ALL I REALLY WAS DOING / WAS WAITING FOR YOU

hi everyone!!! my very first ttrpg is now live!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN... THE BAND! 🎸🎶

a gm-less game for 2-6 players inspired by the beatles.

play out the story of a legendary band on the verge of a breakup; your beginnings, successes, struggles, and the family you’ve found within it.

“I’m your new neighbor!” 

Paul and Linda before a Wings concert by Joe Stevens, 1972

*lights cigarette* *sighs heavily*

i detest this narrative because it's based upon the notion that linda was able to be controlled which we have simply not seen validated by any legitimate accounts, ever. like, she literally said "no" when paul first brought up the idea of marriage

and something i think people tend to forget is that during paul's post-beatles depression era, when he was drinking heavily and generally was Very Unpleasant to be around, linda was raising a 5 year old and a newborn baby in a new country, with absolutely no help. and then she was also supporting paul (both emotionally and financially) at the same time. several other examples shows us that linda was not some weakling who would bend to paul's whims. all available evidence (i.e. her interviews, his interviews, third party accounts of their marriage) tells us that everything she did was of her own volition

He's not perfect by any means, but, as everyone above has stated so eloquently, most efforts to discuss him, his relationships, and the role he plays in them are colored by bad faith and a lot of assumptions that don't pass muster. (Or by not reading sources with a critical eye, taking other available evidence into account...)

I don't know how interested any of you are in the Fest for Beatles Fans, which I've attended twice now, but I thought everyone needed to hear this story.

I attended a panel with Adrian Sinclair, Steve Holley, Laurence Juber, and Allan Kozinn. The two on the ends wrote The McCartney Legacy. The other two were in Wings during Back to the Egg.

Recording "Arrow Through Me," which I've confirmed with the McCartney Project was done in Campbeltown, Scotland, they finished up a long day and went out to the pub. According to Steve Holley, they both drank everyone else under the table and around dawn, they emerged, staggering, to the street. Paul stopped and said, "d'you hear that?"

"What?"

"Do you hear a horse?"

Steve did, in fact, hear a horse.

"It's my wife," Paul said. "I'm in trouble."

Indeed, Linda rode up on a horse, stopped in front of them, and looked down. "Look at the state of you two," she said. "You disgust me." Steve said something about asking her if she'd let that man marry her daughter, which I didn't quite get, though she said, "Yes, but that's not the issue right now."

And Paul got up behind her and they rode away.

“P.S. The bit that really puzzled us was asking to meet WITHOUT LINDA AND YOKO. I know you’re camp! But let’s not go too far! I thought you’d have understood BY NOW, that I’m JOHNANDYOKO.”

— John Lennon’s letter to Paul McCartney, published in Melody Maker (November, 1971)

“Q. Have you ever fucked a guy?

A. Not yet, I thought I’d save it til I was 40, life begins at 40 you know, tho I never noticed it.

Q. It is trendy to be bisexual and you’re usually ‘keeping up with the Jones’, haven’t you ever... there was talk about you and PAUL...

A. Oh, I thought it was about me and Brian Epstein... anyway I’m saving all the juice for my own version of THE REAL FAB FOUR BEATLES STORY etc... etc…”

— John Lennon, “Interview with by/on John Lennon and/or Dr. Winston O’Boogie” for Interview Magazine (November, 1974)

“Q: Actually, there wasn’t that much press attention to the separation as one might have expected.

JOHN: Well I read more about myself than you probably do, and I’ll tell you there was. I mean, they would catalogue everyone you went around with, and things like, ‘Lennon In Florida Trip’… things like Rona Barrett wrote that Yoko was living with my ex-wife in a ‘strange relationship’. She was putting that around... we got the clippings and everything. I mean that was dead wrong, because Yoko was definitely NOT living with my ex-wife in ‘a very feminist relationship’! I see them all, because I’ve got a clipping service and I get all the newspapers, and you can bet your life somebody’s going to send you the clippings...

Q: Yeah, your friends...

