My Latest Songs Tinhat Theory Is That Paul Recorded "Kreen-Akrore" As A Response To "Cold Turkey".

Victorian sexplorer and cross-cultural relationships

Richard Burton

Last night I watched a documentary on Richard Burton presented by Rupert Everett (The Richard Burton in question was the 19th century explorer, writer and translator of the Kama Sutra, not, as Everett put it, ‘Elizabeth Taylor’s fifth and sixth husbands’). Unsurprisingly, considering its lubricious presenter, the documentary focused on Burton’s exploration of sexuality in various parts of the world and his rejection of hypocritical Victorian mores.

I’ve seen Everett in presenter mode before, in a documentary on Byron a few months ago, and while he can be insufferably irritating, I’ve always quite admired his consistency of personality, This was even more evident in this programme, where he was filmed wandering around Egypt, India and Goa among other places. Whether talking to old ladies in the Indian streets, bantering with nuns in a Goa convent or quizzing an Egyptian masseur on his sexual preferences, Everett didn’t substantially change his personality or delivery to fit in with his surroundings. Even when quizzing an imam on the position of homosexuality in Islam (unsurprisingly, verboten!), he was still himself, understandably a heavily dialled-down version for his own safety, but essentially unchanged. The almost jarring sight of a Western person just being relaxed and normal in foreign countries shows us how most TV presenters (and many travellers) take on a fake, simplified persona to interact with ‘natives’. Does this spring from lack of confidence in one’s own personality, or a persistent Western concept of darker-skinned people as eternally ‘other’? Probably a bit of both.

Somebody like Everett, who is clearly an unapologetic egoist, simply doesn’t think to behave any differently – he does not seem hamstrung by post-colonial guilt, which ironically causes many British travellers to be more condescending to their former subjects than if they weren’t plagued by it. The only other TV personality I can think of who displays the same unselfconsciousness is Hector Ó hEochagháin, who shares Everett’s qualities of being intensely annoying and deeply engaging. I remember seeing him in a travel programme where he crossed part of the Sahara, and was struck by the ease with which he interacted with the men accompanying him, drinking and bantering around the campfire. It shouldn’t be striking to see a group of people from different countries interacting normally, but western attitudes and the disparity of wealth between the First and Third Worlds usually places a stranglehold on normality.

Burton found it very easy to interact in the various countries he lived in, mainly due to his skill in assimilating. Local prostitutes (male and female) and mistresses taught him about a world of sexuality miles away from the whalebone corsets of his upbringing. However the key issue of sexual relationships between people of vastly differing wealth appears to have changed little since his time. In the documentary, an unnamed Egyptian masseur gave insight into this as he tried to entice Everett into a ‘hard sex’ or ‘soft sex’ massage. Politely deflecting the proposition, Everett asked the man if he liked men or women, who replied that he preferred women. When Everett asked how he could perform sex acts on men if he was not homosexual, the man seemed confused and replied ‘it’s my job.’ Therein lies the key issue in relationships that cross these kinds of boundaries. Even outside the world of prostitution, how often do the people from the poorer countries actually love their richer partners, and how much of the attachment is driven by monetary need? Is their even a division in the mind of a very poor person between loving attachment and financial security? How much does the richer partner even mind if their lover really cares for them or not? Is a separate homosexual identity a purely western invention, when a married man with children living in a poor country sees no discord in performing sex acts on other men for money?

There’s no doubt that some cross-cultural relationships work very well, but it seems that in many of them a certain amount of delusion is required on the part of the richer partner that they won’t be abandoned if the money runs out. This sounds like an offensive cliché, but I don’t mean it that way at all – primarily it’s not cultural reasons that lead to this disparity in expectations, but simple economics. It’s impossible to underestimate the effect poverty has in shaping personality, and the same for wealth. Coming from a middle-class background, there are dozens of things I used to take for granted – the idea that people can follow any career they wish, that the norm for romantic relationships is financial and gender equality, that only ‘bad’ people commit violent crime – but these assumptions are founded on the comfortable base of coming from generations of professionals who worked hard to give me such an easy view of the world. There’s no shame in coming from such a background, but it’s crucially important to recognise that our views on life are often hopelessly narrow and things sometimes assumed to be universal are impossible for thousands of people, due to the financial inequality of the world. I could be biologically the same person but I would have vastly different views of the world, life, work, marriage and my sense of self if I had been born in Calcutta, Burundi or even deprived parts of Dublin.

The scandals involving the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh and his Nepalese boyfriends showed how little has changed since Burton’s day. From watching the documentary, it seemed fairly obvious that few, if any of the young men would have identified as homosexual in the Western sense, but they were happy to play that role (and the role of obsequious, shoe-cleaning servants) for their rich white benefactor. Again, the lines between avarice and affection seemed blurred – the men were not in love with Ó Searcaigh, but they had affection for him nonetheless. From the poet’s point of view, it didn’t seem to matter a great deal to him whether they cared deeply for him or not. The documentary on Ó Searcaigh was keen to portray the Nepalese boys as helpless victims of an evil predator, but this was simplistic and condescending – it seems unlikely they were not at least partly driven by personal gain. The relationships were essentially exploitative, but not hugely more so than many so-called ‘equal’ Western marriages. Maybe the real scandal should be that an economic situation still prevails in the world that allows such relationships to thrive.

