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However, I do believe that I can make a pretty good guess about who took these photos (totally not biased whatsoever)-- and it does help that the photo strips featured in Eyes of the Storm were taken with the exact same film 🫢🫢

The tail end of 1966 finds John in Spain, alone, during his first real stretch of distance from the Beatles’ constant proximity in years, and amid an even less familiar separation from Paul. To me, Strawberry Fields Forever reads like a classic queer temporal maneuver; when the present becomes uninhabitable, one retreats into a version of the past defined not by what actually happened (or when it happened), but by how it felt. John’s imagining of Strawberry Field seems like a return to a time that never existed as such, yet feels truer than the one he’s currently living— a time when he and Paul were a closed circuit, before that intimacy was interrupted by the demands of fame.

So when John turns back toward a soft, idealized past, Paul follows him there with Penny Lane. It becomes a form of temporal co-presence, where Paul doesn’t just indulge John’s fantasy but helps build that shared world, makes it newly inhabitable in the present, brings it to life in vivid technicolor. Like he’s saying, “yes, let’s go, I see it too.”

I've seen many people arguing that John and Paul were constantly trying to make sense of what they were to each other (even in the 70s), that their relationship was very undefined, and that they weren't fully aware that their relationship was a romantic one. They often say that their public comments, whenever they talked about each other, indicated confusion and bewilderment. I do think there was a lot of confusion in the early years, where they could have been in denial of what they were doing or feeling, and would try to frame it as “experimenting,” or something easier to downplay. But I don’t believe they spent twenty years unclear about what they were to each other. By the mid-60s, especially after Key West in 1964, I think they both understood, to a large extent, that their relationship was romantic. Paul himself said that there they did a lot of “soul-searching” and confessed “a few truths” to each other. He doesn’t say what those truths were — but I’ve always found it telling that he describes it in that language. Whatever happened that night, I don’t think they walked away “confused.”

So if they knew, then why do their public comments sound so messy, contradictory, or confused, as if they still couldn't make sense of what they were to each other? Well, because that’s exactly how someone would sound if they were trying to explain an intimate, romantic relationship — publicly — in a world where they couldn’t say it outright. Of course they fumbled. Of course their explanations seemed muddled. You cannot fully explain something extremely private, emotionally risky, and culturally taboo — while being interviewed, in the 70s or 80s, by journalists who were assuming a platonic friendship (or not even friendship at all). That doesn’t automatically mean they were confused internally. It means they couldn’t tell the truth publicly.

People often make a huge mistake: they assume that because, in interviews, Paul often sounds confused about their relationship and seemingly not understanding what he supposedly did that hurt John, that must mean that Paul actually has no idea of what went down. Many take this to mean that their relationship was very undefined, lacked communication (which is true to an extent), and therefore they couldn't have consciously thought of their relationship as romantic at the time. But I don't buy that Paul was completely puzzled. Sometimes, feigning confusion or saying “I don’t know” is the safest and only way to publicly answer a question you do know the answer to, or at least suspect it. Let's take a look at Paul's 1980s interviews, after Yoko publicly said that John told her that “nobody hurt him more than Paul did.” Paul would bring that up in interviews, sounding bewildered, and would try to guess what could he have possible done to John that hurt him more than anything. Sometimes he’d offer explanations that were so trivial that it’s almost comical — like when Hunter Davies asked him what was John hurt by, and Paul replied something along the lines of, “Well… maybe he meant that time I didn’t ask him to sing or play on ‘Why Don’t We Do It in the Road.” Paul isn’t that oblivious. He knew — at least partially — that what John was referring to couldn't be a studio slight, but something deeper. I do believe that Paul was aware about the emotional rupture caused by him wanting a "complete family life". But Paul would never spell that out publicly, of course.

Something else that tells me they were far more aware than people think is the amount of times they described their relationship in marital terms. Using the same romantic language over and over is their own way of telling us the truth, disguised as just a metaphor. Even small details like connecting their signatures, or John adding "written in conjugal with Paul" to the intro of In His Own Write. Another thing is the way Paul tries to explain in interviews what actually happened in the late 60s when Yoko came into the picture. Like when he said John couldn’t "keep seeing him" after he was with Yoko, because he was “like another girlfriend, almost,” and John couldn’t have both him and Yoko at once. Those are not the words of someone truly confused. That’s someone who understands what happened, and knows what he and John used to have. But since he is aware of the implications of what he's saying (but at the same time wants to tell the truth), he ends up giving an awkward explanation that ends up being far more revealing than he intended.

