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Paul hurting John

And any mention of Paul brought a wintry bleakness to her face. 'John always used to say,' [Yoko] told me at one point, 'that no one ever hurt him the way Paul hurt him.' The words suggested a far deeper emotional attachment between the two than the world had ever suspected---they were like those of a spurned lover---and I naturally included them in my account of my visit for the Sunday Times. After it appeared, I returned to my London flat one evening to be told by my then girlfriend, ‘Paul, phoned you.’ She said he wanted to know what Yoko had meant and that he’d seemed upset rather than angry.

Paul McCartney: The Life - Philip Norman.

Paul McCartney, John’s partner into songwriting history, provokes a bleak and bitter look. “John said that no one ever hurt him the way Paul hurt him. But it’s in the past. It’s gone.” “John used to say he’d had two great partnerships. One was with Paul McCartney, the other was with Yoko Ono. ‘And I discovered both of them,’ he used to say. ‘Not bad going, is it?’”

Yoko Ono, interview w/ Philip Norman for Sunday Times: Life after John. (May 25th, 1981)

KLEIN: I can only tell you what John said when I asked him who he would call among the Beatles if he was in trouble—you know, if he had a real problem. He said he’d call George. That surprised me. Then I asked him if he’d ever been really close with Paul and he said no. Not that he didn’t love him; he did. He just said every time he let his guard down, McCartney hurt him. VETTER: Did he say how? KLEIN: Not specifically. But you know, it’s the kind of hurt where you open up to someone, really reach out, and then they’re just not there. A couple of times I thought Paul and I really had something going and then the next day, it was like it all just slipped away.

Allen Klein, Playboy: A candid conversation with the embattled manager of the Beatles. (November, 1971)

“I don’t have any friends!” John reminded me. “Friendship is a romantic illusion!” He said that he had learned this the hard way after the breakup of his relationship with Paul McCartney, whom he had once regarded as his close friend.

Fred Seaman, The Last Days of John Lennon. (1991)

HARTMAN: Paul, there’s a new interview out that John – you mentioned John a while ago – and he talks very openly. Without going into details, he seems to have a lot of resentment, competition, with you. And he says you kind of died creatively in a way, and he didn’t keep track of you, he said ‘The Long And Winding Road’ was your last gasp… How – he seems resentful of you. Do you know why, or—? PAUL: [uncomfortable] Um… I don’t know, I can guess and stuff, you know, but I’ll tell you, after all of that stuff has sort of gone down over the years, I actually keep a bit quiet now, ’cause anything I say, he gets resentful of. So I don’t know really, I mean, uh… it’s just a weird one. I don’t quite know why he thinks like that. I mean, what do you do about that? I – I really just shut up these days. I think it’s the best policy, David.

Paul’s Good Morning America interview

“No one ever goes on about the times John hurt ME,” said Paul. “When he called my music Muzak. People keep on saying I hurt him, but where’s the examples, when did I do it? No one ever says. It’s just always the same, blaming me. Could I have hurt John MORE than anyone in the world? More than the person who ran down Julia in his car? “We were always in competition. I wrote “Penny Lane,” so he wrote “Strawberry Fields.” That was how it was. But that was in compositions. I can’t understand why Yoko is saying this. The last time I spoke to her she was great. She told me she and John had just been playing one of my albums and had cried.”

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

I always felt guilty. Always felt guilty. But looking back on it, I keep thinking, okay, let’s try and analyse this. Now John was hurt; what was he hurt by? What was the single biggest thing that we can find in all our research that hurt John? And the biggest thing that I can find is that I told the world that the Beatles were finished. And I don’t think that’s so hurtful. […] I look at it now and really kind of shudder. At the time it was me trying to answer some questions that were being asked and I decided to not fudge that question. And I say, looking back on it, I don’t think… I mean, if that’s the most hurtful thing I did, I haven’t really heard much else beyond that.

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And I say, looking back on it, I don’t think... I mean, if that’s the most hurtful thing I did, I haven’t really heard much else beyond that. We didn’t accept Yoko totally, but like I say, how many groups do you know, these days [who would]? I mean, it’s a joke. It’s like Spinal Tap! I mean, it’s Spinal Tap! A joke!

Paul McCartney, interviewed by Chris Salewicz for Musician (October 1986).

John had made it clear that he wanted to be the one to announce the split,' Linda McCartney explained years later, 'since it was his idea.' 'He wanted to be first,' her husband confirmed. 'But I didn't realise it would hurt him that much or that it mattered who was first.' Lennon commented later, 'We were all hurt that he didn't tell us what he was going to do. I think he claims that he didn't mean that to happen, but that's bullshit.' Envy also entered the equation. 'I was cursing because I hadn't done it. I wanted to do it and I should have done it...I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which is use it to sell a record.'

