‘Paul McViolin’ By Klaus Voormann, 2025

Paul McCartney and George Harrison in Manchester (November 1963)

we as a fandom really underexamine how often crushing loneliness is a recurring theme in paul’s songwriting

Paul McCartney discussing the joys of hearing his music played (1978)

The Quarry Men’s banjo player, Rod Davis, recalls, “I had bought the banjo from my uncle and if he’d sold me his guitar, I might have been a decent enough guitarist to keep McCartney out of the band. I might have learnt guitar chords, I might not, and that was the big limitation really. McCartney could play the guitar like a guitar and we couldn’t, and let’s face it, a banjo doesn’t look good in a rock’n’ roll group. I only met Paul on one other occasion after the Woolton fête and it was at auntie Mimi’s a week or two later. He dropped in to hear us practising. From my point of view, I was the person he was replacing – it’s like Pete Best – you’re the guy who doesn’t know. Some things had gone on that I was unaware of.”

(Best of the Beatles: The sacking of Pete Best by Spencer Leigh, 2015)

Own.

Trollskog III.

Funny early take of Two of Us from the original Let it Be Movie

John Lennon and Paul McCartney outside BBC Paris Studios, Lower Regent Street, London. 4th April 1963 - part two (part one, part three)

Wings at Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, March 1976

John and Paul also came to see [Len, while he was ill in hospital with tubercular meningitis]. “I could see a close bond had formed between them while I’d been ill. They came to see me once out of hours, not at the proper visiting time, and had to escape through a French window into the garden when the nurse arrived. They then stood outside making silly faces at me as the nurse gave me various tests. “George came to see me on his own. He was now a proper member of the group, but I didn’t really know him well. He was at my school, but a year younger. I really appreciated his visit as he seemed so understanding and caring.”

The Quarrymen, Hunter Davies (2001)