1970: Though they'd quietly agreed to go their separate ways the prior fall, it wasn't until the news went public that April that the mudslinging truly began.
Now, in his new book Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney is opening up about that troubled time in his relationship with John Lennon, his friend and musical soulmate. "When we broke up and everyone was now flailing around, John turned nasty," McCartney, 79, writes. "I don't really understand why. Maybe because we grew up in Liverpool, where it was always good to get in the first punch of a fight."
Legal proceedings to dissolve the Beatles' partnership had begun almost exactly a decade earlier on Dec. 31, 1970. That same month, an embittered and emotionally raw Lennon released his first full-scale solo statement, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
Now, in his new book Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney is opening up about that troubled time in his relationship with John Lennon, his friend and musical soulmate. "When we broke up and everyone was now flailing around, John turned nasty," McCartney, 79, writes. "I don't really understand why. Maybe because we grew up in Liverpool, where it was always good to get in the first punch of a fight."
Legal proceedings to dissolve the Beatles' partnership had begun almost exactly a decade earlier on Dec. 31, 1970. That same month, an embittered and emotionally raw Lennon released his first full-scale solo statement, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
Fresh off months, the album lay bare the wounds.The centerpiece of the record is the track "God" which ends with the climactic pronouncement "I don't believe in Beatles / I just believe in me".
McCartney saId: "John was firing missiles at me with his songs, and one or two of them were quite cruel. I don't know what he hoped to gain, other than punching me in the face. The whole thing really annoyed me," he recalled in Lyrics. "John would say things like, 'It was rubbish. Also, 'I don't believe in The Beatles, I don't believe in Jesus, I don't believe in God.' Those were quite hurtful barbs to be flinging around and I was the person they were being flung at, and it hurt. So, I'm having to read all this stuff, and on the one hand I'm thinking 'Why would you say that? Are you annoyed at me or are you jealous or what?' And thinking back 50 years later, I still wonder how he must have felt."
McCartney writes. "John always had a lot of that bluster, though. It was his shield against life. We'd have an argument about something and he'd say something particularly caustic; then I'd be a bit wounded, and he'd pull down his glasses and peer at me and say, 'It's only me, Paul.' Oh, alright, you've just gone and blustered and that was somebody else, was it It was his shield talking."
McCartney writes. "John always had a lot of that bluster, though. It was his shield against life. We'd have an argument about something and he'd say something particularly caustic; then I'd be a bit wounded, and he'd pull down his glasses and peer at me and say, 'It's only me, Paul.' Oh, alright, you've just gone and blustered and that was somebody else, was it It was his shield talking."
"I decided to turn my missiles on him too, but I'm not really that kind of writer, so it was quite veiled," he says. "It was the 1970s equivalent of what we might today call a 'diss track.' Songs like this, where you're calling someone out on their behavior, are quite commonplace now, but back then it was a fairly new 'genre.'"
On his second solo disc, 1971's Ram, he included "Too Many People",[That] was me saying basically, 'You've made this break, so good luck with it.' But it was pretty mild...It was all a bit weird and a bit nasty, and I was basically saying, 'Let's be sensible. We had a lot going for us in the Beatles, and what actually split us up is the business stuff, and that's pretty pathetic really, so let's try and be peaceful. Let's maybe give peace a chance.'"
On his second solo disc, 1971's Ram, he included "Too Many People",[That] was me saying basically, 'You've made this break, so good luck with it.' But it was pretty mild...It was all a bit weird and a bit nasty, and I was basically saying, 'Let's be sensible. We had a lot going for us in the Beatles, and what actually split us up is the business stuff, and that's pretty pathetic really, so let's try and be peaceful. Let's maybe give peace a chance.'"
"I had to work very hard not to take it too seriously, but at the back of my mind I was thinking: 'Wait a minute, All I ever did was "Yesterday"? I suppose that's a funny pun, but all I ever did was "Yesterday," "Let It Be," "The Long and Winding Road," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lady Madonna"….f— you, John.'"
"At first, after the breakup of the Beatles, we had no contact, but there were various things we needed to talk about," says Paul. "Our relationship was a bit fraught sometimes because we were discussing business, and we would sometimes insult each other on the phone. But gradually we got past that, and if I was in New York I would ring up and say, 'Do you fancy a cup of tea?'"
