ARIES RISING

I suspect that Paul was a lot like his mother. As you said, there's really no way to know what she was like, but I felt like I understood a little more about Paul after learning that Mary had grown up in abject poverty, and that she said nothing but made sure the house was clean and the kids' lunches were packed before going to the hospital to die. :(

Absolutely. Mary had it rough growing up, her mother died when she was young, her father moved the family to Ireland to try farming, had to move them back to Liverpool when he proved to be kind of bad at it, and then he got married to a stepmother that hated Mary. Mary reputedly ran away from home and signed on to be a nurse after her stepmother slapped her. She insisted on being her own person until she met Jim in a bomb shelter and they hit it off.

I think about that parallel a lot because Paul was also similarly furious about being struck by a parent figure (there's a fan interview from 1965 maybe? where Paul, with George as a witness, made a jibe that he'd had enough of being struck by his father). John has that quote about how "your dad can't do anything to you, you could kill him if you wanted to" or something like that which in hindsight really reads like John telling Paul not to put up with being kicked around anymore. And then there's the fact that Paul dropped out of school to run away to Hamburg with John which...

Paul has a lot in common with his mother. Paul and Mary shared a lot of hardnosed qualities where they are both willing to abandon unsalvageable situations and they don't put up with being disrespected. They even both ran away from home...though eventually Paul went back. His relationship with his dad was really shot through with a lot resentment and sadness.

And yeah, Mary looking after the kids and putting them over her health, and the way she said nothing the day she went to the hospital. Jim was a similar way, he couldn't verbalize his feelings either. It's easy to see why Paul struggles so much with putting words to his feelings, not just that he's uncomfortable doing it but that he doesn't know what he is feeling unless he uses music to access it.

Johnny Old Web 🍓

do you remember that sweet old site about John with sparkles and cuteness? 。･:*:･(✿◕3◕)❤

It's kinda funny when people draw John without lashes because that man had lashes longer than a camel

um................... can i help you

CBS News' London correspondent Alexander Kendrick witnesses one of the most awkward moments between John Lennon and Paul McCartney ever captured on film. The Beatles appearing on CBS News, 22nd November 1963 (x)

I think some of you are projecting onto John when you say he was deeply obsessed with Paul. It seems like you're the ones obsessed with Paul, and you're projecting those feelings onto John. Yes, John admired Paul, but you all act as if John spent his entire life obsessing over him. I don't think that's the case.

1966 💭

walking martha and discussing house chores somewhere in 67

Songs by The Beatles that shaped me as a person

Michelle

Don't Let Me Down

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

She Said She Said

Mother Nature's Son

Fixing a Hole

I'm Only Sleeping

Because

Baby's in Black

Dig a Pony

Оооо I feel a very special vibe in all these songs.

Stuart was going to stay in Hamburg, cos he’d fallen in love with this girl Astrid [Kirchherr], who was part of a little set who called themselves the Exi’s, existentialists. They were very cool in black, tight trousers, little high-heeled boots. She was blonde, she had a short Peter Pan pageboy haircut, she looked dead cool. We’d never seen a chick like it. She dressed like a boy, a very slim little boy, so it was all, Fuckin’ hell, look at her!  I think we all fancied her but she fancied Stuart, who’d been the one guy who’d never been able to pull anything in our band. We’d always pulled before old Stu, but he got these great shades and struck a James Dean pose, got his hair going groovy like James Dean, so she went mad for him. And their group used to really like Stuart. I think it went: Stuart, John, George, me, Pete Best. That was their order of preference. They took some great photos of us. 

- Paul McCartney interview in Paul Du Noyer, Conversations with McCartney (2015) pp.34-35