JOHN: Yes, all your best friends let you know what’s going on. I was trying to put it ‘round that I was gay, you know — I thought that would throw them off... dancing at all the gay clubs in Los Angeles, flirting with the boys... but it never got off the ground.

Q: I think I’ve only heard that lately about Paul.

JOHN: Oh, I’ve had him, he’s no good. (We laugh.)”

— John Lennon, interview w/ Lisa Robinson for Hit Parader: “A conversation with John Lennon” (December, 1975)

“The next night Elliot took us out with a friend of his, Sal Mineo, and we all went to a gay cabaret/discotheque. John was oblivious to the gay ambience. He was curious about everyone’s sexuality and liked to gossip about who was sleeping with whom, whether they were gay or straight. John made no judgements about homosexuality but was really curious about who was and who wasn’t gay.  

He knew that his appearance at a gay club might start rumors about his own sexuality, and it made him laugh. He told me that there had been rumors about him and his first manager, Brian Epstein, and that he usually didn’t deny them. He liked the fact that people could be titillated by having suspicions about his masculinity. Then I was the one who was laughing. ‘How could anyone believe a man who likes women as much as you do is gay?’ I told him.”

— May Pang, “Loving John: The Untold Story” (1983)

“JOHN: Well, that’s rubbish, you know. Because nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one that can control me is me, and that’s just barely possible. But that’s what life is about. And that’s the lesson I’m learning. Because — nobody ever said anything about Paul having a spell over me, when I was with him for a long time. Or me having a spell over Paul. They didn’t think that was abnormal, two guys together. Or four guys together. In those days? Why didn’t anybody ever say, ‘How come those guys don’t split up? I mean, what’s going on backstage? I mean, what is that Paul and John business? Why — you know, how can they be together so long?’ We spent more time together than John and Yoko, in the early days, the four of us sleeping in the same room, practically in the same bed, in the same truck... living together night and day, doing everything together. Nobody said a damn thing about being under the spell.”

there is no hard, tangible evidence that paul had an affair with robert fraser or an affair with tara browne – or any man at all, for that matter. 

i do, however, think that robert and paul did share a special connection. over anything else we can speculate, but this, to me, is fact. i will delve deeper into why i think it was special and what exactly i mean by that in a different post, but i think these quotes illustrate a bit:

Robert represented to me freedom, freedom of speech, of view. [x]

Paul visited Robert’s gallery and would often drop by his flat to see who was there and what was happening. Robert was a superb host; he always mixed the latest drinks, had the best drugs, and a room full of interesting people.Through Robert, Paul entered the world of art; he met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton and, in the course of listening to their conversations, he learned a great deal about art appreciation.Paul: ‘The most formative influence for me was Robert Fraser. Obviously the other Beatles were very important but the most formative art influence was Robert. I expect people to die so I don’t feel a loss but there’s a vacuum where he used to be.’ [x]

Actually I remember one of the most touching conversations we had was about his mum and dad. I said, ‘My mum died when I was young but I think my dad’s great. He’s a real fine man and I’ve got a lot of respect for him and I’m not ashamed to admit it.’ Feeling slight peer pressure as I did admit it. And he said, ‘Well uh uh uhg. I feel the same way about my mother. I love my parents!’ and we had a little moment where we both admitted we loved our parents, which then was not the kind of thing you did. I don’t think I ever had it with the Beatles, it certainly was not a common thing. [x]

Paul saw a lot of Robert during 1966 and in the period leading up to the release of Sgt. Pepper in 1967.PAUL: The way Robert lived, which became the way I lived for a couple of years and which I now figure for a rather aristocratic way of life, would be that he’d ring early in the day and say, ‘What are we doing for dinner tonight?’ It all hinged round dinner. Once he’d had dinner fixed, then he could fill in the rest of the day. It all worked around the event. Robert generally liked to eat down Chelsea: King’s Road, Fulham Road area. The San Lorenzo, the Trattoria.As well as dinner or hanging out at Mount Street, Paul would often put in an appearance at the gallery. ‘Once I got to know Robert, a nice thing would be going to the gallery and helping install an exhibition. Just sit around and smoke a bit of pot while somebody else was installing the exhibition. Helping. Play a little music for him.’  [x]