And their own behavior contradicts the idea of confusion. Look at how strategic — even emotionally calculated — they became in the late 60s: John knew Paul was jealous. Elliot Mintz said John told him that Paul was jealous because now Yoko had “all his love and attention.” Francie said Paul looked deeply disturbed every time John went on and on about how much he loved Yoko. As I said in a previous post, John was twisting the knife. It was deliberate. And Paul responded — not just by “moving on,” but by what George Martin called “self-defense” — forming a new, parallel emotional unit with Linda. This is two people in a complex, emotionally intimate relationship who know how to hurt each other — because they know exactly what they were to each other. Even their weddings were meant to hurt each other ("we spurred each other into marriage").

But their songs are the best evidence that they were fully aware that their relationship was romantic. These lyrics tells us much more than whatever they would say in interviews, especially the ones written during conflict, when their emotions were raw and unfiltered. These are not songs written by people who didn't understand the nature of their relationship. I cannot think of a single song (if you know about one, please tell me) written by them in which they talk about being confused about something that happened between them. If Paul had no idea, not even a small suspicion, of what John was hurt by, then it's strange that none of his songs deal with him being perplexed about what he did wrong. Most of their songs aimed at each other are instead about love, resentment, heartbreak, or just throwing digs at each other. “I find my love awake and waiting to be…Now what can be done for you? She’s waiting for me.” Paul knew exactly how to hit John emotionally — by saying he now had someone new that took his place. That only makes sense if Paul understood what, emotionally, he was replacing. And then there’s Arrow Through Me, written in 1978, which Paul himself described as a song about a relationship, a "fling", that “could have been great and fantastic" if there hadn’t been any "distractions.” He also said “nobody was more down" than him at that moment. The lyrics are about deep emotional hurt, disappointment, and regret over a romantic relationship that was profound, full of potential, and ultimately derailed. That kind of nuance doesn't come from emotional confusion about the nature of that relationship— it comes from a feeling of loss and painful awareness. And, on a more positive note, we also have, "Our life together is so precious...Every day we used to make it love — why can’t we be making love nice and easy?....Why don’t we take off alone?... like we used to in the early days?" Many people just interpret this song as John wanting to work with Paul again, and often ignore the explicit romantic language. John doesn’t even mention music. It’s intimate. It’s two people, alone. Like it used to be. He sounds aware of what that relationship was like, what it meant to both of them, and he wants to go back to that. And in Now and Then — “If we must start again, well, we will know for sure that I will love you.” John doesn't sound confused there (I dont think Paul is either, since he thinks the song was written for him). And I don't even have to get into If I Fell or In My Life, both of which John said were autobiographical (or semi-autobiographical).

We're gonna talk it out someday

All that is nearest and dearest

so... most likely about someone who is not your current wife who lives with you, tours with you, has four kids with you, that you sleep with every night. I mean it is Paul. He does struggle with emotional intimacy. But not that much.

I want it.

You want it.

They want it too.

This is the moment in this song where we get the typical cockiness we see in a lot of Paul's songs to John post break-up, such as the entirety of "Let me Roll it" and the "well knowing you," attitude in Here Today. Even when he's crying about John not treating him right, he's always confident that John wants him, and here he's adding in another obvious clue that this is a song for John, not Linda, because much as we love her, the public was never dying for Paul to collaborate more with her like they were always clamoring for another Lennon/McCartney song.

And me? I wanna love you.

Reminding John that while he of course wants to work with him again, the core of it, the most important thing to him, is loving John. Which imo was a huge insecurity within their partnership for John. That Paul valued their partnership more than he valued their love.

Come on, baby. What have you got?

I LOVE when Paul calls John baby, and I think John must've too, and clearly Paul did. Like the number of times he throws in an unnecessary 'pretty baby' when he's sort of ad-libbing in his John Songs is crazy.