You Never Give Me Your Money – Peter Doggett

At first we agreed not to announce it. But after three or four months, I got more and more guilty about people saying, “How’s the group going?” when we sort of knew it was probably split up. So I did a kind of dumb move in the end, and when I look back on it, it was really… It looks very hard and cold. But I was releasing the McCartney album, and I didn’t really want to do much press for it; so I told a guy from the office to do me a list of questions and I’ll write the answers and we’ll print it up as a pamphlet and just stick it in with the press copies of the album. The questions were quite pointed, and it ended up being like me announcing that the Beatles had broken up. John got quite mad about that, apparently – this is one of the things he said really hurt him and cut him to the quick. Personally I don’t think it was such a bad thing to announce to the world after four months that we’d broken up. It had to come out some time. I think maybe the manner of doing it, I regret now – I wish it had been a little kinder, or with the others’ approval. But I felt it was time.

Paul McCartney, Rolling Stone: The Rolling Stone interview – Paul McCartney. (September 11th, 1986)

JOHN: And then as I said in [Rolling] Stone, both Klein and Paul at that time said, “Well, you don’t have to tell everybody, do you? You don’t have to announce it.” And I said, “Okay. Well, I won’t announce it then.” And then a year later, Paul announced it, right? [laughs; bleak] Good ol’… That was a great trick, you know. Because maybe that’s how when he – [very quiet] He felt that’s how he had to do it. So.

January 1st, 1976 (Dakota, New York)

JOHN: Well, I mean, like – like with anybody, when you say “divorce”, you know, the face goes… all sorts of colours. It’s like he knew, really, that this was the final thing. And then six months later, he comes out with – whatever, you know. I told [British journalist] Ray Connolly, and there was a lot of people knew I’d left, but I was a fool not to do it, you know. Not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record. WENNER: You were really angry with Paul. JOHN: No, I wasn’t angry. WENNER: But when he came out with his— JOHN: No, I wasn’t angry, I was just – “Shit!” You know? I mean, he’s a good PR man, Paul. He – he’s about the best in the world, probably. He really does a job. I wasn’t angry in that way.

December 8th, 1970 (New York): Rolling Stone

"Yet even [John's resentment over Paul announcing the breakup first] does not explain his later remark to Yoko that no one had ever hurt him the way Paul hurt him. It almost suggests that, deep beneath the schoolboy friendship and the complementary musical brilliance, lay some streak of homosexual adoration that John himself never realised. He might have longed to get away from Paul, but he could never quite get over him."

Philip Norman, Shout!, 1981

John would say things like, ‘It was rubbish. The Beatles were crap.’ Also, ‘I don’t believe in The Beatles, I don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t believe in God.’ Those were quite hurtful barbs to be flinging around, and I was the person they were being flung at, and it hurt. So, I’m having to read all this stuff, and on the one hand I’m thinking, ‘Oh fuck off, you fucking idiot,’ but on the other hand I’m thinking, ‘Why would you say that? Are you annoyed at me or are you jealous or what?’ And thinking back fifty years later, I still wonder how he must have felt. He’d gone through a lot. His dad disappeared, and then he lost his Uncle George, who was a father figure; his mother; Stuart Sutcliffe; Brian Epstein, another father figure; and now his band. But John had all of those emotions wrapped up in a ball of Lennon. That’s who he was. That was the fascination.

I tried. I was sort of answering him here, asking, ‘Does it need to be this hurtful?’ I think this is a good line: ‘Are you afraid, or is it true?’ – meaning, ‘Why is this argument going on? Is it because you’re afraid of something? Are you afraid of the split-up? Are you afraid of my doing something without you? Are you afraid of the consequences of your actions?’ And the little rhyme, ‘Or is it true?’ Are all these hurtful allegations true? This song came out in that kind of mood. It could have been called ‘What the Fuck, Man?’ but I’m not sure we could have gotten away with that then.

Paul McCartney, on “Dear Friend”. In The Lyrics (2021).

PAUL: He was hurt. He later explained it by saying that I’d hurt him over some things, and it was kind of bitchy. Um… you know. He just had to do that. It’s fine. And at the time I thought, well, I should really answer all of this, but I took – I thought, no, it’s really going to get crazy if I start answering him and then we’re gonna be talking through newspapers at each other and really bitching, you know. And I decided to not do that.

October 19th, 1984: Paul McCartney talks to Barbara Frum of CBC-TV’s The Journal

"The truth is, deep down they were very, very similar indeed. Each had a soft underbelly, each was very much hurt by certain things. John had a very soft inside to him. But, you see, each had a bitter turn of phrase and could be quite nasty to the other. It was like a tug of war. Imagine two people pulling on a rope, smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond."