In my garden at Cavendish Avenue, which was a 100-year-old house I’d bought, Robert was a frequent visitor.One day he got a hold of a Magritte he thought I’d love. Being Robert, he would just get it and bring it.  I was out in the garden with some friends. I think I was filming Mary Hopkin with a film crew, just getting her to sing live in the garden, with bees and flies buzzing around, high summer. We were in the long grass, very beautiful, very country-like. We were out in the garden and Robert didn’t want to interrupt so when we went back in the big door from the garden to the living room, there on the table he’d just propped up this little Magritte. It was of a green apple. That became the basis of the Apple logo. Across the painting Magritte had written in that beautiful handwriting of his ‘Au Revoir’. And Robert had split.I thought that was the coolest thing anyone’s ever done with me. When I saw it, I just thought: ‘Robert.’ Nobody else could have done that. [x]  

So, some time early in 1966, Paul and Robert flew to Paris. They checked into the Plaza Athenee on the Avenue Montaigne in the heart of haute-couture Paris, one of the most fashionable and snobbish hotels in France. Going on a trip with Robert caused a few comments from Paul’s friends. PAUL: “Because he was gay, it raised a few small-minded eyebrows and funnily enough, one or two of them were from within the Beatles: ‘Hey, man, he’s gay, what you going off to Paris with him for? They’re gonna talk, you know. Tongues are going to wag.’ I said, ‘I know tongues are going to wag, but tough shit.’” [x]

There were many good times in Robert’s flat. Through my Beatle connections I’d hire a 16mm projector for the evening […] and I started off with Wizard of Oz.Robert got into this, wow, and he’d get some art movies. We got a lot of Bruce Connors, showed a lot of that. It was a very exciting period. [x]

Robert’s flat was like a second gallery. He had a lot of Dubuffet around that he was trying to sell. I wasn’t too interested in him. He had a lot of stuff by Paolozzi, and I bought a big chrome sculpture which was called Solo, which was in the big Pop Art exhibition they had about two years ago at the Tate. I just said, ‘What is that, Robert?’ Fantastic. He said, ‘What is it? I don’t know. It’s a mantelpiece, a bit of a car, who knows?’I was very happy with that attitude, not too academic. There was no dour art talk. It was much more razzy, loose, lively discussion with him. [x]

They [Paul and Robert] happened to come to the studio one night and were just on a trip, you know, they were seeing things that weren’t there–seeing colours and seeing things that simply weren’t there. [x]

Robert could play the academic game quite easily, he was very knowledgeable, but I think he found it a bit boring. It wasn’t our scene, being academic. I’ve heard him hold his own with academics, but that wasn’t the buzz. The buzz was more of a mixture, a cross-over with musicians, etc.He turned me on to quite a few things, quite a few artists. We went down once on an impulse to see Takis, the great sculptor who did things with tank aerials with little lights on the end. That sort of thing was great.We’d just turn up at someone’s studio, smoke a bit of pot, sit around and just chat art. [x]

i have a lot more quotes in my tag, if you are interested and want to form your own picture of their relationship.

—Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

“I think Linda put her finger on it when she said me and John were like mirror images of each other.

"Even down to how we started writing together, facing each other, eyeball to eyeball, exactly like looking in the mirror.''”

—Paul McCartney, Uncut Magazine, July 2004 (x)

“John and Paul would sit opposite each other by the fireplace. As Paul was left-handed their guitars went the same way and each could enjoy the mirror effect of watching the other’s fingers shape the chords as if they were his own.

Paul would later call these ‘eyeball to eyeball sessions’ and he’d be treated to something few witnessed: John put his glasses on. Only rarely did they leave his pocket, even though without them he could barely see a thing. Almost in each other’s face, John and Paul quickly gained an unusual closeness, little or nothing hidden. Paul noticed that ‘John had beautiful hands.’”

— Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. 1 by Mark Lewisohn (x)

“(…) most of the time we would sit down opposite each other with our two guitars. And because I was left-handed, when I looked at John I would see almost a mirror image of myself, I’d be playing the guitar as it were upside-down, he’d be reading me; upside-down, so we could clearly see what each other was doing, almost what you were doing yourself.”

— Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now - Barry Miles (x)

“The lights in the studio were turned off to set the mood; the sole source of illumination was a table lamp next to the wall. The two beatles, lifelong friends and collaborators, sat on high stools, facing each other, studying each other’s lips intently for phrasing. Watching them, I remember thinking that John’s and Paul’s voices were so different yet so perfectly complemented each other’s, just like their personalities and approach to music-making.”

—Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick (On the recording of She’s Leaving Home). (x)

“So I had to learn upside down. It’s funny: John learned upside down, too, because of me-because mine was the only other guitar around for him, if he broke a string or didn’t have his. That’s more unusual; left-handed guys can nearly always play a straight guitar.”

—Paul McCartney, interview w/ Tom Mulhern. (July, 1990) (x)

“On one occasion that still resonates for those involved, the Quarry Men went to a party in Ford, a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, out past the Aintree Racecourse. “John and Paul were inseparable that night, like Siamese twins,” says Charles Roberts, who met them en route on the upper deck of a cherry red Ripple bus. “It was like the rest of us didn’t exist.””

—the beatles: the biography, bob spitz (x)

“I was fortunate enough to see them together many times in the late 60’s, and have always been fascinated by what I saw/heard: 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, apple scruff, on John and Paul (x)

“Years later, Paul told his brother that he loved his photo of the “I Saw Her Standing There” writing session because it captured how it really was—“the Rodgers and Hammerstein of pop at work.” Writing “eyeball to eyeball” as John said, they weren’t just frontmen for a rock group; they were composers working in concert. Having already pledged to co-credit all their work, around this time they made it formal, taking equal shares in a company called Northern Songs that would control their publishing.

“Historically,” writes Mark Lewisohn in The Beatles: All These Years, “joint-songwriter agreements enumerated splits of 90:10, 85:15, 80:20, 75:25, 67:33 and every other fiddly fraction down to 50:50. But John and Paul went halves all the way, closeness and ambition shared and matched.”

Now every lick of music that either one produced (regardless of the other’s actual contribution) would be both literally and metaphorically—both legally and emotionally—co-owned.”

—Joshua Wolf Shenk, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (2014) (x)

“It was like a tug of war. Imagine two people pulling on a rope, smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond.”

—George Martin on Lennon/McCartney (x)

John Lennon in Miami

(following the last ask) And I think that by doing that Paul was trying to kick the table in some subtle way, by putting again in the center the love and closeness that existed between them. And this fact, makes think about this one is an example of how Paul want us to know some stuff, that he tells without noone asking. I mean, “the night we cried” wouldnt be part (and such an important part") of the Lennon/McCartney myth and fandom if Paul himself hadnt brought it in in the first place. Hugs!

Hey there @vairemelde ! Thanks so much for the ask! And I’m glad you found the #what about the night we cried? tag useful! 

To the extent of my knowledge (and I looked around a bit when doing the compilation post of quotes about that episode) Paul is indeed the one and only Beatle to have publicly talked about that night. Though, it is worth noticing, that he was first asked about that episode only in 2001, almost 20 years after referencing it in ‘Here Today’.

And while Paul has certainly made the effort to, throughout the years, contradict the pervasive confrontational narrative and bring into focus the true love and intimacy between them, I can’t help but feel that ‘Here Today’ was more of a personal attempt at remembering just how close they were. About setting the record straight in his own mind first and foremost. I don’t see him as including this piece of information so much for the benefit of the general public, or to right their perception of them, as much as he was trying to “exorcise the demons in his own head”.

In ‘Here Today’ Paul seems to need to internalize two big ideas: you really loved me and I really loved you.

The need for the first one came about from his second-guessing of their relationship after John’s death, given all the media attacks John aimed at him post-breakup.

I did write a song just before I was going to build my studio – that I’ve done a lot of this album at – before we were actually getting the workmen in and stuff. And when it was still the old place, I just went up in one of the little rooms upstairs in the place, and did write the song called ‘Here Today’. Which was – kind of about my reaction at the time had been.

