#jp speculation

The main "torture" is the constant flood of posts implying that believing that is stupid, when I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and really try to assess new evidence whenever it crosses my dash, even forcing myself to reconsider when my initial kneejerk reaction is a confirmation bias-infected "DOESN'T MATTER!"

First, I do wanna point out that whether Paul and John were lovers wouldn't really affect whether Paul's attachment to John is healthy – I don't think interpreting his most intense tendencies towards John as based in romantic attraction automatically makes them healthy.

In short: I think it wouldn't be wrong to say that, on the whole, Paul has an unhealthy relationship with John/his memory (though I think it's about as good as it can be by this point and I want to emphasize that I don't think this means their relationship was lacking in love and/or meaning). I jot this down to the trauma of fame, the trauma of the Beatles breakup, the trauma of John's toxic behaviour towards Paul in particular, the trauma of losing John suddenly in a way that will always feel fundamentally unfair and never make a modicum of sense, the trauma of being publicly raked through the coals while John was elevated to a saintly status. Add onto that bonding over losing their mothers young, bonding through songwriting, bonding through unique experiences like LSD. All of these factors are entirely independent of whether or not Paul was in love with John, and even one of them would suffice for their relationship to read as at least a bit odd IMO.

I feel like if you wanted my full assessment, we'd have to go through the different pieces of evidence one by one, because how I interpret them falls into one of several bins:

The rare instance where Paul is saying something that I agree is most easily read as romantic: it's your "Maybe if I had been a girl, I could go out and…" – that type of thing (Note that not every single quote about Yoko falls into this category). Overall, I think marriage analogies are complicated because of the way we put romantic relationships on a pedestal, but I cannot deny that that is the particular analogy Paul chose to make many times – there just aren't enough other indicators to sway me.

Quotes and behaviours indicating very deep and complicated feelings towards John, but that I don't think are necessarily romantic: it's your "delicious broth of boy", your "it's only me" anecdote, your "I wish I had sat and just hugged John all the time". Refer to my "In short:" paragraph for how I interpret these. Also, Paul being Weird™ about any implication that John wasn't straight belongs here too, because I think he has a complicated relationship with all that due to his complicated relationship with John.

Song lyrics: I generally put a lot less stock into these because I think you cannot often say for certain who a song is about, and even assuming certain songs are about John, artistic license makes it incredibly difficult to draw conclusions about the exact nature of Paul's feelings based on the lyrics, especially because his writing style is not all that diaristic and he quite often chooses words for their pure phonetic appeal. I always like bringing up "Girl" and "Day Tripper" in this context, because both of these songs are romantic on the surface, but, according to their own writers, they are in fact about religion and the drug scene. Generally, lyrics are malleable to many plausible interpretations, in a way I find unuseful to reconstruct history.

The "strong correlations": this is stuff like Paul admiring Joe Orton's work, him having a close relationship with Robert Fraser, adopting more campy fashion during certain periods, in short: Paul being adjacent to queer culture. I don't necessarily think these things mean nothing, (though I find it can come across somewhat backhanded to imply Paul would only enjoy Orton's Loot if he was queer, despite the fact the play clearly appeals to other things Paul was interested in, such as criticizing religion). I mostly think this is a very shaky foundation to build a theory on, and, frankly, there are plenty of quotes from Paul that read as intensely clueless regarding queer life ("If there was to be gayness…"). So it kind of becomes a net zero for me.

ERROR 404 MORE CONTEXT NEEDED: here's where I put stuff like Paul responding "in bed" to how he would spend a day with John. He could be joking, he could be being flippant because the question is personal, he could be revealing a very intimate but potentially platonic desire, he could be (inexplicably, tbh) alluding to the fact he would like to fuck John. Ultimately, a two word answer in a print article is essentially uninterpretable IMO.

I have never denied that there is some interesting evidence — though a significant portion of what tumblr presents as evidence is not in fact compelling to me. I elaborated on my general feelings on this here, but if you want my take on specific claims and/or specific evidence, feel free to send them to me.

