Gorgeous

🎉 1 MORE DAY UNTIL MCLENNON WEEK! 🎉

Friendly reminder that McLennon Week begins tomorrow Monday July 4th!

(For more info check the guidelines and the prompt list posts.)

More ✨McLennon✨!!!!

This song by Paul was just too perfect not to use!

2003: The Quarrymen have conflicting hazy memories on what happened the day John and Paul first met. (Note: In order of appearance: Rod Davis, Len Garry, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths. Ignore the erroneous lower third that pops up indicating Len Garry; it’s Eric Griffiths.) 

OK, but is 'The Long and Winding Road' for John? I don't know any story about the song, I only have lyrics that brings me a lot of mcln-feelings and tears. It was 1969 so I think lyrics match perfectly. It sounds for me like 'You broke my heart on Abbey road, you left me for her, I tried so hard to return to you and I don't know what to do now 'cuz I still love you'. Don't you tell me you've never cried over this song!

I’ll tell you a story about this song. I never actually loved it, it was never my favourite beatles song. When I went to Paul’s concert 4 years ago it was the song that hit me the most, I cried like a baby, it was so emotional. 

All the songs in the Let it Be and Abbey Road album written by Paul are about loss, separation and broken hearts. Paul was engaged with Linda in 1969 and seemed quite happy too, so WHY WOULD HE WRITE SUCH A SAD COMPILATION OF SONGS?

Because he was breaking up with John, he was losing him, and tried his best to have him back. He knew it was over and he could do nothing but sing his desperation away. ‘let it be’ is about dreaming his mother telling him that that’s life, that he had to let it happen, no matter if it hurted. ‘Oh!darling’ was a desperate scream of love. ‘The long and winding road’ is his resignation, he gave up, singing how much he tried to come back to him, to put the pieces together and start again.

Many times I’ve been aloneAnd many times I’ve criedAny way you’ll never knowThe many ways I’ve tried

He’s completely lost and desperate, still begging forgiveness from John, waiting for him to come back 

Don’t leave me standing hereLead me to your door

We all know that it will never happen. 

Gorgeous

George and Paul / Hamburg. 1960

Such a joker

Paul: a comedic genius

54 years ago…It was Mad fucking Day Out for The Beatles

Happy McLennon day! 60 years since John met Paul at the Woolton Church Fete on the 6th July 1957 and started this whole thing off… 

“I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me. Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member; all the rest kind of slipped away.”

[Paul, talking about his first impressions of John, Record Collector Magazine, 1995]

“I was on a battered old guitar, which hadn’t cost much. A bloke named Rodney was on banjo, Pete Shotton was on washboard, I think Eric Griffiths was on another guitar and Len Gary [sic] was on box bass. 

“There was a friend of mine called Ivan who lived at the back of my house and he went to the same school as Paul McCartney - The Liverpool Institute High School. It was through Ivan that I first met Paul. Seems that he knew Paul was always dickering around in music and thought that he would be a good lad to have in the group.

“So one day when we were playing at Woolton he brought him along. We can both remember it quite well. We’ve even got the date down. It was June 15th 1955 [sic]. The Quarrymen were playing on a raised platform and there was a good crowd because it was a warm sunny day.”

[John, talking about how he and Paul met, quoted in Beatles Monthly No 2, September 1963 - and obviously getting the date really wrong - on purpose or not?!]

Pics - top - the first (?) photo of John and Paul together. The Quarrymen, including Paul, playing at New Clubmoor Hall, Broadway, Liverpool on 23rd November 1957. Photo by Leslie Kearney.

Photos on truck taken by James Davis - Rod Davis’ dad, who is the Rodney on banjo that John’s talking about. Photos taken on 6th July, 1957. (John with his eyes closed in the centre of the first photo, he’s obscured by Pete Shotton in the second).

Bottom 2 photos - The Quarrymen playing on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul. (Last photo - Geoff Rhind, other photo - Unknown but maybe Geoff Rhind?).

Happy McLennon Day Beatle fans everywhere!