Cor Klaasen

Record sleeves for the Mercier Catholic Record Club, designed by Cor Klaasen

Cor Klaasen was a Dutch designer who worked in Irish advertising throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, but is best remembered for the covers he designed for numerous Irish books and records, including school books for Fallons and sleeves for the Mercier Catholic Record Collection, the original incarnation (pardon the pun) of Mercier Press. A brief exhibition of his work, held as part of Dublin Design Week, is on show in Adifferentkettleoffishaltogether, a small gallery on Ormond Quay, until next Wednesday 10th November. It’s worth a visit, both to appreciate Klaasen’s clean, clever design and to get a feel of some of vibrancy that existed in Irish art and design between the 50s and the 70s.

As exhibition co-ordinator, Niall McCormack (who also maintains the excellent site about vintage Irish book covers, www.hitone.ie) said at a talk he gave as part of OFFSHOOT last night, we assume that 50s Ireland was all ‘Angela’s Ashes and people whipping each other’, but while Ireland was nowhere near as advanced as other European countries in art and design, there was still a number of talented, enthusiastic people who did their best to shake up the stifling social conservatism that dominated in all cultural fields for so long.

I thought McCormack was perhaps a little too dismissive about the Catholic Church’s cultural influence in this period during his talk, because the Klaasen exhibition shows that though it was largely responsible for the lack of innovative cultural activity in the country at the time, there was a surprisingly strong forward-thinking element within the Church at the time too, who provided Klaasen with a substantial portion of his employment. Some of the record sleeves he designed for Mercier are astonishingly radical, like one where the almost cartoonishly dull title ‘Building a new moral theology’ read by Rev. Albert Johnson, belies the surreal black-lined Christ-head, complete with long red spikes extending from his stylised crown of thorns. It certainly wasn’t John Charles McQuaid and his ilk who were OK-ing this and other striking cover designs.

Klaasen worked in a simple, classic style, occasionally branching out into 60s-style cartoon but overall you get the feeling he preferred the clean lines of the De Stijl style he would have grown up with in Amsterdam. One highlight is a cover for a religious book entitled ‘The Methods of Dogmatic Theology’ by Walter Kaspar, which is a plain black background broken by a simple white circle enclosing the text of the title. Smaller white bubbles extend from the large circle, but not so much so as to break the tranquil cleanness of the design. His more detailed images are successful too, particularly the abstract covers of the various schoolbooks he designed for Fallons, many of which were carved out directly on his printing surface without the aid of a pencil drawing.

He could turn his hand to political material too, evidenced by his cover for a book on the UVF, published in 1973 by Torc Press, in which a row of grotesque-looking paramilitaries, printed in lines so thick as to be almost unintelligible, line the bottom of a plain red cover, with the word UVF rendered in jarring black-lined orange above. He incorporates the symbolic orange of the Unionist paramilitaries against what would normally be a clashing red tone, perhaps to imply the blood that was on the hands of the people suggested by the images below. The grimaces of the terrorists evoke the grotesque leers of George Grosz’s villains, an artist that Klaasen admired and often imitated.

It’s easy in the 21st century to dismiss mid-20th century Ireland as a place of unmitigated drear and uncreativity, so it’s a good thing for exhibitions like this to display the often-forgotten figures who played a role in bucking that trend. I would recommend catching this exhibition before it finishes, it can be viewed in the gallery from 11am-5pm daily between now and next Wednesday.

dying at "I'll be down in ten minutes to talk to you about the cardboard.'"

YOU KNOW HE WILL AND ALL

Paul & leadership, musically & otherwise

Link to masterpost of quote compilations

When Paul came in[to the band], things started to get a little bit more serious. Paul’s father had actually had a band, Jim Mac’s Jazz Band, so Paul was much more aware of the career possibilities than any of the rest of us were, because here his own dad had had a band. So things got a lot more structured and serious when Paul arrived. You can tell that by looking at the photograph of us in July ’57, when we were at St Peter’s Church, a bunch of guys in checked shirts, and in November ’57, when you have John and Paul in smart white jackets and everybody in little bootlace ties. I mean, already Paul’s influence was evident, you know?

Rod Davis (of The Quarrymen), interview w/ Gillian G. Gaar for Goldmine: Before they were Beatles, they were Quarrymen. (November 28th, 2012)

COLIN: Paul would have allowed John to feel that he was the boss anyway. Paul wouldn’t have gotten head to head with John, but Paul would have got his own way if you’d like, carefully, by maneuvering and perhaps letting John think it was his idea. I think that’s the way Paul was. LEN: I think it was part of his characteristic, really. Part of his characteristic. You know, when we started off as The Quarrymen, we were a gang of scruffs, we could dress whatwe’d like, checked shirts, anything we would like. But I’m pretty sure it was Paul’s idea that one night at Clubmoor we dressed a bit smarter – you know, the white coats and the black ties. I think – it wouldn’t be John’s idea. John was more interested in the music and the entertainment. “We can dress what we like as long as we’re enjoying ourselves.” But I think Paul was more... I don’t know. Image-minded, you know. Worried more about the image. COLIN: Paul was very much the diplomat. He would never get a quick answer off Paul. He would always think about what was the right answer; not what the answer should’ve been, but perhaps what you wanted to hear.

2003: The Quarrymen talk about Paul

“I can well remember even at the rehearsal at his house in Forthlin Road, Paul was quite specific about how he wanted it played and what he wanted the piano to do. There was no question of improvising. We were told what we had to play. There was a lot of arranging going on even back then."