We’d been slagging each other off a lot, over the years coming up to it, and in fact we’d – we’d got on quite well personally, what turned out to be towards the end. But there had been a lot of slagging off and business stuff. John would’ve been sort of saying, “Oh, he just does all that,” “Oh, bloody hell,” “Oh, he’s like this…” and this sort of attitude, you know, me sort of feeling like I had to, “No, well, uh, I’m not that bad! I mean, uh, I’ve done that, and I’ve done that…” Feeling like I had to justify myself to him.

It was just not very pleasant, because you kind of thought, he’s bluffing. He’s – he’s just doing that sort of very bluffy thing he does. He’s just being very upfront, and he’s sort of… I always got the impression that he was trying to clear the decks for Yoko, and get rid of us lot. ‘Cause he had to devote all his attention to her. Which is fair enough, you know. I always sort of cherished the hope that I’d be able to kind of say to him, “Oh, come off it. You didn’t mean that, really, did you? I know you went a bit overboard, but you don’t think it’s like that, do you, really?”

And I heard, in fact, little bits from Yoko, who was kind of nice enough after he’d died to sort of clue me in on that. Realizing, perhaps, that those w– would be the kind of things that would hang me up, forever. “Did he, or didn’t he… hate what I did?” And she said some very nice things. She told me once that he’d sat her down with one of my albums, and they’d be sat down, and he’d be having a bit of a cry about it, and he’d be saying, “Ah… you know, I – I like him, really.” Because John was like that, you know. He could come at you, but really – he’d just lower his glasses a bit and sort of say, “It’s only me.” It was very two-sided like that. I like that about him. It’s a very interesting part of his personality, really.

But as I say, it really was gonna hang me up. This whole idea.

— Paul McCartney, interview with DJ Mike Reed (13 May 1989).

And the second arose from his need to clearly articulate his feelings, to finally overcome his fear of saying ‘I love you’, even if John was no longer here today to hear it (but we know that Paul keeps writing to “the great record player in the sky”).

It’s funnybecause just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not givetoo much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know myinnermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost.But in a song, that’s where you cando 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 deepertruths – and sometimes awkwardtruths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that Ilike about songs.

— Paul McCartney,on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful andtruthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

Paul even wrote an entire song addressing the fact:

Q: Like ‘Scared’ – a ‘hidden’ track on New – which is a stark confessional about baring your soul to another person. Did you find that easy to write?

Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song.

— Paul McCartney,  interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).  

So it’s no wonder that he included the night they cried in ‘Here Today’. This is not simply a general illustration of their closeness, by giving an example of how they allowed themselves to cry in front of another “Northern Lad”. That night was, in Paul’s eyes, an “important emotional landmark”, not only because they exposed themselves emotionally by crying, but because they actually said the big ‘I Love You’.

One night, we got pretty drunk and argued and laughed, and it ended up us both crying, because it was, you know at the height of your drunkenness, when you’re all, “Hey man, I love you, man. No, I love you, man.” That was probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other. It’s a male machismo embarrassment thing. I mean, you might say to a girl, “I love you”, but in my case, within the group, The Beatles, it would have been difficult, even though we all did love each other. You just all had to be guys to the full. We were all rough, tough cream puffs.

— Paul McCartney, interview with the Daily Mail (4 June 2016).

But I think that in the end, 1982 Paul (without the added interference of years of Beatle “history”), put it best:

[…] Even though he put me down, I’m not going for it. We were friends, and we got it on, we got a lot on. Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

Here Paul perfectly summarizes and encapsulates the two truths he was personally wrestling with while writing ‘Here Today’: “Come on, you loved me, really, and I love you.”

So even if there are other anecdotes (“I slept with him”) and songs (’Early Days’) that seem to aim to get across to the public that only they know how close they were, I personally think that other songs like ‘Here Today’ and ‘This One’ serve a more personal therapeutic purpose. Like he’s talking to himself and to John, rather than to us. 

Sure, both these songs are utterly revealing, but its public nature may be a side effect of the medium, rather than its main goal.