My Favorite Beatles Lyric + Thoughts on Lennon/McCartney during the Let It Be Sessions
My favorite Beatles lyric is from Girl. Well, for pure emotion, I go with "You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead" from Two of Us. But for a lyric as a lyric, it's Girl
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But also: by antagonizing instead of reconciling from 1968 - 1971 or thereabouts, he actually could believe he was Paul's emotional priority. In a negative way, but what do they say about neglected children and negative attention?
That's a good point. By falling apart and become super needy when John withdrew, Paul encouraged John to user withdrawal as a tool to get undivided affection. I wonder if this was a factor even as far on as when John refused to sign the contact to dissolve the Beatles, as the stars weren't right? Poor George. I mean, being stuck in the middle of that dynamic.
Here's a question: How would things have gone if Allen Klein were on the level, if John had somehow found someone who was an acceptable choice for manager? Would Paul have given up the Eastmans and signed with him?
Speaking of Linda, I was reading Paul's infamous Beatles break-up announcement interview, and this jumped out at me:
Q: "What is Linda's contribution?"
PAUL: "Strictly speaking she harmonizes, but of course it's more than that because she's a shoulder to lean on, a second opinion, and a photographer of renown. More than all this, she believes in me - constantly."
I can't shake the feeling that "Linda believes in me constantly" was a bit of a dig. You know, "Unlike you, John."
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It was part of the reason, yes. I mean, he did get another job again later (and let's not forget, actually gave John some pocket money now and then after, which Lewisohn also notes, noting that for two people who didn't like each other much, they held on to the vestiges of a family relationship amazingly long after Julia had died), but at the time of Julia's death, he was unemployed and completely unable to cope emotionally as well. But that he didn't fight for his daughters after being employed again, well, search me. I mean, Younger Julia, Julia Baird, blames the Stanleys, but that's an easier emotional out than blaming her dead father, so who knows.
I wonder who they would have handled it has Julia lived. What would they have told John?
There isn't really a good way to say "Bobby's been sacked, please don't show up again until he's got another job, we can still meet at Mimi's", but it would have been some variation thereof, one assumes. As for the effect on John - nothing good comes to mind, either. And again, given how Mimi took John having contact with Alfred Lennon again in 1967-1969 as a personal insult and rejection of her parenting and had plenty of words to say about John's supposed ingratitude etc, I just can't imagine she kept the Julia conversation a secret from him. Especially since Mimi, at the time, did choose John over an alternative - let's not forget, Philip Norman unearthed she had plans for emigrating to New Zealand with her young lover the subletter. Which would have been Mimi's chance for a life where she wasn't the aunt, the responsible head of the clan, but simply a woman with no responsibilities other than to herself. Which Julia's death put an end to, because John could not be left alone in such a state.
(Obvious song connection: John contributing the lines of the parents in She's Leaving Home, which he did say was was "the kind of thing Mimi used to say".)
I wonder if this was a factor even as far on as when John refused to sign the contact to dissolve the Beatles, as the stars weren't right?
Oh, could be. I mean, John evidently did like that Paul was basically wooing him/making efforts for him during 1974, seeking him out in Los Angeles and New York. And he (John) in a very high school kind circumventious kind of way asked several people in the business what they would think of him working again with Paul, my favorite being the two "my Paul, your Paul" conversations, one public and one private, he had with Art Garfunkel. BTW, speaking of Simon & Garfunkel, I had an odd sense of deja vu yesterday when due to Carrie Fisher's sad death, I googled her and Paul Simon and got an essay on his relationships containing this quote:
"During this time we were singing together, I made a solo record. And it made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal. That sense of betrayal has remained with him. That solo record that I made at the age of 15 permanently colored our relationship. We were talking about it recently and I said, ´Artie, for Christ´s sake, I was 15 years old! How can you carry that betrayal for so many years? Even if I was wrong, I was just a 15-year-old kid who wanted to be Elvis Presley for one moment instead of being the Everly Brothers with you. Even if you were hurt, let´s drop it.´ But he won´t.... He said, ´You´re still the same guy.´ And I think he thinks I am."
(In conclusion, guys in musical partnerships = eternal high school, for real.)