John Duff Lowe pianist on their first ever recording, In Spite of All the Danger

“During one Cavern performance of ‘Over the Rainbow’, John leaned back on the piano, pointed to Paul, burst into raucous laughter and shouted, “God, he’s doing Judy Garland!” Paul had to keep singing in the knowledge that John was pulling crips and Quasis behind his back or making strange sounds on his guitar to interrupt him. Yet, if Paul stopped in the middle of the number, John would stare around the stage, the essence of innocence. […] Paul took such behavior from no one but John, but also he gave it back and was strong minded enough to carry on doing what he wanted, knowing how much the audience liked it. He sang these songs well, and added one more to the portfolio at this time, the Broadway show number ‘Till There Was You’. John really had a go at Paul for singing this—but didn’t try to stop him doing it, recognizing there was scope for all kinds of music in this group, to please all kinds of audiences.”

Mark Lewisohn, Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years (unFUCKING believable that Lewisohn uses this as an example of John's leadership and not Paul's)

As they near the club, they start to discern the sounds of a band rehearsing a poppy, recently released Elvis number called “It’s Now Or Never”, refitted that summer from the melody of “O Sole Mio”. As the pair near the door of the bar, Lennon realises it is his band, and that the voice singing is that of his fellow Beatle, Paul McCartney. Lennon, to put it mildly, is unimpressed by this proposed extension of the group’s repertoire. “He said, ‘What the fucking hell is he doing now?’” remembers Griff, today. “Lennon was a rocker. He stormed in the club and said, ‘What are you doing?’ Paul said: ‘This is a popular song—they’ll love this.’ And of course the audiences did.”

Brian Griffiths, interview w/ John Robinson for Uncut: ‘A roaring rock’n’roll band in leathers and cowboy boots… but they changed.’ (March, 2012)

The observations Sam Leach had of the teenaged boys seems to put Paul in the leadership position, not John: “Even when we went to shows, Paul had the ideas, made the decisions — about what clubs to play in, for example, new things to try on stage. He was the idea man, John was a bit lazy when it came to doing stuff.”

Larry Kane. “When They Were Boys.

The other Quarry Men did not take quite so strongly to Paul. 'I always thought he was a bit big- headed,' Nigel Walley says. 'As soon as we let him into the group, he started complaining about the money I was getting them, and saying I should take less as I didn't do any playing. He was always smiling at you, but he could be catty as well. He used to pick on our drummer, Colin - not to his face; making catty remarks about him behind his back. Paul wanted something from the drums that Colin didn't have it in him to play.' "Paul was always telling me what to do," Colin Hanton says. "Can't you play it this way?" he'd say, and even try to show me on my own drums. He'd make some remark to me. I'd sulk. John would say "Ah, let him alone, he's all right." But I knew they only wanted me because I'd got a set of drums.' Even Pete Shotton - still a close friend and ally - noticed a change in John after Paul's arrival. "There was one time when they played a really dirty trick on me. I knew John would never have been capable of it on his own. It was so bad that he came to me later and apologised. I'd never known him to do that before for anyone.' It was shortly after Paul joined the Quarry Men that they bought proper stage outfits of black trousers, black bootlace ties and white cowboy shirts with fringes along the sleeves. John and Paul, in addition, wore white jackets; the other three played in their shirtsleeves. Eric Griffiths, though also a guitarist, did not have the jacket-wearing privilege. A cheerful boy, he did not recognise this for the augury it was.

Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles (Philip Norman)

Gerry Marsden also has his own interesting theory about Paul’s left-handed guitar playing: “He and John were able to get their faces close up together at the microphone for the vocals, unlike most players. So when they were singing, it was like a love affair with each other, and the mike between them. In every photograph they are tight together and the effect is very powerful. In those days, we didn’t have a microphone each: we shared one, so for Macca to plan this effect for the Beatles, as I’m certain he did, was brilliant.”

“What The Stars Said About Them.” Beatles Book Monthly Magazine No. 205 (May 1993).

“Paul was very good,” said Eric [Griffiths, of The Quarrymen]. “We could all see that. He was precocious in many ways. Not just in music but in relating to people.” […] His charm also worried John, according to Eric. “We were all walking down Halewood Drive to my house to do some practising. I was walking ahead with John. The others were behind. John suddenly said: ‘Let’s split the group, and you and me will start again.’ “We could hear Paul behind us, chatting to Pete [Shotton] as if he was Pete’s best friend. John knew we were all his pals, but now Paul was trying to get in on us. Not to split us up, just make friends with us all. I’m sure that was all it was, but to John it looked as if Paul was trying to take over, dominate the group. I suppose he was worried it could disrupt the balance, upset the group dynamics, as we might say today. “I said to him: ‘Paul’s so good. He’ll contribute a lot to the group. We need him with us.’ John said nothing. But after that the subject was never mentioned again.”

Eric Griffiths, c/o Hunter Davies, Sunday Times: A Beatle’s boyhood. (March 25th, 2001)

“[John] didn’t like it one bit, paying to play did not sit right with John Lennon… but we did eventually pay to go in — John included, and it was Paul McCartney who convinced John we should do so… Paul’s reasoning was we were more than good enough to win the prize money. He argued that as we would soon be walking off with the cash prize anyway, so we could afford to pay to go inside… So we all did cough up and in we trooped, set up, performed and, of course, proceeded not to win. It was undoubtedly a reality check for our new super-confidant guitarist. We all came away out of pocket, but steeped in admiration for Paul’s enthusiasm and blind faith in the Quarry Men’s ability. He had impressed us all.”

Colin Hanton and Colin Hall, Pre-Fab, The Book Guild, 2018.