George Martin – Bill Harry, The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia, 2003)

JOHN: [Paul] even recorded that all by himself in the other room, that’s how it was getting in those days. We came in and he’d – he’d made the whole record. Him drumming, him playing the piano, him singing. Just because – it was getting to be where he wanted to do it like that, but he couldn’t – couldn’t – maybe he couldn’t make the break from The Beatles, I don’t know what it was. But you know, I enjoyed the track. But we’re all, I’m sure – I can’t speak for George, but I was always hurt when he’d knock something off without… involving us, you know? But that’s just the way it was then.

August, 1980: interview with Playboy writer David Sheff

‘There’s only one incident I can think of which John has publicly mentioned. It was when I went off with Ringo and did “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” It wasn’t a deliberate thing. John and George were tied up finishing something and me and Ringo were free, just hanging around, so I said to Ringo let’s go and do this. “I did hear him some time later singing it. He liked the song and I suppose he’d wanted to do it with me. It was a very John sort of song anyway. That’s why he liked it, I suppose. It was very John, the idea of it, not me. I wrote it as a ricochet off John. “Perhaps I hurt people by default. I never realized at the time John would mind.

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“I’ve never come back at him, not at all, but I can’t help hide my anger about all the things he said at the time, about the Muzak, about me singing like Englebert Humperdink….. “If I had to start listing all the times when HE hurt me. Doing that one little song on my own, compared with what he said about ME…. “When you think about it, I’ve done nothing really to him, compared with that. Anyway, he did the same with “Revolution 9″. He went off and made that without me. No one ever says all that. John is now the nice guy and I’m the bastard. It gets repeated all the time.”

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

ROBBINS: When are you going to be doing another tour? Do you know? JOHN: No idea. I know we’ve got music to write, as soon as we get back. And Paul’s just signed us up to write the music for a film [The Family Way]. So I suppose it’s off the plane and into bed and – knock knock knock, “Get up and write some songs.” ROBBINS: A film that’s not your own? JOHN: Yes. ROBBINS: Very exciting.

John Lennon, interview w/ Fred Robbins. (October 29th, 1966)

“The healthy partnership and camaraderie that evolved from Paul and John’s competitive streak was only one step away from sibling rivalry. It now transpires that one of John’s earliest ‘hurts’ inflicted by Paul was McCartney’s solo writing of the music for the Hayley Mills film The Family Way in 1966. ‘I was told recently by Yoko that one of the things that hurt John over the years was me going off and doing The Family Way,’ Paul says. The filmmaking Boulting brothers had approached him via George Martin. ‘I thought this was a great opportunity. We were all free to do stuff outside the Beatles and we’d each done various little things.’When he mentioned it to John, Paul said, ‘He would have had his suit of armour on and said: “No, I don’t mind.” However, my reasoning would be that at exactly the same time he went off to make a film. He wrote his books. It was in the spirit of all that. But what I didn’t realize was that this was the first time one of us had done it on songs. John would write a book and I was supposed not to be jealous, which I wasn’t. He acted in a film [How I Won the War]. But I didn’t realize he made a distinction between all those solo things and actually writing music because this was the first time one of us had done it in film scoring. I suppose what I should have said was: “I’d like to write it with John,” and then that would have been OK. It actually didn’t occur to me at that time at all. So I went off, saw and liked the film, said: “Right, come on George [Martin],” and I must say it was all over very quickly.’

Paul McCartney, c/o Ray Coleman, McCartney: Yesterday and Today. (1995)

JOHN: ‘Rigby’’s, um, his first verse, and the rest of the verses are basically mine. But the way he did it was – uh, was he had the song, and he knew he’d got the song. So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,” while he was sort of fiddling around with the track or something, or – or arranging it, in the other part of the giant studio in EMI. ... But that’s how it – [Paul] just sort of— ‘Cause that’s the kind of insensitivity he would have – which made me upset in the later years – because to him, that meant nothing. But that’s the kind of person he is. So he threw ‘em out and said, “Here, finish these up,” like – to anybody, who was around. [By saying that] actually he meant I was to do it, but – you know, Neil and Mal were sitting there, and…

August, 1980: interview with Playboy writer David Sheff

"As mild and oblique as the comment was [Paul's "You took your lucky break and broke it in two" line from "Too Many People"], it seemed to cut John to the heart. On top of the questionnaire inside the McCartney album and the lawsuit, it was like the tipping point between a divorcing couple that turns love into savage, no-holds-barred hostility. Indeed, John's wounded anger was more that of an ex-spouse than ex-colleague, reinforcing a suspicion already in Yoko's mind that his feelings for Paul had been far more intense than the world at large ever guessed. From chance remarks he had made, she gathered there had even been a moment where - on the principle that bohemians should try everything - he had contemplated an affair with Paul, but had been deterred by Paul's immovable heterosexuality.

Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life, 2008

#the beatles #paul mccartney #john lennon #mclennon #the most interesting aspect of this whole thing is paul's sincere bewilderment over how he hurt john #all evidence points to: literally anything that resulted in them being distant musically and personally #and people still think john was desperate for that divorce...?

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