Do you think John and Paul ever saw each other again after ‘76? Or even talked on the phone? I know Paul says they did but every so often doubt creeps in and I start wondering if Paul isn’t just making up stories to convince himself that they were still friends. Your thoughts?
Thank you for the ask! It made me look back at John's last interviews and some of Paul's earliest after the murder. I don't think Paul made up the phone calls, because he has been consistent in talking about them since the early 80s. In his interviews shortly after John's death he talks about it quite detailed and I don't think he would make something like this up. For other speculations about their last meeting I found this great blogspot post: https://mccartnet.blogspot.com/2012/04/when-was-lennon-and-mccartneys-last.html
What I do wonder is, if they maybe saw each other for the last time in 1978. John mentions in 1980 he thinks that the "turning Paul away incident" was like 2 years ago and Geoffrey Giuliano claims that John, Yoko, Paul and Linda went to see the movie "Pretty Baby" together, which was released in April 1978. (The lost Lennon diaries) - but people say he's not a reliable source... But maybe John didn't turn Paul away the day after the SNL evening (24th of April 1976), but after the movie night? But then again Sean was already a toddler in 1978...
WELL if somebody did more research on this, I would love to know, but I'll end it here, because I think in the end there won't be a really satisfying answer. And maybe the important part is that the love they had for each other never went away either way.
(Newsweek, 1982, by Jim Miller) Q: "Did you see much of him before he died?"
PAUL: "I saw him quite a bit. Always, the problem was talking business. Whenever we got into business, we got into an argument. It wasn't a pleasant framework for a relationship. When Sean (John and Yoko's son) was first born, I visited him a few times at the Dakota (Lennon's apartment house in New York). And then it had gone snotty. I used to turn up without calling him. One time, he got annoyed with me. He said, 'Well, look, man... Why do you just keep turning up here and surprise us? Why don't you just call first?' And I took that the wrong way. After that, I don't think I did see him. I phoned a few times. As long as we were talking about family, about life, it was good. The last time I spoke to him, I got off the phone and it felt like old friends again. I've talked to Yoko since then, and she's said to me, 'You know, he really was quite fond of you.' I think we were pretty close. But, sometimes, with brothers, you argue. They can be the most intense arguments, too."
(Playboy, 1984, by Joan Goodman) PLAYBOY: "Do you remember your last conversation with John?"
PAUL: "Yes. That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blowup. It could have easily been one of the other phone calls, when we blew up at each other and slammed the phone down."
PLAYBOY: "Do you remember what you talked about?"
PAUL: "It was just a very happy conversation about his family, my family. Enjoying his life very much; Sean was a very big part of it. And thinking about getting on with his career. I remember he said, 'Oh, God, I'm like Aunt Mimi, padding round here in me dressing gown' ...robe, as he called it, cuz he was picking up the American vernacular... 'feeding the cats in me robe and cooking and putting a cup of tea on. This housewife wants a career!' It was that time for him. He was about to launch Double Fantasy."
(Playboy, September 1980, by David Sheff) PLAYBOY: "Aside from the millions you've been offered for a reunion concert, how did you feel about producer Lorne Michaels' generous offer of $3200 for appearing together on 'Saturday Night Live' a few years ago?"
LENNON: "Oh, yeah. Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired."
PLAYBOY: "How did you and Paul happen to be watching TV together?"
LENNON: "That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door... But, anyway, back on that night, he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, 'Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?' but we didn't."
PLAYBOY: "Was that the last time you saw Paul?"
LENNON: "Yes, but I didn't mean it like that." (Newsweek, 29th of September 1980, by Barbara Graustark) Q: "Paul McCartney's theory is that you became a recluse because you'd done everything - but be yourself."
JOHN: "What the hell does that mean? Paul didn't know what I was doing - he was as curious as everyone else. It's ten years since I really communicated with him. I know as much about him as he does about me, which is zilch. About two years ago, he turned up at the door. I said, 'Look, do you mind ringin' first? I've just had a hard day with the baby. I'm worn out and you're walkin' in with a damn guitar!"
“Paul loved working with John. At the beginning it was like sex–they popped them off, one after another.“
"John hooked right in and fed off the energy. John and Paul had remarkably similar tastes [in music]; they liked it fast, hard, and loose."
"It never occurred to Paul just how much he missed John. More than anyone else, John had been his friend for ten years, to say nothing of his collaborator, his sidekick, his shadow. Not only had they played music together, they'd hung out together, dreamed together, fucked together, become famous together. Grown up together."
“The last week in August, Paul McCartney returned to Liverpool, tanned and noticeably slimmer. In addition to starting school, he came back to begin a relationship he seemed destined for: hooking up with John Lennon."
"School proved a nagging obstacle for John and Paul, the occasional stolen afternoons unsatisfying, hardly time enough to get something going before Jim arrived home from work. Weekends were reserved primarily for the band. It wasn't so much that they needed time to write as much as it was each other's company. "Something special was growing between them," says Colin Hanton, "something that went past friendship as we knew it."
"But it was clear once Ivan and Paul got around to John, there was a lot of ‘checking out’ being done”
"But John was enamored of Paul’s prodigious talent, so much that all previous reservations disappeared. Transfixed, John squatted on his haunches, squinting, close enough to study Paul’s elastic hands.”
"John and Paul circled each other like cats. Their interest in each other was deeper and more complex than it appeared to anyone watching the encounter. There was instant recognition, a chemical connection made between two boys who sensed in the other the same heartfelt commitment to this music, the same do-or-die. For all the circling, posturing, and checking out that went on, what it all came down to was love at first sight."
𝑰𝒛𝒛𝒚 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒍𝒊𝒏♡
𝒂𝒌𝒂 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒎𝒍>
John Lennon and Paul McCartney met on July 6th, 1957. The rest is history.
the one time mclennon doesn’t top and tail it
The first attempt at “I Saw Her Standing There” from The Lyrics
(v. 1 p 327)
You’re just seventeen You act like a queen Your…..are beyond compare So how could I dance with another When I see you standing there.
i’m sorry…
YOU ACT LIKE A QUEEN?
Also, totally gender neutral. It started out totally and completely gender neutral.
glasses
tooootally not self inserting into john
1963.02.19 – Liverpool. The Cavern club
(Photos by Michael Ward/Getty Images)
That feeling when the married couple next to you starts squabbling
‘The Big Beat Craze’, Daily Mirror, 10th September 1963
Oh, for what it’s worth, no less than John Lennon loved the song. I spent a long time talking to [photographer] Bob Gruen once, it was great as we talked about a lot of stuff that he doesn’t usually get grilled on. One of the things that came up was the times he spent with John listening to the radio. Bob singled this song out as one he and John would listen to and how much John loved the song. John took the song quite personally, and saw it as Paul sending a message to him: ‘Yeah, I know you think I only write silly love songs, but I love you.’ Bob said John specifically mentioned the ‘I love you’ refrain as being a message from Paul to him. We can speculate all we want, but I have no reason to doubt the word or memory of a guy who sat in the Dakota bedroom with John and listened to this song with him.
— gswan, c/o Steve Hoffman Music Forums. (October 28th, 2010)