Hello! Bit of a sensitive ask, but I wondered if you’d ever done a post going into Paul’s grief after losing John? I’m struggling to find any real concrete accounts about what his life was like immediately after his death and how he reacted to it and dealt with it (besides writing Here Today). Love your work and thank you in advance!
Hi! A couple of years ago I made a compilation of quotes that reflect Paul's grief over time, but I don't recall any post where I discussed it explicitly. So I will take the opportunity to do it here. I will focus mainly in the 80s.
Though Paul said that after the "it's a drag" remark he went home that day and "cried buckets," there's evidence that he experienced what is called delayed grief (which happens when the brain basically goes into "survival mode" during the initial trauma) and didn't really have an emotional release until some time later. His brother Mike said this: "The next morning, Paul called on the phone and asked me to keep sending him good vibes from Liverpool to help him get through the rest of the day. He felt like he couldn't go on anymore. Paul didn't cry over John's loss until some time later." Eric Stewart said that during sessions in early 1981, one day: "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. I said, 'Well, it's been a few weeks now.' He said, 'I know, Eric, but I've just realized.'" And Carl Perkins said this: "I just started singing [My Old Friend] again, and Paul really started 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 previous December. This was February 2nd." Although biographer Christopher Sandford doesn't say who told him this, he wrote that right before Paul started recording again in February, he would lock himself in his home studio and play Just Like Starting Over again and again, at top volume, for weeks. Andy Peebles, who was one of the last people to interview John, said that Paul went to meet him personally, and all he wanted to know was if John still loved him. He wanted to be reassured of it. Andy told him: "John talked about you in the interview. He was sarcastic, funny and irreverent, but there was no doubting his fondness for you." Andy said that Paul started crying. One of the people who worked in Paul's studio said that some days after John's death, Yoko called Paul: "He told everybody to clear the room. And Paul took the call. I just closed the door and he was crying — he'd lost his best friend."
Paul said that for months, any mention of "guns," "shot," or similar words triggered him. He said that not long after John's death, there was some bird hunting going on in the woods nearby, and Linda had to go and tell them to stop because it was upsetting Paul. In almost every 80s interview, Paul says that he still can't say the words "John's death" because he still doesn't believe it and hasn't come to terms with it. He said: "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." He also said there are moments when he is telling stories about John to his children when the memories become too much emotionally: "I start thinking about him or talking to the kids about him and I can't handle it. [...] "I choke up. I care very deeply, but I don't know what to do with my care."
Also in the 80s, a guy who worked on one of his albums said that he once called Paul in the afternoon to discuss something work-related, and out of nowhere Paul started talking about John and the Beatles nonstop, just rambling about them, for hours. Another guy — I forgot his name — said that Paul took him for a ride around the city and started playing Beatles songs over and over. He said Paul told him he was doing it because Linda wouldn't allow him to play them in the house anymore (the 80s was a period where their marriage was particularly rocky). Peter Cox, who worked with Linda on her cookbook in the late 80s, said that on the very first day he met the McCartneys to talk about work, Paul casually took him out for a walk and started talking about John a lot, always in the present tense: "John says this","John thinks that." Not too long after, Paul himself said in an interview: "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." He also said: "I know I will never get over it and hope I will never get over it." David Ambrose, and EMI excutive who knew Paul in the 70s and 80s, talked about how much Paul misses John, that his death made Paul "slightly nuts", and that this negatively affected the quality of his songwriting afterwards.
While interviewing him for his Beatles biography, Bob Spitz went to Paul's house and spoke to him personally. At one point he asked Paul when he missed John most and when John crossed his mind. Spitz said: "He couldn't answer me for a long time and his eyes teared up... [then] he lost it, he completely lost it." (this was in the mid-90s). We also have Give My Regards to Broad Street in 1984, written and directed by Paul himself, which contains this scene (after a guy is stabbed to death). While making Liverpool Oratorio, Paul included a segment in which a person was recovering in a hospital, and a nurse asks them, "Do you know who you are?" This inspired by something that happened after John was shot. The paramedic wanted to see if he was conscious and asked him, "Do you know who you are?" John faintly nodded and died shortly afterward. While explaining the scene, Paul got a bit choked up and said: "Not a day goes by when I don't think of John."
He would also write songs like My Brave Face, which contains lyrics such as: "Ever since you went away I've had this sentimental inclination..." "I wanna go bury my head in your pillow..." "Now that I'm alone again I can't stop breaking down again. The simplest things set me off again." This was the promotional photo for the song:
He would continue writing songs with themes of not telling someone that he loved them, such as Yvonne's the One, However Absurd, and This One. He later said (when talking about Here Today):
"Song-writing is like psychiatry, you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, you bring it out front. 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.”
In 1990, a journalist asked him, "Is there a record you like to put on just to hear John’s voice?" Paul looks startled and fumbles. “Oh, uh. There’s so much of it. I hear it on the car radio when I’m driving.” The guy replied, "No, that’s not what I mean. Isn’t there a time when you just wish you could talk to John, when you’d like to hear his voice again?" Paul instead responded to the original question:“Oh sure,” he said and looked a little taken aback. ‘Beautiful Boy".
All of this material is from the 80s and early 90s (since you said you wanted to find accounts right after John's death). However, if you look at what Paul himself—and people around him—have said from then until today, it becomes clear that he is still very much grieving. He says he's still in denial about it. His own son has said that Paul rarely talks to him about the subject because it has remained very sensitive even after all these years. I didn't elaborate on Paul's grief after the 2000s because there is simply so much material that it deserves its own separate post.
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