‘When Paul joined the band, things changed… but it wasn’t an overnight change,’ Colin Hanton remembers. ‘Paul was shrewd. He realised from the start that John liked to think of himself as the dominant force, but he needed Paul to teach him proper guitar chords, which was the way in to playing more rock ‘n’ roll material. He recognised John was the power in the group and that the best way to take him on was to do it subtly.’ Paul’s most immediate effect on the Quarrymen was in their presentation. ‘You could see he had this show business side to him,’ Colin Hanton says, ‘while John just lived for the music.’ The group had always worn what they liked onstage, but now John accepted Paul’s suggestion of a uniform: black trousers, white Western-style shirts and black bootlace ties. On 23 November, they had a return booking at the New Clubmoor Hall, where Paul had previously mucked up ‘Guitar Boogie’. He was determined to cut a better figure this time. ‘He had this sort of oatmeal jacket–he’d worn it to the Woolton fete–and he let it be known to John that when we did the gig, he was going to wear the jacket,’ Hanton remembers. ‘So the gig got nearer and then one day John turned up and he had got a cream jacket that was lighter than Paul’s. It was John’s way of saying “Hey, I’m cooler than you.”’

Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life. (2016)

“During playbacks, John and Paul would often huddle together and discuss whether a take was good enough; they’d talk about what they were hearing and what they wanted to fix or do differently,” “John wasn’t casual about making records, not in the early years, anyway. Still, it was Paul who was always striving to get things the best that they could possibly be.” While Lennon might not have shared McCartney’s perfectionism, he respected and went along with it. He may not have had the same attitude toward Martin, though. “Certainly George Martin couldn’t get away with that,” “If he dared try, they would bite his head off. There was never any doubt in my mind that Paul and John viewed George Martin as a helpmate, not as their equal.”

Geoff Emerick in his book Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles.

“John is an original. New ideas just come to him. Paul has great originality but he’s also an arranger. He can get things done, which John can’t, or can’t be bothered trying. They do need, and they don’t need, each other. Either is true. Paul is as talented a composer as John. They could easily have done well on their own.”

Astrid Kirchherr in 1967, from The Beatles, by Hunter Davies.

In the early days my role was to tidy things up, musically - to put songs into some sort of perspective. (I would also give a commercial estimate of their worth) I might take a phrase out of the middle of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, for example, pointing out that the phrase should have started the song, or, as on ‘Please Please Me’, say ‘Speed it up, maybe; that’s all it needs, really… ’ I think John learned from this kind of input. He learned a whole lot more from Paul, though: musical structure; organization in his song writing; how to make a song telling. He also learned the value of a good ‘hook’ —the catchy bit, for example the guitar riff that starts ‘Day Tripper’, the harmonica from ‘Love Me Do’.

George Martin

John used to find it hard to express himself, I was in a position where I really had to read his mind, and he didn’t have a lot of patience. He would accept something that was sort of 95% good, whereas Paul would want it 100% good. So Paul to me has always been the musician and the one that was a musicians sort of musician. I mean Paul was a good drummer, a good guitarist, a good keyboard player and he sort of held the band and brought them to that perfection part of things, John would let things easily go. And of course John did not like the sound of his voice either. No matter how much you told him how great his voice sounded, he always wanted tape echo on it or something done to it.

Geoff Emerick interview w/ Alan Light for Blender.com (2009)

Paul was the one who sort of saved the situation always, the one who always went that little bit extra to perfect things you know. Especially because on Paul’s songs, we’d spend a considerable amount of time doing Paul’s songs because he knew exactly really what he wanted whereas John didn’t. The time we spent on some of John’s songs was a bit less than Paul’s songs, but if Paul, I think, thought that a John song was going slightly a bit, you know, lopsided, he’d interject and sort of make sure it really was polished.

Geoff Emerick interview w/ Alan Light for Blender.com (2009)

Q: If you had a favourite out of all The Beatles, who did you find yourself drawn to? Geoff: Oh, Paul, obviously! I mean, Paul was the musician’s musician. And I think Paul had an understanding of what I was doing as well; because he knew I was into instruments and so forth, you know, listening to musical instruments and crafting them, let’s put it that way. […] He was the one who always wanted a 110%.

Geoff Emerick, interviewed for ABC’s 7.30 program, for the 50th anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (25 May 2017)

"I don’t want to take anything away from anyone, but production of the Beatles was very simple, because it was ready-made. Paul was a very great influence in terms of the production, especially in terms of George Harrison’s guitar solos and Ringo’s drumming. The truth of the matter is that, to the best of my memory, Paul had a great hand in practically all of the songs that we did, and Ringo would generally ask him what he should do. After all, Paul was no mean drummer himself, and he did play drums on a couple of things. It was almost like we had one producer in the control room and another producer down in the studio. There is no doubt at all that Paul was the main musical force. He was also that in terms of production as well. A lot of the time George Martin didn’t really have to do the things he did because Paul McCartney was around and could have done them equally well… most of the ideas came from Paul".

Norman Smith (The Beatles recording engineer from Please Please Me through Rubber Soul), McCartney by Chris Salewicz

“If you take ‘Across The Universe’, for example: that’s like a folk song without his production on it, [which is] kind of slightly heavy handed. I think it would have been very different if my Dad had done it. Not necessarily better; just very different. I think Paul’s main issue with what happened is that he normally had a lot of input into the arrangements, and he didn’t with Spector – they arranged it without him. I was listening to [off-cuts from 1966’s] ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and even at that early stage you can hear my Dad saying, ‘Do you want that vibrato or not vibrato, Paul?’”