Tell me that I learned a lot

In your school

An absolutely WILD thing to say as a HDYS survivor. ("The sound you make is muzak to my ears. You must have learned something in all those years") We know, from the number of times he's refrenced that line, that it (and the Yesterday thing) was probably the most hurtful to Paul in that song. He gets his entire self-esteem from getting good grades, and especially good grades from John. So to come back at that line, not with a biting 'you think you could've taught me anything? I've always been better than you' type thing but with a very humble, broken 'tell me that I've learned a lot in your school' is really something. I don't believe it, obviously, but clearly in Paul's special, messed-up mind, John is really truly thoroughly just lightyears ahead of him.

Your school

Never thought I'd learn so much

Just a poor fool in love

Fool! One of their special words. I can never decide if it's referencing Elvis's (Now and Then, there's) a Fool Such as I, a song about this guy who is just completely and irreparably gone for his first love ("You taught me how to love, and now you say that we are through. I'm a fool, but I'll love you dear, until the day I die.") or if it's just a reference to Paul since he seems to have taken it on as a self-identifier of some kind. The Fool on the Hill, his favorite tarot card, etc. Maybe it's both. Probably both, and the lyrics I think it's referencing make so much sense in the context of this song. Paul's saying John's school wasn't a songwriting class, actually, but a master course in love, this new concept for Paul. Which feeds perfectly into the next line, of course.

Your school

I never felt the gentle touch

until I met you.

I mean. This is what my heart can't handle. This is the chocolate bar and the unwritten fifty-fifty deal. This is the importance for Paul that John never hit him and that if he could have one more day with John he would spend the whole day in bed. This is that day when Paul was sick and hiding it but John noticed and took care of him. This is "it's only me, I love you." This is the panic spiral scenes in get back and the palpable kindness in John's eyes as he focused on Paul. This is no one noticing that Paul was a fucking genius until he met John and Paul holding on to that and still talking about it sixty years later.

You'd better tell me all you know

Concerning this situation

Again, with the -- to me -- insane levels of humility here. It's the Two Virgins quote where he's like 'well if John's doing something I don't understand, it's because he's just ahead of me and I'm dumb and hopefully someday I'll catch up but until then I support him'. He's saying 'I'm sure there's some mystical, intelligent reason we're only talking about bread and babies and cats and you're holed up in your ivory tower and not coming home to visit even though you very easily could and not putting out music even though I personally think that's an atrocious decision, but you've got to explain it to me because I'm not going to get there on my own.'

I'd like it

You'd like it

They always do.

And there's that cute cockiness back. Come on, babe, you know you want it. With an obnoxious wink and a shimmy that shouldn't work but does.

And me? Still wanna love you.

Of course, it’s officially a song for Yoko, John is on record as saying it’s a song for Yoko, but to my ears, it’s a musical giant placard marked FOR PAUL!! (With a red sharpie heart around ‘Paul’)

From the thematic style, the extremely loaded choice of words, John’s Elvis crooning, the reminiscent rock n’ roll melody, right down to the announcement at the end of the song for a flight leaving for ‘London, England’, oh and OF COURSE the ‘spread our wings’ line… it just seems like a basket of Easter eggs to get Pauls attention.

It’s the “our life, together is so special, together” that gets me. It’s the theme of togetherness that seems like a defining motif of the John/Paul partnership in the good times, and what they desperately plea for in the bad. I see Starting Over as literally that, going right back to the beginning, to when they were teenagers and declaring their devotion and commitment to one another before setting off on adventures: “we’re gonna leave, take the next bus out of town” in “I Don’t Know/Johnny Johnny” . It was such a passionate declaration of: wherever we’re going, whatever we’re doing, we’re doing it together” . The warm, protective, safe space that they had created, where they can escape their past and take on the world; a John/Paul cocoon, The Nerk Twins within The Beatles - the nucleus within the atom - full of love, security and magic.

When the shit hits the fan - aka the critical juncture of 1969/Let It Be - ( I’m going to call this the second act, purely so it fits in with my theory!), Paul tries nostalgia to coax John back ‘home’ to the little nest he’s feathered - Population: Two (Of Us). Obviously, that doesn’t work out…

BUT! Just over a decade later, it sounds like John is feeling sentimental and nostalgic and has made up his mind to get back on that bus. Uh, I mean, airplane!