To get back to the point, I think John was testing the waters, but testing the waters also meant he didn't want to lose the emotional upper hand, which in his view he might have if it looked like he was more interested in getting back together than Paul was, and thus the "the stars aren't right" stunt was a fall back on what had worked (in a negative way) in "Let it Be". And yes, poor George, having his own relationship dramas going on at the same time, AND a career crisis, and only wanting to finally put an end to the Beatles business mess, and here's John again playing hard to get with Paul, condemming the rest of them to Greek Chorus existence once more.
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I've always suspected that John blamed Bobby Dykins for the fact that he went to live with Mimi (which, if the whole story about him being removed because Julia was keeping him in the same room as her and Bobby is true, that's true, as well). I do think This Boy was written by someone who blamed his stepfather for taking his mother away from him (and then he turned around and did the same thing with Yoko and Julian...). But that doesn't mean he didn't feel some connection to Bobby Dykins on a personal level.
(Sidenote: I've sometimes wondered if maybe part of the reason John abandoned Julian at age five was because at age five was when John's mother left him. And Julian had a mother who put him first. And according to May Pang John really didn't like it when Cynthia came with Julian to the states. Maybe in addition to his own issues with Cynthia, he also didn't like seeing Cynthia was Julian.)
here's John again playing hard to get with Paul, condemming the rest of them to Greek Chorus existence once more.
I suspect that George was angry at Paul for indulging John's hard-to-getness than at John for doing it. Hence retaliating by siding with John against Paul.
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It definitely sounds like Paul in passive-aggressive "She's waiting for me" mode. Once more: he so lucked out with Linda, because I think he'd have married SOMEONE no matter what happened at this point just to show John, and this could have turned into such a disaster.
Hypothetical perfectly suited third party showing for manager: in an ideal scenario, this person wouldn't have been found by John but by either George or Ringo, thus allowing both Paul and John to save face. (Depending on when the alternative candidate would have shown up and how deeply entrenched in manager combat they already were.) I don't think Paul would have had the emotional energy to object to someone not Allen Klein (after Allen Klein) when he did want to save the band and repair his relationship with John for the longest time. (Also he was constitutionally incapable of saying no to John when John was in a good musically cooperative mood, see also recording for "The Ballad of John and Yoko" which was after all post Eastman/Klein vicious business meetings disasters.) And while it might have made things awkward on the (male) Eastmans front, basically Lee and John were realistic businessmen, and weren't dependent on representing either the Beatles as a group or Paul as an individual in any way. Especially if Alternative Candidate was someone whose reputation was good and who thus could be trusted to ensure Lee's grandkids would inherit a lot more cash. I don't think Linda would have taken it personally, either; she was enough of a fan to be emotionally invested in the band's survival, too, for quite a while.
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I've always suspected that John blamed Bobby Dykins for the fact that he went to live with Mimi (which, if the whole story about him being removed because Julia was keeping him in the same room as her and Bobby is true, that's true, as well). I do think This Boy was written by someone who blamed his stepfather for taking his mother away from him (and then he turned around and did the same thing with Yoko and Julian...). But that doesn't mean he didn't feel some connection to Bobby Dykins on a personal level.
(Sidenote: I've sometimes wondered if maybe part of the reason John abandoned Julian at age five was because at age five was when John's mother left him. And Julian had a mother who put him first. And according to May Pang John really didn't like it when Cynthia came with Julian to the states. Maybe in addition to his own issues with Cynthia, he also didn't like seeing Cynthia was Julian.)
I don't think George and Ringo would have brought anybody to the management table, because I think they were both well aware that the situation was chaotic enough, and trying to bring in a third opinion would just make the chaos worse. That's why I feel sorriest for George and Ringo during the business crisis (at least, before the Beatles officially broke up, at which point I think Paul's perspective of just not wanting Klein as his manager was more than reasonable). They really were just crushed by the other two, and realistically there was nothing they could do that wouldn't make the situation worse.
I think if John had brought in a trustworthy person that same we he brought in Allen Klein (screaming verbal abuse at the Eastmans, signing with the guy without getting Paul's a agreement first), Paul would not have been inclined to accept the other party, even if they were trustworthy. But then again, someone besides Klein might have been less encouraging of John's abrasive behavior, so maybe that would have made a difference.
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I think if John had brought in a trustworthy person that same we he brought in Allen Klein (screaming verbal abuse at the Eastmans, signing with the guy without getting Paul's a agreement first), Paul would not have been inclined to accept the other party, even if they were trustworthy. But then again, someone besides Klein might have been less encouraging of John's abrasive behavior, so maybe that would have made a difference.
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