Producer Giles Martin

JOHN: [singing operatically] Well, let me tell you… [Small laughs] Everybody has all the ambitions. Everybody’s full of ambition, and uh, it’s like – uh, once I gave George the advice on songwriting, [which is] that when you start one, finish it. And I think I got the advice from Paul, or working with Paul. But it’s like anything. If you have an idea, the only – the best way is to try and do it right away, otherwise you won’t do it, and that’s called ambition, you know.

October 22nd, 1969 (Apple Corps, London): Detroit DJ John Small

Paul: OK, and that’s great, you know. And then – it’s just being able to say that, on the occasion, just being – say, “Look, I’m not going to say anything about the song, because it’ll be difficult … to sing it to you.” John: Yeah, I know, but you wouldn’t say – listen to me – you probably arranged it you know? Paul: I know, I know. John: Well, I’m saying that “Dear Prudence” is arranged. Can’t you hear [John vocalizes part of the song]. That is the arrangement, you know? But I’m too frightened to say “This is it.” I just sit there and say, “Look, if you don’t come along and play your bit, I won’t do the song,” you know? I can’t do any better than that. Don’t ask me for what movie* you’re gonna play on it. Because apart from not knowing, I can’t tell you better than you have, what grooves you can play on it. You know, I just can’t work. I can’t do it like that. I never could, you know. But when you think of the other half of it, just think, how much more have I done towards helping you write? I’ve never told you what to sing or what to play. You know, I’ve always done the numbers like that. Now, the only regret, just the past numbers, is when because I’ve been so frightened, that I’ve allowed you to take it somewhere where I didn’t want

Jan. 13: The Lunchroom Tape

PAUL: We – we haven’t played together, you see! That’s the fucking thing. But when we do come together to play together, we all just sort of talk about the fleeting past! We’re like old-age pensioners! [British geriatric voice] “Remember the days when we used to rock?” You know, but we’re here now! We can do it, you know. But I mean, I’m – all I hoping for is enthusiasm from you— PAUL: You see the thing is also, I, I get to a bit where I just sort of push all my ideas, you know, and I know that my ideas aren’t the best, you know. They are [mechanical voice] “good, good, good” but they’re not the best, you know. We can improve on it. Because we write songs good, and we improve on it. [to Ringo] And you can improve on your drumming like it is, if you get into it. If you don’t, you know, then okay, I have better ideas, but if you get into it, you’re better! You know. It’s like that.

Twickenham, January 6th

"I always had the impression that Brian used to worry about Paul, that he was a bit frightened of him perhaps because he was so strong-willed in his opinions about the exact details of how the Beatles’ career should progress. Even though they could also be as thick as thieves about such matters, Brian was always circumspect when talking to Paul about things of any great importance. John and Brian always seemed to get on all right. But Paul would argue with Brian, and as far as I could see, Brian always gave in."

Brian Sommerville, McCartney by Chris Salewicz

“Sgt Pepper had not yet been released, but already Paul was explaining to Brian at length his plan for the Magical Mystery Tour movie. Every few seconds Brian would make a note on a scrap of paper. Paul drew the whole plan out as a diagram, a cosmic plan with time and action and motion. Brian could translate this, as he could all Beatles commands, into a specific timetable of booked studios, rehearsal halls, rented equipment, tea for forty-five people and everything else they needed, without the Beatles even knowing what degree of organisation was required to satisfy their often obscure and demanding requests. Brian was on Paul’s wavelength and treated him as the most organised Beatle, who could in turn translate management needs back to the other three. It was the last time I saw Brian.”

Barry Miles, In the Sixties

To Lennon, [Paul] was "cute, and didn’t he know it," a born performer who was also a "thruster" and an "operator" behind the scenes.

Christopher Sandford, Paul McCartney, 2005

Because Paul was the natural PR man within the group, it was Paul with whom I worked most. In a sense, I used him to manipulate the others, because that’s what he was doing all the time anyway. I suspect that Paul got his way more than John did within the group, but in a far more subtle manner. He was a smooth operator, as he is to this day. Metaphorically, he still takes that last look in the mirror. His critics now think of him as calculating and selfish, but you could level the charge of selfishness at any great performer. Any artist who is not self-centred will not sustain himself—and self-centred is what Paul is. I soon found out that his management of himself is total. That’s why he always found it so difficult in his solo years to get management that would be satisfactory to him. Everybody knows that all Paul needs is to surround himself with people who will carry out his ideas and do what he says. He considers himself, as he did then, to be self-sufficient. That’s different from John. It is why the partnership worked so well in the early days.

Tony Barrow, Daily Mail. (February 16th, 1998)

And only until John became what he is now – which is after John’s death that people started to revere John – it became an issue for Paul. Because you have to understand that table was turned many times. One, when John made the Jesus Christ remark, and Paul became virtually a leader. And John turned the table on Paul by becoming a partner with me, probably. But then the thing is, the table was turned again by Paul becoming extremely successful with Wings. So he was doing alright, while John did Some Time in New York City with me, and then followed that with Mind Games or something, you know.

1990: Yoko

“I hear tell, I said, "that you can all be downright rude - and have been.” “Of course we’ve been rude - but only rude back,” he [John] explained. “Have you any clue about the things people say and do to us? "We’re not cruel. We’ve seen enough tragedy on Merseyside. But when a mother shrieks, ‘just touch him and maybe he will walk again,’ we want to run, cry or just empty our pockets. It’s a great emotional drag, and this is where Paul helps out. He’s the diplomat with the soft soap. He can turn on that smile like little May sunshine and we’re out of trouble. "We’ve a very tight school, the Beatles. We’re like a machine that goes boom, boomchick, chickboom, each of us with our own little job to do. We’re just like dogs who can hear high-pitched sounds that humans can’t.

