Photo:Getty Images
Getty Images
Last fallthe Beatlesreleased“Now and Then,” a long-awaited digital reunionbetween all four Fabs was made possible through cutting edge technology. Touted as the final entry in the band’s storied cannon, it provided fans with a happy ending to a 60-year saga and the chance to hearPaul McCartneyjoin voices with his late partnerJohn Lennononce again. Though indeed moving, it was a reunion that didn’t occur in reality. The Beatles tragically never reconvened in the studio prior toLennon’s murder on Dec. 8, 1980— robbing the world of more potential Beatles albums, and McCartney of his dear friend.
Many assume that Lennon and McCartney’s recording relationship ended with the band’s breakup at the dawn of the ‘70s. But in truth, they quietly teamed up in an LA studio for a one-off impromptu session in 1974. The results were chaotic, unfinished, and (technically) unreleased, but the bootleg tapes are historic for capturing that iconic vocal blend for the very last time. It proves that despite the bitterness of the prior breakup, their bond remained intact.
McCartney’s perfectionism in the studio gave him a reputation as a hard task master — “He’s the workaholic!”Ringo Starronce joked, while the band’s producerGeorge Martinchose the word “overbossy” — but beginning with sessions for the ‘White Album’ in 1968, Lennon began openly sniping at McCartney’s work. He particularly loathed the music hall influenced numbers like “Martha My Dear” and “Ob-La-Da, Ob-La-Da,” which he memorably dismissed as “Paul’s granny music s—.” The latter song nearly provoked a battle royale in the studio before Lennon stormed out — only to return again hours later, in a chemically altered state of consciousness. (The sessions for the song were so unpleasant that longtime engineer Geoff Emerick resigned rather than tolerate the bad vibes.)
For McCartney, the hostility was painful. “John and I were critical of each other’s music and I felt John wasn’t much interested in performing anything he hadn’t written himself,” he toldLifein 1971. “So I felt the split coming. And John kept saying we were musically standing still."
McCartney’s rejection of Ono — real or imagined, playful or malicious — stung Lennon in a way that few things could, and he began to emotionally distance himself from his longtime partner as a self-protective measure. “[Paul] said it many times that at first he hated Yoko, and then he got to like her. But it’s too late for me,” he told Wenner. “Ringo was all right, but the other two really gave it to us…I can’t forgive ‘em for that, really. Although I can’t help still loving them either."
The album in question, titled simplyMcCartney, was released in April 1970. Press copies included a Q&A that spelled out the fact that the Beatles were finished due to “personal differences, business differences, and musical differences,” and he didn’t foresee a Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership continuing into the future. The stunt, which made global headlines on April 10, enraged Lennon, who had planned to make the big announcement himself when the time was right. “I wanted to do it and I should have done it,” he said later. “I was a fool not to do it, not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record.”
On Dec. 31, 1970, McCartney began legal proceedings to dissolve the Beatles partnership, stretching relations between the formerly Fab foursome to the breaking point. According to legend, at one point Lennon was chauffeured over to McCartney’s London home and tossed a brick through his front window. (Another version has Lennon breaking in and destroying a painting he had gifted him.) Both stories are likely apocryphal but the sentiments were based in reality.
That same month, an emotionally raw Lennon, fresh off months of psychologically excruciating Primal Scream therapy, sat down with Wenner to giveRolling Stone’s readers their first look at the beloved band’s dirtiest laundry. “The publication of these interviews was the first time that any of the Beatles, let alone the man who had founded the group and was their leader, finally stepped outside of that protected, beloved fairy tale and told the truth,” Wenner later wrote. “He was bursting and bitter about the sugarcoated mythology of the Beatles and Paul McCartney’s characterization of the breakup.”
McCartney’s response was, characteristically, more subtle. On his second solo disc, 1971’sRam, he included a jab at Lennon on the opener, “Too Many People,” scoffing at the ex-bandmate’s exhortations for world peace. “The first line is: ‘too many people preaching practices,” he toldMOJOin 2001. “I felt John and Yoko were telling everyone what to do. And I felt we didn’t need to be told what to do. The whole tenor of the Beatles thing had been, like, to each his own. Freedom. Suddenly it was ‘You should do this.’ It was just a bit the wagging finger, and I was pissed off with it.” (The other lyrical barb, “You took your lucky break and broke it in two,” is fairly self-explanatory.)
When McCartney did respond publicly, on 1971’sWild Life, it was with an olive branch. His first Wings venture included the mournful “Dear Friend,” an open letter to Lennon that matched “How Do You Sleep” for candor. Built around a haunting solo piano figure, a grief-stricken McCartney sounds lost as he wonders if this was “really the borderline” of their friendship. Lennon kept his response to the song to himself, but the public sparring soon ceased.
The night was reportedly be the last time the two men, who had shared so much over the previous two decades, ever shared a room. As they parted ways, Lennon patted McCartney on the shoulder and offered a mock-maudlin farewell: “Think about me every now and then, old friend.”
They managed to stay connected over telephone for the next several years. “I realized that I couldn’t always ring him up to ask about business, which was my main priority at the time,”said McCartney. “It was better to talk about cats, or baking bread, or babies. So we did that, and I had a lot in common with him because we were having our babies and I was into a similar sort of mode.” McCartney placed a call to his old partner just before Lennon’s 40thbirthday on Oct. 9, 1980. “[It was] very nice. I remember he said, ‘Do they play me against you against me like they play you against me?’ Because there were always people in the background pitting us against each other. And I said, ‘Yeah, they do…’” It was the final time they spoke.
McCartney would always regret that he was never able to sit down and fully hash out all their differences before Lennon was gunned down on a chilly December night in 1980. But in an interview given hours before his death, Lennon spoke in uncharacteristically glowing terms of his one-time partner. “There’s only ever been two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one-night-stand, as it were,”he told RKO Radio. “That’s Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. I think that’s a pretty damn good choice. As a talent scout, I’ve done pretty damn well.” Though effusive words rarely came easily to the man who penned “All You Need Is Love,” mutual friend Harry Nilsson once told a story that summed up Lennon’s feelings for his musical soul mate. “Someone told me … they saw John walking on the street once wearing a button saying ‘I Love Paul.’ And this girl asked him, ‘Why are you wearing a button that says “I Love Paul”?’ He said, ‘Because I love Paul.’”
source: people.com
