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Cynthia and Julian.

“[Julian]’s more like his mother. He’s a much gentler, softer person.” - George Harrison

“I looked down at him for the first time. He was tiny, his small face scrunched up and bright red. I thought he was absolutely perfect.” - Cynthia Lennon

“I feel I have to apologize for saying it more than once, but my son is amazing. We have such an understanding. It’s no bullshit and I’m not being sugary or sentimental: he’s just turned out above and beyond my wildest dreams.” -Cynthia Lennon 

“My mum taught me how to turn everything around: you just kill people with kindness. There is no need to be mean, nasty or cruel to anybody.” - Julian Lennon

Calling all the multilingual Band RPF writers! Have you ever wondered how English affects your writing?

Are you a multilingual writer who relies on fandom to improve their English? I want to hear your stories!

About the study:

This research is for a Master’s dissertation in Applied Multilingualism at the University of Galway. I am investigating how multilingual band RPF writers learn and improve their English through writing fanfiction. The goal of this research is to understand the impact of participatory culture of fandom has in your English writing.

Inclusion criteria:

You write band RPF.

English is NOT your native language.

You produce your band fanfictions in English.

You must be 18 years of age or older.

Note: Native English language speakers and those who learned English from birth or at home will be excluded from the research.

Further information:

Participation is voluntary! Your name and any identifying details will not be used in the research and they will not be shared with anyone.

You can choose your own pseudonym for the study, or opt for me to assign you a nickname.

The study will consist of two hour-long digital interviews.

Are you interested? Here are the next steps!

If you meet the criteria and you are interested in participating, please use the link below to fill out the initial screening questionnaire. I will contact you after confirming your participation eligibility and send you the detailed information sheet.

Click here for the initial screening questionnaire!

Thank you everyone for your support!

You're Paul McCartney, and it's January 24th, 1967. You're having dinner with this playwright you like. You claim his is the only play you've managed to sit through without getting a 'sore arse'. You like the play so much you've invested £1,000 in it. It's about this bisexual catholic boy whose mother just died (Hal), his childhood boy-best-friend/partner in crime, and the robbery they're in the process of committing. There's reason to believe you might have identified with this Hal character. Incidentally, this character seems to be named after the playwright's partner of 16 years, Halliwell.

You're Paul McCartney, and it's August 9th, 1967. The news breaks out that the previous night, the playwright has been bludgeoned to death by his partner, in a fit of rage and jealously, with 9 hammer blows to the head. The partner has then immediately committed suicide by overdosing on pills. The song that plays at the playwrights funeral, 9 days later, is his favorite record, "A Day In The Life". Unbeknownst to you, your friend and manager will die from a pill overdose in 9 days.

You're Paul McCartney, and it's the summer of 1968. Life as you knew it is falling apart. Your partner is now, out of the blue, seemingly in love with this new woman. Not only did you have to deal with them briefly living at your house, where just the year before you blissfully cohabitated with your partner, but he has also broken the sanctity of your creative space by bringing her into the studio and all writing sessions. At some point, you bring to the recording sessions a song about this guy named HalliMaxwell, who goes around bludgeoning people to death with his silver hammer. Incidentally, his first victim seems to be named after your partner of 11 years. You don't end up actually recording the track until a year later, during which you infamously psychologically torture your other two bandmates with it for three whole days. The way you speak about it, this song appears to echo your own concept of Instant Karma:

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was my analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as it so often does, as I was beginning to find out at that time in my life. [...] We still use that expression even now when something unexpected happens.

— Paul McCartney in Barry Miles' Many Years From Now (1997).

Some of my songs are based on personal experience, but my style is to veil it. A lot of them are made up, like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ which is the kind of song I like to write. It’s just a silly story about all these people, I’d never met. It’s just like writing a play: you don’t have to know the people, you just make them up. I remember George once saying to me, ‘I couldn’t write songs like that.’ He writes more from personal experience. John’s style was to show the naked truth. If I was a painter, I’d probably mask things a little bit more than some people. The song epitomizes the downfalls of life. Just when everything is going smoothly – Bang! Bang! – Down comes Maxwell’s silver hammer and ruins everything.

— Paul McCartney in The Beatles Anthology (2000).

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Maxwell's Silver Hammer (1969): Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer / Came down upon her head. / Bang! Bang! Maxwell's silver hammer / Made sure that she was dead.

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1. John told him often and directly that they loved each other and he’s finally letting himself remember it and believe that memory.

2. John told him often and directly that they loved each other and he’s reached a point where he feels ready to tell the truth.

3. John told him often but indirectly though very clearly that they loved each other and he’s finally letting himself be un-gaslit and accept that meaning was there all along and he wasn’t making it up.

4. He knew all along that John told him often and indirectly though very clearly that they loved each other and he’s finally ready to tell the public that.

Either way this is a very big pivot/reframing of how he talks about how they talked about their feelings. His narrative has always been that they never did except one drunken night in Key West. So he’s either been lying because he is afraid of how people would react, lying to himself because he hasn’t felt confident enough in the love that they had for each other that his memories of John saying that were real/if John was implying it, he hasn’t felt confident enough in the love that they had for each other to trust that he was interpreting that implication properly after everything went down how it did. Either way, he’s ready to either accept that they told each other they loved each other/knew how they felt all along or he’s ready to share it.

The past few years really has been him going from being peacefully resigned that he’ll never quite have that stamp of being seen as a rightful partner (musically and otherwise) to John in the legacy to instead what he’s doing now which is sticking his toe in the doorway before the door closes and going “wait, actually, hang on. I WAS that important to him. We WERE equals. We DID love each other that much. He DID love me, too. Our names DO belong next to each other. It’s NOT discrediting him or anybody else to ask for my rightful spot next to him. We’re going out TOGETHER.”