The Daily Mirror: The one that bites – Donald Zec dissects Mr J. Lennon. (March 1965)

JOHN: Well, that’s the game they play. Neil Aspinall plays that game too. At one point, in one of the Northern Songs proceedings, I sent a telegram to Neil, because I’d heard he’d been doing things behind me back, and I said: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Because I was the one that protected him many times from Paul. Paul had no love for Neil, and vice versa. And all of a sudden he’s a Paul man. Because they clung to Paul—Derek included—because they all thought Paul was the one who was going to hold it all together. So they had a choice of which side to come down on, and they chose Paul, and the past, and at that moment I cut ‘em off.

John Lennon, interview w/ Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld. (September, 1971)

It seemed that John had cut me off not just from him but from the whole Beatles family. The only person who came to see me was Paul. He arrived one sunny afternoon, bearing a red rose, and said, 'I’m so sorry, Cyn, I don’t know what’s come over him. This isn’t right.’ On the way down to see us he had written a song for Julian. It began as ‘Hey Jules’ and later became 'Hey Jude’, which sounded better. Ironically John thought it was about him when he first heard it. It went on to become one of the Beatles’ most successful singles ever, spending nine weeks at number one in the US and two weeks in the UK. Paul stayed for a while. He told me that John was bringing Yoko to recording sessions, which he, George and Ringo hated. […] He joked about us getting married - 'How about it, Cyn?’ - and I was grateful to him for cheering me up and caring enough to come. He was the only member of the Beatles family who’d had the courage to defy John – who had apparently made it quite clear that he expected everyone to follow his lead in cutting me off. But Paul was his own man and not afraid of John. In fact, musically and personally, the two were beginning to go in separate directions so perhaps Paul’s visit to me was also a statement to John.”

Cynthia Lennon, John

“They were the first group I had heard who sounded just like they did on record. You could tell John was the leader, he had a look somehow, a bit of a hard case, but I actually think it was Paul who was in charge.”

Andre Wheeldon, musician

Q: What were the Beatles like to deal with…It was said that John wasn’t the easiest to deal with, Paul was a delight to work with.

A: If we’re talking…professionally, those were the days I was a PR man; and therefore to a man who was doing publicity for the Beatles, Paul had to be the greatest joy of the four because he was the one who organized everyone else. He was the one who posed for the photographers, he was he one who said c’mon chaps, let’s do the interview, let’s do the photograph or whatever. John, in that respect, was more difficult, but John….is the most misunderstood man, actually, because beneath all that bravado and rudeness–and sheer rudeness a lot of the time– there was a genius, and there was also a man who was afraid. I mean all that noise he made was in fact a coverup for being rather a frightened man. Q: He was a shy man… A: Yes, yes indeed. And that is how an awful lot of shy people cover it up by making a lot of noise.”

Tony Barrow, TVAM interview

Paul came across in 1963 as a fun-loving, footloose bachelor who turned on his charm to devastating effect when he wanted to manipulate rivals, colleagues or women he fancied. (...) He had enormous powers of persuasion within The Beatles. He would get his own way by subtlety and suaveness where John resorted to shouting and bullying. John may have been the loudest Beatle but Paul was the shrewdest. I watched him twist the others round to his point of view in all sorts of contentious situations, some trivial, some more significant, some administrative, some creative.

George told me that when he joined Paul and John in the line-up of The Quarry Men in 1958, Paul was already acting as though he was the decision-maker in the group. According to George: "I knew perfectly well that this was John's band and John was my hero, my idol, but from the way Paul talked he gave every indication that he was the real leader, the one who dictated what The Quarry Men would do and where they should be going as a group." This made sense to me because, from what I saw for myself in 1963 and later, Paul's opinions and ideas tended to prevail with The Beatles, particularly on matters of musical policy such as whether a new number was worth recording or whether the running order for the group's stage show needed altering slightly. I didn't see any of the others resist him. They seemed to welcome Paul getting his way by winning arguments with John. When Paul wanted something badly enough from Brian Epstein he would speak softly, wooing the man rather than intimidating him. Epstein's defences would melt away as Paul looked him straight in the eye. In terms of song lyrics, Paul's idea of romantic was 'Michelle', John's was 'Norwegian Wood'.

John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story, Tony Barrow (2005)

“PAUL: John used to say, ‘I’m the leader of this group!’ and we used to say, 'It’s only because you fucking shout louder than anyone else!’ It wasn’t as if we didn’t know how to do that, it was just nobody wanted to shout and be so uptight about it. Nobody cared as much as he did about being the leader. Actually I have always quite enjoyed being second. I realised why it was when I was out riding: whoever is first opens all the gates. If you’re second you just get to walk through. They’ve knocked down all the walls, they’ve taken all the stinging nettles, they take all the shit and whoever’s second, which is damn near to first, waltzes through and has an easy life. You’re still up with number one. Number one still needs you as his companion, so I think my relationship to John is something to do with this attitude.

paul mccartney: many years from now, barry miles

“When I came out of the Beatles, I got slated for being a bit too heavy with the other guys in the band,” he said. “It was a bit as if I was taking over as the manager. I thought with the new band, I’ll give them total freedom, so no one can accuse me of that again . . . and you can’t do that either. You started to have people saying, ‘Hey man, c’mon, produce us.’ No one would take up the baton, the role. So I came back to that. “The whole of ‘Wings Mark I’ was to see if that could be done. But there was too much indecision, and I wasn’t willing enough to take the thing by the scruff of the neck and say, ‘Look, I think we’ve gotta organize the solos you’re gonna play.’ It was a bit like we’re gonna be the Grateful Dead and we’re just gonna play what comes up. But to do that you’ve gotta know each other for a long time.”

