so it's come to this

Sun King: the early days when everything felt magical (which always makes me think of some of Paul's comments on Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun from Press to Play, where he talked about the summer of '63 and that photo shoot they did in old-fashioned bathing suits as representative of one of his own golden summers)

Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam: characters who represent their Liverpool roots and people they knew back then

She Came In Through the Bathroom Window: Beatlemania, the experience of having people trying to invade your life and privacy

Golden Slumbers: recognition that life has changed forever and that there's no going back

Carry That Weight: the price of fame and the acknowledgement that it's something they have to live with forever

So that sonic transition into Sun King is deliberately evoking those memories of youth and a more innocent time. It's almost the equivalent of Paul wearing his old Quarrymen shirt to one of their last photo shoots, and it makes me wonder, like always, about what John thought of all that - the yearning songs, the nostalgia, Paul literally writing The End. Did he notice, did he care, did he think Paul was just being a drama queen? Who knows, Yoko?

John, Paul and George used this song to describe the Beatles breakup. Get Back revealed how the Beatles used songs that meant something to them as a way of communicating with each other, through connotation and association, privately in public. "Wedding Bells" is one of those songs. We know it means something to George, because of his demo tape for All Things Must Pass (below). Paul, in particular, likes to reference "Wedding Bells" to say that the breakup was the inevitable consequence of mature manhood; a quotation of the song he could have looked up in a Social Science textbook. John brought it up (for example) in 1980, screenshot, in a usage very similar to Paul's.

(Screenshot: "McCartney: My Love For Linda," Brisbane, AUS Courier-Mail, December 5, 1998)

Neither John nor Paul were ever service members nor played on a sports team. So what's up with all these goofy analogies? The situation that the song is actually describing, is one of loneliness and regrets, sentiments that run counter to the narrative they use it for. In fact, the song looks like a way for them to convey their honest ambivalence about moving on.

Listening to the song itself, it tells of a singer who feels lonely and sad, watching his male singing group partners get married, because they don't sing together anymore.

An American popular standard, it was written in the 1920s to appeal to nostalgia for a bygone era (specifically, late Victorian Barbershop quartet harmonizing of a generation earlier). It was first a hit in 1929 by the early crooner Gene Austin. Revived in the 1950s in a relentlessly cheery version by the Ink Spots in 1954, it was covered by Gene "Be Bop a Lula" Vincent, a bit more sombre in tone, on his 1956 debut album.

This is a character in the cafe during Paul's conversation with Paul Mescal. He appears while Paul is discussing Lost Horizon, and the tape being found by Eddie Klein.

This is Eddie Klein.

The liner notes of McCartney III say

This album is dedicated to the memory of our friend Eddie Klein (1943-2020)

This looks to me like John's "exciting new offer" button he wore throughout the July 1967 Greece trip, which is a very similar color. You can see him wearing it on his jacket and pinned on his hat:

At one point Paul got ahold of the hat, as seen in the Anthology director's cut:

I couldn't find any pictures of John wearing The Love of My Life button, but in my quest for button pics I found other instances of Paul wearing the LOML button throughout 1967. Paul’s special button!!!!

A NEW PHOTO OF MAUREEN! Getty Images has added another image of Maureen Starkey at the July 17, 1978 Playboy Bunnies party hosted by Victor Lowness at his Hertfordshire estate, Stocks. Ringo was invited as one of England's most eligible bachelors, but attended with ex-wife Maureen and their children. Maureen is watching the hot air balloon rides. copied from Facebook group Something About the Beatles’s Girls

too lazy to do a bunch of research on this rn so if anyone else is feeling froggy feel free but. this is talking about the ringo television special from '78. it's like the Only mention I've seen of something like this, all 4 beatles meeting up in the late 70s. also very intriguing because I'm not sure when exactly this movie started production but this could've been later than '76 which is definitely Weird. and of course it's just one dude saying this and could be made up or a wrong recollection but. interesting, anyway

JOHN: (Chuckle) Whichever one you want to mention. I think the Beatles were a kind of religion. And that uh, Paul manifest or, sort of, I can’t think of the word you know — epitomized, the Beatles and the kind of things that–the kind of hero image more than the rest of us in a way. Like he was more popular with the kids, girls and things like that. So it’s in that way it’s Paul. But it’s also the other Paul, who screwed up whatever Jesus said, that one… It’s a double entendre you know, for all the fanatics who like to play things backwards and hear words of wisdom which nobody ever thought of…