#he's also being imo a bit backhanded about John and George here: I had their back but I'm not responsible for their rudeness!

[mydaroga]

Paul: I remember I had a girlfriend called Celia. I must have been sixteen or seventeen, about the same age as her. She was the first art-college girl I'd ever been out with, a bit more sophisticated. And we went out one evening and for some reason John tagged along, I can't remember why it was. I think he'd thought I was going to see him, I thought I'd cancelled it and he showed up at my house. But he was a mate, and he came on a date with this Celia girl, and at the end of the date she said, 'Why did you bring that dreadful guy?' And of course I said, 'Well, he's all right really.' And I think, in many ways, I always found myself doing that. It was always, 'Well, I know he was rude; it was funny, though, wasn't it?'

And George Harrison was another. There was this guy called Ritter who was in our group at school, and George was in the younger group, and I remember we'd been standing around at playground and I'd tried to introduce George to Ritter, introduce him into my peer group. And being a year younger it was kind of difficult. I said, 'Hey, this is George Harrison. He's a mate of mine. We get on the same bus together.' And we'd been sitting around, and George suddenly head-butted this friend of mine. I thought, Fuckin' hell. Now I'm sure he had a very good reason to do it. But afterwards I was going, 'No, he's all right really, you know?' I always had to stick up for these friends of mine. What might have been construed as good old-fashioned rudeness I always had to put down to ballsiness. I had to assume that my mates were a little bit wimpish and that George had done the right thing, for some reason.  

From the very beginning Paul took on a particular conciliatory role in the group, one he was almost forced into, explaining away rudeness and bad behaviour, trying to get everyone to like them. Paul: 'I have a reputation now of being a PR man, which has grown over the years, because anything you promote, there's a game that you either play or you don't play. I decided very early on that I was very ambitious and I wanted to play.'

Paul McCartney and Barry Miles, Many Years From Now

I originally had just the last paragraph, because Paul's ... defensiveness about his ambition and perceived role is interesting, but then decided the context of how he felt about defending John and George's behavior was part of that.

#but he's rather trying to have everything both ways #he's only the PR guy because someone had to step up #you get a rep for being ambitious but maybe it's because you're ambitious and that's ok? #he's also being imo a bit backhanded about John and George here: I had their back but I'm not responsible for their rudeness! #which again i do understand! but there's something about the way he's choosing to bring it up that i think is interesting #he definitely wants it to be known that he was loyal but not complicit? something like that #Paul McCartney #many years from now #Kris reads MYFN #kris talks a lot