Something, or the perils of marrying a Beatle, plus photos by Linda McCartney

[selenak]

Treasures you find at YouTube, #14533: the original promo for Something. Which is... something. Apparantly whoever shot it - the busy Michael Lindsay-Hogg, or was he too busy being traumatized by the rough cut of Let it Be at that point? - had the bright idea that since this is a love song, the four Beatles should pose with their respective

Comments

[blindmouse]

I actually never knew there was fan hostility to Linda - I guess it got overshadowed by the Yoko hatred? This was fascinating to read, and her photos are gorgeous.

[selenak]

re: fannish hostility: because Paul was the only Beatle who lived in town (the other three all lived in the London suburbs), and only a few minutes away from the Abbey Road studio, he had the most fans camping out on his doorstep (nicknamed the Apple Scruffs) and when Linda became a permanent presence, it became pretty ugly. They'd swarm around her when she went outside, told her to go back to America, trying to trip her so that she'd fall in the street. This was one of the reasons why the McCartneys ended up moving to Scotland for years. On a less physical and journalistic note, there's Blair Sabol's "Linda - who does she think she is? Mrs Paul McCartney?" Village Voice article from 1975 as a good example, which in addition to hostility adds a whiff of antisemitism ("Linda was carrying a yellow and red carnation centerpiece. Which just goes to show - you can take the girl out of the bar mitzvah, but you can't take the bar mitzvah out of the girl"), and even as late as the 90s Camille Paglia, commenting on the recent death of John

[blindmouse]

You'd have to be pretty fond of a guy to stick with him through that, no matter who he was.

[selenak]

No kidding. And let's not forget that when they did get out of London and away from the fangirls by going to the Scottish farm in late 1969 and through most of 1970, Paul slid into a full fledged depression. It was different for John because he had wanted to end it, but Paul hadn't wanted to get divorced, the relationship with John had been the defining one of his life since he was 15, which at this point (age 28) was more than half of his life, and the only job he ever had was being a Beatle. He stopped shaving, drank more and more and didn't get out of bed anymore. So you're Linda, the world hates you for taking their cute Beatle away, you have a newborn baby and a five years old daughter who just got uprooted from the US to England, and your new husband has a complete nervous breakdown. Paul said years later he wouldn't have wanted to live with himself and he didn't know how Linda could stand it, but she did, and he credited her for literally saving his life by convincing him he was worth something without John, making him get out

[diotimah]

Thanks for this. Beautiful pics.:) She definitely was an artist in her own right!:) I love the one with Paul, little Heather and the dog in particular.;)

[selenak]

She was, and that one makes me go aww each time. Apart from the great structure coincidence and Linda capturing the moment gives it - the dog, Paul and little Heather - those early pictures of her oldest daughter with Paul always seem to capture something Linda said, that one reason she fell in love beyond the obvious attraction was that he was great with her child from the start:

[diotimah]

Apart from the great structure coincidence and Linda capturing the moment gives it - the dog, Paul and little Heather - those early pictures of her oldest daughter with Paul always seem to capture something Linda said, that one reason she fell in love beyond the obvious attraction was that he was great with her child from the start:

Indeed. Both pictures certainly reflect her "female gaze", her happiness about them getting on so well. Thus, the photographer's affection for both of them is implicated in the picture - an inclusive rather than exclusive gaze.:)

Additionally, the one with the dog in particular is a true work of art, because of the child's and dog's parallel movements and the image's whole structure, and because it would work even if you didn't know the whole Beatles context (and the fact that Heather wasn't his biological daughter), simply as a represenation of fatherly affection.:)