The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1: 1969 – 1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair (2022)

“Coming out of The Beatles, I’d kind of got burned by being told I was too overbearing. So I really backed off too far in the early days of Wings. Having to be diplomatic and say ‘Um, perhaps we should do this’ doesn’t work either. You have chaos and confusion. Eventually somebody says: 'Why don’t you tell us what you want?’ and I’d think, 'I just got a bollocking for doing that!’ There was a bit of that in early Wings which caused difficulties.”

Paul McCartney, The Word, October 2005

But it was always hard for you to lock a line-up with Wings. Was it a benign dictatorship? That’s what they thought it was. The thing is, if you come out of The Beatles and you go in another group, you’re not just anyone. You’re the guy out of The Beatles. So, y’know, if anyone’s gonna make a decision, it should probably be him. But I mean, having said that, it was a team thing. Y’know, if anyone didn’t like stuff, we didn’t do it. You could never force musicians to do stuff. But you’d suggest strongly.

The Q Interview, 2007

“That’s difficult. I really don’t know,” he says. “What I first thought of was: listen to people’s opinions more, particularly within the group. But I did listen to people’s opinions and what would happen was I would feel like I had to give my opinion and not get too nervous, because you’ve got to be strong in those situations. There were times when John would bring a song in and I could have just gone, ‘That’s great John, let’s do it like that.’ But the producer in me would think, ‘No, that’s not going to work, why don’t we try it like that.’ So something like ‘Come Together’ would never have been as cool if I’d just been listening to the way John brought it in. And there were a few little instances like that where we would insist on it being one way. So I can’t actually think what I’d say to him. I’d say: You’re a good kid, I love you.”

NME Big Read – Paul McCartney

I had to fight at EMI even for things like the thickness of the cardboard. EMI were always trying to give me less and less thick cardboard. I said, 'Look, when I was a kid, I loved my records, the good ones, and I wanted to protect them and thick cardboard would keep my records. That's all I want to do is give the kids who buy our stuff something to protect our records.' 'Well now, Paul, we can't do it, the volume you boys sell at. If we can save point oh oh pence ... And you can't tell the difference.' 'I bloody can! That's a thin piece of cardboard!' But I got my thick cardboard. I was always arguing for things like that. It somehow fell to me. Later people put me down for that, 'Oh, he was always the pushy one, the PR one.' The truth was, no other fucker would do it! And it had to get done, and I was living in London and I could hop in a taxi and go down Manchester Square and say, 'I'll be down in ten minutes to talk to you about the cardboard.'

Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now

A couple of fics I wrote

I got an ao3 account this year and have 2 fics in the Beatles fandom that I'm a little proud of. Both character studies focused on late 1970s John in NYC. Have a read if you're so inclined. Username bodhbdearg.

Where I would be: Househusband era John is very depressed and disengaged from music, but is nudged out of it by folksinging lesbians & NYC queer culture.

Singing a song of ruin: Writing DF-era John is no longer depressed, and spends a night trying to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge.

Do you have any big opinions about rpf?

Not sure what we're counting as "big" here.

Aside from the standard "don't harrass the people it's about" take, I guess my opinion on rpf is that it does say something about its authors, readers and the broader fandom. Not in a moralistic "writing about bad things means you endorse them" sense, or even in the sense that you can conclude an author's historical takes from their writing. (I know a fair amount of people who will read or write McLennon without really buying into the theory of it being true)

But I think there's enough parallels between the trends in fic and the trends in analysis to see that these two things aren't neatly separable. As a fellow author, I can understand Cynthia being frequently brushed aside in fic, even if I don't love it – when it comes to analysing the real history though, I am less forgiving. However, because of the seeming link between the decentring of Cynthia in fic and her frequent exclusion from meaningful analysis, I find myself being (perhaps disproportionately) frustrated with her treatment in fic as a result.

Cynthia here is just an example among several, but I think the fact that she's not treated meaningfully better by the wider (generally more heteronormative) Beatles fandom speaks to the fact that what I'm describing isn't just attributable to the largely queer space of Beatles RPF fandom decentring straight relationships. (also any other lesbians fucking tired of people decrying any consideration to women as homophobia??)

I have also noticed that some people's takes on the history have a very literary bent – I'm thinking about times I have seen people call for symmetry between John and Paul, as though their relationship needs to be made up of perfectly mirroring feelings to be beautiful. There's an important distinction to be drawn here between descriptivism and prescriptivism – like, to be clear, there is something inherently literary in observing parallels between their lives, like say losing their mothers young, but I am specifically referring to people saying John and Paul should be analysed with the assumption of this symmetry existing, which feels like a limiting way of looking at real people.

That being said, I'm not sure how much engaging with RPF as such affects this sort of attitude. To some extent, we are all always trying to make sense of reality through narrative, but I'm not sure how aware of it people are.

With all that in mind,

I think RPF is a very cool way to express and explore thoughts related to the history (and, at least in my case, engage in discourse about the history as well as the fandom itself) that don't need to be fact-checked whilst being contained in an explicitly fictional realm. I also think that a lot of speculation people engage in about celebrities is actually kind of akin to fanfic and I sort of prefer the fact that RPF is upfront about its fictionality.

