“I Could Have Told John To LISTEN…”

This is so future nostalgia coded. He DECIDED to do this. He made a conscious choice. What must it be like to live inside his mind?

If I had three wishes they would be for three conversations with him. The first would be on a cross country road trip. Playlists and chat. Can you imagine?

The Quarry Men with Arthur Kelly, George Harrison and John Lennon (circa 1958)

The Fritz Session, 9th April 1969, photo by Bruce McBroom

The cover of Rolling Stone №57 (April 30, 1970 with interview about Paul's first solo album McCartney), photo by Linda Eastman (McCartney)

The Beatles + Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend

I said God Damn

the revolution wasn't bad we hit the streets with all we had

Is this just audio? I would love to see how much he fidgets while saying all this.

Did find this interview and on a rewatch I do find the India connection very intriguing.

It feels significant Paul. Why does this song of regret make you think of India?

what if I just jump off a bridge

once again i’m back on my bullshit with paul’s very obvious type

This just goes back to where they came from. Liverpool is a tough town. I wouldn't particularly want to run into Paul McCartney in a dark alley, if he didn't like me.

Michael Lindsay Hogg

This always feels significant when I read or hear it. Thoughts are stirred, but can’t be captured.

Anyway.

It was at Stoky Wood* (badge - black and yellow, with a picture of a Spitfire flying over the River Mersey) that Paul and I saw our first film. We were seated on long wooden benches watching Crime Buster Dick Barton**, a great radio hero of ours, when it became too much for Paul. In the flickering half light I watched with great amusement as Big Brother stumbled over me and his pals to exit screen left, scared out of his tiny mind. He wasn't scared when it came to smaller things such as bullies, however, and many's the time he came to my rescue in the school play yard. 'Big Brother have a use after all,' I thought.

*Stockton Wood Primary School, Speke, Liverpool **Dick Barton: Special Agent, was released in May 1948 Btw, Paul's 'I have another memory, of hiding from someone, then hitting them over the head with an iron bar' is the story about Stoky Wood too (Paul was at Stockton Wood Primary School from September 1947 until July 1951)

My memories of brother and I are of two independent little chaps, but Uncle and Auntie,s remembrances are of 'two right little swine', always up to mischief, or with their backs to the wall saying, 'We won't… WE WON'T!' I'm sure they're just a might confused. I do remember a few instances, however, which might give their memories some validity. Like the memory of Paul and me in 72 Western speeding up the growth of next door's apples by throwing stones at the apple tree, and then vigorously denying it. The stones on the other side let us down! Memories of being boss of my own gang in the later Stockton Wood years and charging against the 'enemy' across the school yard in full war cry (obviously why the headmistress Miss Margaret A. Thomas, who used to make the school toys herself, advised the world that one day I would be a 'Leader of men').*** And the came an older bully unto the yard who hit little girls and maketh them cry, and it behove me to teach unto him a lesson: Seeing that I was far too young and weedy to challenge him personally, I chose a friend to talk for me…(no, not Paul)…a housebrick! Being, as I've said, a holy lad it wasn't too difficult to levitate the brick up into the air…over the Bully's thick head…and cut (snip!) the invisible strings. After this bloody, awful incident, he didn't bully little girls, or anyone else for that matter, ever more.

(Mike McCartney, 1981, Thank U Very Much. Mike McCartney's Family Album)

***'I remember the headmistress saying how good the two boys were with younger children,' says Jim, 'always sticking up for them. She said Michael was going to be a leader of men. I think this was because he was always arguing. Paul did things much quieter. He had much more nous. Mike stuck his neck out. Paul always avoided trouble.'

(The Beatles: The Authorised Biography by Hunter Davies, 2010, Updated Edition)

Also:

They were four tough kids from Liverpool who’d learned their craft playing in hotel-cum-brothels in Hamburg. I mean, they were tough. They grew up in Liverpool, which was a tough city. It’s like growing up in Detroit or somewhere. Somewhere, that toughness always comes out. <…> This just goes back to where they came from. Liverpool is a tough town. I wouldn't particularly want to run into Paul McCartney in a dark alley, if he didn't like me.

(Michael Lindsay-Hogg, May 2024, interview with Rob Sheffield for Rolling Stones)

Who was writing all them songs? In your room.

And the dream I had was you

This is the kind of thinking that only tumblr delivers.

The transition in Paul's attitude from 66' to 67' freaks me out a little and I think should be talked about more. In 66' he's full on ready for independence and spouting off in magazines like ''I'm my own person, I want to grow up, do my own thing, maybe only work with the Beatles when we feel the need to'' etc. Contrast that to 67' and he's full-blown May Queen from Midsommar "Leaving? Why would you say that?? I'm staying forever and ever and ever with the Beatles, financially handcuffing ourselves to each other just feels good y'know, so what if I'm psychically fused with John whats the big deal?" enmeshed. Sure he's got Jane but even she leaves partially because Paul's first and foremost part of the four-headed monster.

Like Paul, what happened??? Did they lock you in a room clockwork orange style with a shit ton of LSD and the Beatles cartoon? Did John sneak into your room at night and start playing a menacing arrangement of the Beach Boys at a subliminal frequency? Did you get spooked by independence and taxes and run back to the loving embrace of the emotional polycule? It frankly makes the LSD peer pressure thing come across as vaguely sinister/j.

The Beatles don't get enough credit for being the weird microcosm of in-group/out-group pack mentality behaviour that those little freaks were. Seriously, it should be studied.

#Jesus Christ Paul #people can hear you #the words go wrong somewhere around the lips #what is the correct quote #how can you not be in love with each other

This really sounds like the “person I was in love with” is John