So this is how I see (Just Like) Starting Over as the third act, and borrowing the concept that the crux of a trilogy is for the story to go right back to the beginning, but this time viewing with a fresh perspective, he says:

“Let’s take a trip somewhere far, far away

We'll be together all alone again

Like we used to in the early days “— he is ready for a renewal of their adventures, but with an assurance of how they are wiser now; ‘we have grown’.

Whatever I’ve read online has firmly fallen in the ‘It’s for Yoko’ camp - purely because it’s a love song, so of COURSE it can’t be for Paul, right? A few admit it could be for Paul , but only as an admission that John wants to reunite with The Beatles.. (which I can kind of get behind)... But no-one anywhere is discussing the audio of the studio sessions, where he riffs around during rehearsal , because if this is a song for Paul, it’s a revelation:

‘Well everybody’s making love, why can’t we be making love, it’s easy?

Just take your clothes off honey, and stick your nose in money.

Why don’t we… do it in the road?

A little hotel where we used to screw

A motel down in Montauk; just you, me, the cook and the servants too’

Whoever the person on John’s mind is, it’s evident that he wants a revival of what sounds like a pretty hot, romantic and sexual relationship. The ‘stick your nose in money’ line is… interesting. I wasn’t aware of John having a bone of contention over Yoko and finances, (did he?) but wasn’t this one of his major gripes (and often mentioned grouses) over Paul’s ‘secret’ purchase of more shares of the Northern Songs catalogue? It’s a risky move to try and woo back a lover by dredging up a decades long grievance, but that’s our nonconformist John, I guess??

The doing it in the road line is.. kind of self explanatory? As for the hotel .. it didn’t seem like John and Yoko’s courtship was necessitated by sneaking off to conduct an illicit affair - they seemed pretty prominent from Day One of getting together, but it does put me in mind of the much mentioned Paris trip for John’s 21st birthday:

‘the little hotel with the nice bed’ that Paul still talks about to this day.

Granted, the motel in Montauk is kind of home turf for J&Y so I’ll concede that , but as for the rest of it…

My sticking point was learning that this was written at the same time, in Bermuda, that John wrote ‘Grow Old With Me’ - a loving ode from a husband to his wife. So the rational argument says.. both songs were written to the same person. But you have made the astute observation that John held Yoko in one hand and Paul in the other, so is it just my bourgeois mind that struggles to see that John could be saying to Person A: I want to recommit to our marital devotion to one another, whilst simultaneously saying to Person B ‘I want a renewal of our romantic adventures’ and that’s just how he rolls?

Nb, 1980 John unhelpfully throws a spanner in the works of this theory, because his attitude in interviews seems to be: “Paul who? Never heard of the guy, don’t think much of him, whoever he is, but whatever, who cares? I certainly don’t”.

Either way, it’s heartbreaking to hear the optimism and excitement in his voice, given the timing of the song.

I would love to know your thoughts! Am I totally wrong?

Hello dear friend! ❤️

In a nutshell, I think John wrote songs in 1980 about and/or to Yoko; I also think he wrote “craft” songs about an ideal marriage or a fantasy marriage that never actually existed.

And I absolutely believe Starting Over was written for Paul  :)  

This guy summed up my thoughts on John & Yoko in 1980 pretty well:

“It was an art project. The marriage was an art project. And AS an art project, it was fabulously successful. It presented an image of a sexist man who acknowledged his own anger, acknowledged that he “used to be cruel to his woman,” acknowledged all of that stuff. Subsuming it, sublimating it and becoming something else: trying to maintain a relationship of equality with a strong woman. And that continues through Double Fantasy. 

The facts almost don't matter. Because the image is a very, very strong one, and it would take a clearer rebuttal than we're ever going to get to destroy that image.”

I mean, the album has the word FANTASY in it, for crying out loud!  If that's not a winky face emoji of an album title, I dunno what is.

John specifically said he loved the phrase for its multiple meanings including "a double couple." (x) I'm curious... WTF is a double couple??!  Is it "John & Yoko" AND "John & Paul" ??  I've never heard anyone ever use that phrase before. 

Here's the thing about John... I don't think he is ever 100% comfortable spewing bullshit. So while he is willing to engage in a massive PR spectacle in 1980, he also drops little truth bombs here and there.  I think in 1980 John still gets mad at Paul, still gets competitive with him, still has resentments from 1966 that they never ironed out. So you'll hear those in some of his interviews. But I also think he absolutely adored Paul and wanted both Paul and the world to know it, and you can find that in interviews, as well.

