveals, "Not a day goes by when I don't think of John.” (1991)

"Delicious boy, delicious broth of a boy. He was a lovely guy, you know. And it gets sadder and sadder to be saying “was”. Nearer to when he died I couldn’t believe I was saying “was”, but now I do believe I’m saying “was”. I’ve resisted it. I’ve tried to pretend he didn’t get killed." (Paul, 1995)

"I know I will never get over it and hope I will never get over it." (Paul, 2001)

“John Lennon was shot dead in 1980. That totally knocked dad for six. I haven’t really spoken to him a lot about it because it is such a touchy subject." (James McCartney, 2013)

"For the last 40 years, he hasn't produced an album that anybody cares about. Because he misses John. The lost of his best friend since the age of 15 has made him slightly nuts. As my boss at EMI once said to me, "Get the nutters, Dave. Get the artists who are damaged. They're the ones who are going to be stars!" (David Ambrose, 2019)

"It's very difficult for me and I, occasionally, will have thoughts and sort of say: "I don't know why I don't just break down crying every day? […] You know, I don't know how I would have dealt with it because I don't think I've dealt with it very well. In a way… I wouldn't be surprised if a psychiatrist would sort of find out that I'm slightly in denial, because it's too much." (Paul, 2020)

"Like any bereavement, the only way out is to remember how good it was with John. Because I can't get over the senseless act. I can't think about it. I'm sure it's some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it." (Paul, 2020)

"When I talked to Paul about John and when he missed John most, he couldn't answer me for a long time and his eyes teared up. And I asked him where he thinks about John and when John comes into his mind and he just … he lost it, he completely lost it. I think the fact that John died the way he did destroyed Paul. I think it killed a part of Paul." (Bob Spitz, 2021)

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The following two are from the gossip website Datalounge, so they may or may not be true. Still interesting though:

"The one time I was ever actually in a room with Paul, zillion people between me and him (and no way I'm gonna bother him, all of us who travel in celeb circles have people we're fans of and all of us inexplicably try to hide it to seem "cooler"), he started talking loudly about himself and John, and how hard it was not to have him there. I remember him saying something along the lines of not a day passing that John's not still in it with him, but it's not like he can pick up a phone and say, "Hey, just needed to hear your voice today," and even when he got craggy responses, he still missed them. He misses it all, and it's bothering to him that he misses him more as time goes on -- it doesn't heal, he just learns new ways to bandage the wound."

Ive been having a lot of really strong feelings lately and this song really touches me

when i was 10 hey jude was one of the first songs i learned on my ukulele, i didnt even really know much about the beatles then when i started to play but it felt like they were talking to me and i was conversing back!