Paul noticed a shift in his friend following the birth of his son Sean in 1975. "We had even more in common, and we'd often talk about being parents."
Paul noticed a shift in his friend following the birth of his son Sean in 1975. "We had even more in common, and we'd often talk about being parents."
Lennon effectively retired from music for the next five years, devoting his life to Sean's care. Fittingly, it was his old collaborator who inspired him to pick up a guitar once again. Lennon heard McCartney's electro-tinged 1980 single "Coming Up," an unconventional track that seemed to predict the impending onslaught of New Wave artists. "John described 'Coming Up' somewhere as 'a good piece of work.' He'd been lying around not doing much, and it sort of shocked him out of inertia. So it was nice to hear that it had struck a chord with him." Lennon's so-called "comeback" album, Double Fantasy, featured some of the same New Wave sensibilities.
"I was very glad of how we got along in those last few years, that I had some really good times with him before he was murdered," he writes. "Without question, it would have been the worst thing in the world for me, had he been killed, when we still had a bad relationship. I would've thought, 'Oh, I should've, I should've, I should've…' It would have been a big guilt trip for me. But luckily, our last meeting was very friendly. We talked about how to bake bread."
"I was remembering things about our relationship and about the million things we'd done together, from just being in each other's front parlors or bedrooms to walking on the street together or hitchhiking — long journeys together which had nothing to do with the Beatles." He nods to Lennon's trademark bluff with the opening verse:
—If I said I really knew you well If you were here today?Well knowing youWhat would your answer be You'd probably laugh and say that we were world's apart If you were here today.
"I'm playing to the more cynical side of John," says McCartney in Lyrics, "but I don't think it's true that we were so distant." As the song continues, he sets aside all pretenses with "What about the night we cried/Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside." The lines recall the moment that they both let their guard down while on the road in 1964, during the height of the mania that their music had created. "That was in Key West, on our first major tour of the US, when there was a hurricane coming in and we couldn't play a show in Jacksonville. We had to lie low for a couple of days, and we were in our little Key West motel room, and we got very drunk and cried about how we loved each other."
—If I said I really knew you well If you were here today?Well knowing youWhat would your answer be You'd probably laugh and say that we were world's apart If you were here today.
"I'm playing to the more cynical side of John," says McCartney in Lyrics, "but I don't think it's true that we were so distant." As the song continues, he sets aside all pretenses with "What about the night we cried/Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside." The lines recall the moment that they both let their guard down while on the road in 1964, during the height of the mania that their music had created. "That was in Key West, on our first major tour of the US, when there was a hurricane coming in and we couldn't play a show in Jacksonville. We had to lie low for a couple of days, and we were in our little Key West motel room, and we got very drunk and cried about how we loved each other."
"I don't think it's as true now as it was back in the 1950s and '60s, but certainly when we were growing up you'd have to be gay for a man to say that to another man, so that blinkered attitude bred a little bit of cynicism," McCartney writes today. "If you were talking about anything soppy, someone would have to make a joke of it, just to ease the embarrassment in the room. But there's a longing in the lines, 'If you were here today,' and 'I am holding back the tears no more,' because it was very emotional writing this song. I was just sitting there in that bare room, thinking of John and realizing I'd lost him. And it was a powerful loss, so to have a conversation with him in a song was some form of solace. Somehow I was with him again." It provided the opportunity to say everything that had gone unsaid.
—And if I say I really loved youAnd was glad you came alongThen you were here todayFor you were in my song
"'And if I say/I really loved you' — There it is, I've said it," McCartney writes. "Which I would never have said to him."
—And if I say I really loved youAnd was glad you came alongThen you were here todayFor you were in my song
"'And if I say/I really loved you' — There it is, I've said it," McCartney writes. "Which I would never have said to him."
"As I continue to write my own songs, I'm still very conscious that I don't have him around, but I still have him whispering in my ear after all these years. I'm often second-guessing what John would have thought — 'This is too soppy' — or what he would have said different, so I sometimes change it. But that's what being a songwriter is about; you have to be able to look over your own shoulder...Now that John is gone, I can't sit around sighing for the old days. I can't sit around wishing he was still here. Not only can I not replace him, but I don't need to, in some profound sense."
No comments:
Post a Comment