I suspect trying to glean details from songs can sometimes be misleading (b/c sometimes songwriters take poetic license for the sake of the rhyme/groove/etc), but "when I see you, darling, it's like we both are falling in love again" is pretty much the most romantic thing ever.  When I see you isn't a detail to me, it's clearly about someone John doesn't see much (but when he does, all the feelings come rushing back).

How in the WORLD is John going to say anything other than Starting Over is for his wife, his co-creator, the woman he's kissing on the front of the album?  People will naturally just assume it anyway.  But Paul will know.

Expecting him to SAY it's about Paul is beyond unrealistic.  Anyone who argues that "if John didn't say it, it can't be about Paul!" is arguing that artists are incapable of writing things that are too difficult or dangerous (or just too embarrassing and tender) to discuss in public. Obviously that's not the case.

June 26th, 1964 (New City Hotel, Dunedin, New Zealand): Bob Rogers asks the Beatles to name their favourite songs from A Hard Day’s Night and talk about George and Ringo’s prospective songwriting efforts. Irreverence ensues. (Note: Joy. Transcribing this was an unwieldy task, as everyone talks over one another constantly. Apologies in advance for any/all gaps!)

ROGERS: Can we elucidate on the songs in the film and do you have a favourite song in the film called A Hard Day’s Night? [long pause]

PAUL: Yeah.

RINGO: It’s good.

PAUL: It’s all good. 

GEORGE: Yes. We have a lot of songs in the film, about seven or eight new ones, and my particular favourite just happens to be ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, which will be our next single release, and buy your copy or audio copy now. Thank you!

RINGO: Well I like that one too, George. [inaudible]

PAUL: I like that one, and one called—

RINGO: ‘Linda’.

PAUL: ‘And I Love Her’. 

RINGO: ‘And I Love Her’. Yeah, I love that one.

PAUL: Oh, do you like that? 

RINGO: Yeah!

PAUL: Oh, thanks, Ringo! Thanks. 

RINGO: And the way you sing it knocks me out.

JOHN: And the way that camera goes over your head. 

PAUL: Oh, you should see—

JOHN: I thought, “Hello.”

It POTENTIALLY gets a bit more layered than that though once you add in the idea of hugging meditation. Contrary to what Paul says (sorry Paul, I do believe you on most things, just not this) despite being 'Northern men' TM the Beatles were a huggy bunch. John mentions it in the 1967 Hunter Davies interview:

''We used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances. Then we got to hugging each other. Now we do the Buddhist bit… arms around. It’s just saying hello, that’s all.''

As pointed out in @thecoleopterawithana and @monkberries amazing posts, the Buddhist bit is hugging meditation which became popular in the 1960s. In hugging meditation, you

''have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me.”''

We know physical touch was important to John. One of the plusses of being with Yoko was being affectionate with his best friend, he tells Paul that touching is good whilst hugging him and in the Get Back sessions he delightedly asks Paul about a vivid dream where he was touching Paul (whether platonic or romantic this always read to me as a blatant subconscious desire for increased intimacy with Paul). The desire for intimacy is still present in the 'Real Life/Love' demo in 1977 where John muses about holding a mysterious has-a-baby-expecting-another-lives-on-a-farm someone in his arms as if it was only yesterday (another piece of media I still cannot believe we have on tape).

With John's evident desire for physical intimacy in mind and the focus on holding dear ones in hugging meditation, I don't think it's too far to think that John would associate this term of endearment with a certain level of both physical and emotional intimacy. Whether its a slightly bittersweet ironic recollection of those times together in the late 60s or a sincere statement of their current relationship, Paul as his dear one could be seen as continuation of John's suppressed, resentful but ultimately present desire for reignited intimacy with Paul on multiple levels (again romantic? Platonic? Choose-your-own-adventure there, I'm not in charge of you).

We went to Paris... it was supposed to be Spain, but we couldn't get past Paris, we enjoyed that so much... on the strength of his hundred quid when he was twenty-one. We went hitch-hiking, we kind of said, 'well look, I mean, we could get to Spain on this', you know, hundred quid, you know? He was kind of... I don't think he was funding me, so much, as he was spending. And I'd be there for the banana milkshake! [Julia laughs] You know, I'd just happen to be there while he was spending, you know?