I like thinking about what RPF has in common with things like biopics and how it diverges from them, its strange but existing relationship with the concept of "truth" (which I think is somewhat distinct from the concept of "factualness"). I'm fascinated by adaption in general; I find the process of systematically pruning, supplementing and molding historical reality until it takes the shape of a narrative deeply interesting, and even when I don't love the product, I think there's meaning to be derived in understanding how we got from point A to B.

Quotes from “John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

“This book germinated during the lockdowns of 2020, when I wrote and published, via my newsletter, a ten-thousand-word essay called ‘64 Reasons to Celebrate Paul McCartney.’ I didn’t expect many people to read it — it was just something I needed to write. But they did, in great number. Surprised by the scale and intensity of the response, I started to wonder if I could write a whole book about the group I have loved since childhood, and when I asked myself which aspect of the story I was most interested in, the answer quickly became obvious. I’d like to thank all previous Beatles authors for not getting there before me.”

“Perhaps the most important aspect of the podcast subculture is that it has introduced many more female voices into the Beatles conversation, raising its level of insight and emotional intelligence. It was through podcasts that I discovered two Beatles experts who have been reshaping a narrative formed mostly by men: Erin Torkelson Weber, the historiographer and author of The Beatles and the Historians, and Christine Feldman-Barrett, author of A Women’s History of the Beatles. I am grateful to the all-female Another Kind of Mind for its penetrating exploration of the group’s relationships. I owe a special debt to Diana Erickson, creator and presenter of One Sweet Dream. Diana’s deeply insightful podcast, and her generosity as a conversation partner, have been vital to John & Paul.”

Like something that looks very like something else.

On Instagram

Pete Best at his home in Hymans Green in Liverpool, England | 25 April 1965

‘We want Pete, we want Pete.’ The fans began to stamp their feet. ‘Pete forever, Ringo never,’ they continued. More fans joined in, until the noise had built up into a crescendo. Paul McCartney glanced at George and John, he looked concerned. It was obvious that they weren’t very happy about the commotion that was taking place right in front of their eyes and, little by little, it was beginning to dawn on them that we were not going to make the transition easy, either for them or Ringo Starr. George tried his best to ignore what was going on by keeping his back to the audience. He plugged his guitar in and messed about with the switches on the amplifiers, but the noise behind him was far too loud to ignore, as more and more people added their voice to the throng. Ringo fidgeted about in his seat trying to look cool and unconcerned by the racket. The Beatles didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next. John, Paul and George started to tune in their guitars and did a quick test of the microphones. Paul turned to face the crowd and smiled, but I could see that he wasn’t his usual happy go lucky self. He had never been very good at hiding his feelings, and he was looking a bit nervous. So much so, that we could already see the strain beginning to show on his face. 

Paul was ready to go into his first song, 'Long Tall Sally.’ Most of the fans at the front had bought a copy of the Mersey Beat earlier on in the evening. We had kept our copies well hidden underneath our seats, and then each of us bent down and took them from their hiding place. Just as Paul began to sing we opened them up and held them high in front of our faces, so that all the group would see from the stage was a mass of newspapers. We wanted to blank The Beatles out of our view. Paul carried on singing, but there were no screams or shouts of appreciation from us after he had finished. Some of the fans gave the group a slow hand clap, while the rest of us couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Instead we chattered amongst ourselves or sat reading the Mersey Beat. As far as I am aware, none of the regulars had given The Beatles any requests. There was nothing other than the chanting from the fans who were determined to let the group know just how angry they were for what had happened to Pete Best.

The Beatles tried hard to put a brave face on the situation by carrying on with their next song. But, once again, we held up our copies of the paper and completely ignored them. I sneaked a look over the top of my paper at Paul McCartney. His face said it all; he was a very unhappy man. The boys were now beginning to get the message loud and clear. John had kept his eyes firmly fixed on his guitar. He had hardly moved from where he was standing, and made no attempt to joke with the audience or jump about acting the clown. George looked equally fed up. He tried to catch the attention of a couple of the girls on the front row who he knew were fans of his, but they didn’t want to know. This carried on the whole time The Beatles were up on the stage.

We had achieved what we had set out to do, and that was to make the group think twice about what they had done to Pete Best. The Beatles certainly didn’t waste any time getting off the stage at the end of the evening, and we didn’t hang around in the club either. We had done our bit for Pete and had left The Beatles in no doubt as to how we all felt. It may not have been much, and we knew it wouldn’t change the line-up, but at least we had done something. 

As we walked up Matthew Street Carol and I had mixed emotions, sad that we wouldn’t see Pete Best with The Beatles ever again, but then pleased by the way all the regular fans had stuck together. 'Do you think they will be bothered by what’s happened?’ Carol asked. 'Too right they will. Did you see the look on their faces? They know exactly how we all feel about them; I know I’ll never accept Ringo Starr as one of The Beatles’. 'Me neither,’ Carol replied defiantly.

The group were obviously shocked by what had taken place that night. But, Ringo Starr was in and Pete Best was out of the group for good. I continued to stay away from the band room because I still couldn’t face talking to any of them, especially John.

Yesterday: Memories Of A Beatles Fan - Margaret Hunt

Construction no.128 (1920)

"There are so many interesting things to do in life. And we waste our time emptily and keep dreaming about something...And this dream isn’t worth anything. But what’s been actually done, even poorly – is worthwhile"

Aleksander Rodchenko

January/February?, 1964: John works on the composition of ‘If I Fell’. 

JOHN: So I hope you see that I / Would love to love you / I hope that she won’t cry / When she learns we are two / We’re two / Gonna be the two two of us in love / Two two of us in love…