My most general answer to your question is that, while some McLennon scenarios are plausible, I do not find the evidence overwhelming enough to overrule the "official" narrative. This does not mean that I think Paul never lies (/gets things wrong in earnest) or that the official narrative is factually accurate about everything. If he or anyone else is caught saying something verifiably false, I adjust my beliefs accordingly (or if there is an independent reason to assume someone is spinning the truth). But Paul's version of events in this particular regard is, in my opinion, consistent enough (allowing for some lying and human error) for me not to feel forced to question the general spirit of what he's saying.

I would not attribute it to a single reason.

A big factor is probably that the current tumblr fandom is dominated by Paul girls – they are interested in the theory that includes their fave, which is fair enough.

I would also say that yes, the specific John and Paul dynamic has a rather unique appeal to it – people will even often describe it as the greatest love story of all time, because it ticks off a lot of boxes: John and Paul were collaborators, co-responsible for universally beloved music, and specifically helped each other grow as artists (the symbolism of the joint credit in particular has a lot of romantic sway); they were friends from childhood; they had a messy falling out but also clearly never fully got over each other; they were bonded by the shared trauma of losing a mother young.

There's a satisfying balance of symmetry and complementariness to them, which is also what draws fans who don't ship them romantically to their dynamic. To many people, they seem to belong together in one way or another.

John and Brian do not have many of these tropes to draw on: they met as adults, did not directly collaborate on art, did not have all that similar childhoods beyond both being middle class (and John was clearly not the same kind of middle class as Brian, given he never went to public school [as in, private school, for confused Americans lol]). We also have almost no footage of them interacting with each other, which makes their dynamic feel less real than the endlessly filmed JohnandPaul.

On the contrary, what we do know about their alleged liaison is rather uncouth: their professional situation makes a romantic relationship between them read as Highly Awkward At Best (as opposed to how inevitable and perfect McLennon feels in that sense); we know John would apparently hurl homophobic and antisemitic abuse at Brian; we know Brian was somewhat of a masochist whose sexual history probably gave John a largely negative impression of what life as a queer man actually entailed; the accounts of the Barcelona trip which claim something happened between them vary from unromantic to pretty disturbing. (Of course, genuine homophobia taints a lot of these sources, so they also can't be taken at face value…)

I completely agree with you -- the idea that they were basically boyfriends and totally open with each other is just too far from what we've been told, especially by Paul himself. It is possible that they slept together, but even if they didn't their relationship would make perfect sense as it was, and I genuinely don't think whether they had sex or not can essentially change the nature of their relationship.

IDK much about Mick and Keith so I'll leave it at that, though I was under the vague impression that was closer to being confirmed than McLennon lmao (but I do know sometimes people just claim stuff is confirmed when it's not so, grain of salt).

I wanted to get your take on something: don’t you think one of the reasons Tumblr users want to believe so strongly in the idea of an explicit romantic relationship between Paul and John is because it allows them to redeem John, in a way?

It’s undeniable that John often behaved in an envious, unfair, and brutal (if not violent) manner toward Paul throughout their relationship—from the very beginning, really, but particularly around the time the band broke up (maybe your readers won’t agree with that; as for me, I wouldn’t want to share that kind of friendship with anyone).

I sometimes get the impression that people cling to the idea of a romantic relationship because it would excuse John: one can completely understand these excesses within the painful context of a romantic breakup. Without that context, and with fifty years of hindsight on the Beatles’ (professional) breakup, it mainly casts a rather negative light on John.

Hi! Thanks for the kind words :)

I see what you mean, and I think there is something to your theory, because we all want to at least understand our faves, even outright excuse them, if possible.

But I would also point out that, these days, tumblr's version of McLennon is primarily spearheaded by Paul fans – I'm not sure how many of them feel that compelled to redeem John in particular.

I always feels there's an element of seeking literary symmetry, i.e. it's more aesthetically satisfying if John and Paul felt similarly about each other and had similarly poor reactions.