And when you stop for a second, it's like... yeah Paul? Why was any explanation needed? Weren’t you also in love around that same time? Like in '68, Paul, you yourself were engaged to one woman and then less than a year later already proposing and making a baby with another (Obviously Paul and Linda were amazing and had that once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, not trying to downplay that at all!).

But the way Paul always acts like John had to personally explain love to him is just weird. Did George need to explain falling for Pattie to justify growing distant and dissatisfied with the rest of them? I seriously doubt it.

Idk, it's just so weird.

Yeah, I know what you mean anon.

(Bear with me, I am getting to the point).

My understanding of John and Paul’s relationship is constantly shifting (there’s just so much seemingly contradictory information!) but at the moment I’m leaning towards a gay panic model:

They had an acknowledged, established relationship that wasn’t monogamous but was committed. They discussed and understood it way more clearly than is generally assumed. In the late sixties, as the optimism of the summer of love waned, they started to fear that homosexuality was sinful and would attract instant karma like dying alone (Brian) or at the hand of your lover (Joe Orton).

Let’s find our true loves, get married!

If this whole thing was clearer in Paul’s mind than John’s, or Paul’s idea altogether, then maybe Paul needs to believe that John really did love Yoko so much that he *had* to wipe the slate clean (specifically of Paul). Otherwise the appalling vista is that Paul pushed John into her arms when she wasn’t what John wanted or needed.

Couldn’t I have given you a better life?

hello hello! this is what I have readily available, from the sale of the beatles....bedsheets

now, one could fairly argue that there was more than one bed in at least one of these rooms, but at the same time, I don't think it's even up to the imagination which pair of them shared a room, and after quotes from paul like "I slept with john a lot" and "in bed", imo its a pretty safe bet that there might've only been one bed

but I'm not satisfied with a safe bet! I browsed around for publicly-available hotel floor plans and couldn't find any above the first few floors. so :) instead I called the san francisco hilton at the listed address in the top right corner and asked them. obviously it's possible that things have changed in the last sixty years, but at least currently, rooms 1548 through 1550 are indeed all single king bed rooms (specifically on the 15th floor in tower 3, which was the one already constructed in 1964. thank you hilton staff)

so I'm about as sure as I can be that paul and john deliberately chose to sleep in the same bed together long after they had the money for their own rooms and beds.

basically 100% confirms it.

and yah, they're right, also helpfully providing a link (http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1964.0818.beatles.html) confirming that the beatles were indeed already checked into the hotel during THIS interview:

After the fun and games of one year ago, John and Paul are no longer fooling around. Lennon & McCartney talk about their job, songwriting. from THE BEATLES BOOK MONTHLY, No. 33, June 1966

JOHN: Now that Paul's back from his holidays, we're getting ready to do quite a bit of recording. We have to get two songs for a new single in the next couple of weeks and we've got to start work on another LP album. That means we want nearly twenty new numbers- allowing for a couple of spare ones in case something doesn't really work out when we get in the studio.

PAUL: I think song-writing is like any other kind of writing. You tend to put it off until somebody tells you it has to be finished by a particular date.

JOHN: When we're on our own and we think of an idea for a song, the main thing is to get it down so that it isn't forgotten. Words you can write on bits of paper but it's not that easy with a tune. We've found the best way of all is to use a tape recorder.

PAUL: With a tape you can put on the voice and add bits of guitar and things later when you get a good idea in your mind for a guitar phrase or an introduction.

JOHN: And it doesn't really matter if you haven't got all the lyrics worked out. You can just hum or go "la-la-la-la" for the bits you haven't written yet.

PAUL: Then John and I get together and play over the tapes we've made.

JOHN: Paul's much more of an expert about recording his songs. Some of his tapes are fantastic--they're dubbed and everything so that you get the full group sound--not like mine which are just my own voice and one guitar.

PAUL: Just like any other kind of writing, it's impossible to walk about doing other things and suddenly say to yourself "Ah, l've got a song coming on. Here it comes now" and rush to your tape recorder.

JOHN: I dunno. Sometimes you can start off a new song like that. It depends.

PAUL: We've been talking about this and we've decided we ought to force ourselves to arrange days for songwriting together in advance.

JOHN: It's too easy to put it off if we just meet without any plan and say "Shall we write something today?". If you do that you feel as though you're losing a free day. What we're going to do is make dates beforehand and sort of say "Right Wednesday and Friday of this week are for songwriting. And Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week". Then we'll know it's something we've to keep to.

PAUL: We'll try to fix times and keep to them. Get into a room with guitars and a piano and a tape recorder and work things out.

JOHN: I said at the start we would need twenty new numbers. Actually, both of us have some half-started stuff which needs finishing. Some of Paul's tapes are almost complete too. We'll probably get five or six songs out of these and then begin thinking up new ones.

PAUL: One of the only real differences between the way we prepare for recording sessions now and the way we did it years ago is that we know more about recording techniques.

JOHN: Earlier on we'd go into the studio and George Martin would say after he'd heard something "Well, that's going to be O.K. but why don't you try putting a so-and-so in there." And he'd suggest an organ sound or double-tracking on something. Now we know just how much can be done in the studio we can think up new sounds and different instruments to use before a session.

PAUL: Means we should get more done at a session.

JOHN: Ah, I've got a song coming on. Here it comes now!

PAUL: Right! Let's get back to work.

Lennon and McCartney receive five Ivor Novello awards

Tuesday 13 July 1965 Award

On behalf of him and John Lennon, Paul McCartney accepted five Ivor Novello awards during a luncheon at the Savoy Hotel on the Strand, London.

The ceremony was presented by David Frost, and the awards were given to McCartney by Sir Billy Butlin. McCartney arrived 40 minutes late after forgetting about the event.

Lennon, meanwhile, chose not to attend after the fuss caused by The Beatles being awarded MBEs. In recognition of this, McCartney accepted one of the awards with the words, “Thanks. I hope nobody sends theirs back now.”

At least John turned up at the Palace. That was more than he managed at the Ivor Novello Awards at London’s Savoy Hotel. I got a panic call from Brian at the office at 11.00am on the day of the ceremony. Did I know that John and Paul were due at the Savoy at 12.30pm for the premier British song-writing award? Yes, of course I did, it was in the diary. The only problem was that Brian had insisted he was going to tell the boys and he had uncharacteristically forgotten. Could I get them there on time? I said it was impossible but that wasn’t a word Brian understood. The idea of delivering a public snub to the whole of the music and entertainment establishment was simply unthinkable. Just get them there on time, Alistair. Oh and don’t tell them that the panic is because I forgot. Invent some cover story, please.

In Brian-speak, this translated as ‘accept the blame for the mistake yourself and pretend that you forgot’. John was out at home in Weybridge so I rang him first as he had further to travel. At least, he would have had if he’d had the slightest intention of going anywhere. My explanation about the last-minute call to the Savoy sounded desperately lame so I was hardly surprised when the Lennon response was a brief ‘Fuck off,’ followed by the line going dead.

That left Paul. The telephone rang in the elegant Asher household in Wimpole Street for what seemed like an age. I knew Paul and Jane had been out late the night before and, as the phone rang and rang, my heart sank further into my boots. Eventually Jane’s charming but very protective mother answered. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I don’t think Paul and Jane were sleeping together at home at that stage. She couldn’t possibly disturb Paul as early as this, whatever the crisis. Could I ring back later? My blood pressure rose by several points but I had no alternative but to wait and ring back later. All the time, I could imagine the guests arriving at the Savoy happy in the knowledge they would soon be seeing the two song-writing Beatles in person.

I left it until midday, and rang back and this time I firmly insisted that Mrs Asher wake Paul - please. She reluctantly agreed and a minute or so later a sleepy and very grumpy Paul came on the phone. I burbled out the story I had been practising for the past hour and there was then a very long pause from the other end of the line. For a horrible moment or two, I was terrified he had gone back to sleep. But then Paul said, 'OK, be round in a cab to pick me up in ten minutes’ time.’ Thank you, Paul, I thought, and when my taxi arrived at Wimpole Street about 15 minutes later there was Paul to answer the door holding a piece of toast but he was suited and booted and ready to go.

The Beatles - I Will (take 29) WIP 

this is the first major work on in progress. It’s still very rough so bare with me. I just know I might not post in a while (probably gonna be posting for the askthefabfourblog).