#may pang | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mclennonlgbt · 5 days

Text

Paris in John and Paul’s life

30th September 1961:

“John and I went on a trip for his twenty-first birthday. John was from a very middle-class family, which really impressed me because everyone else was from working-class families. To us John was upper class. His relatives were teachers, dentists, even someone up in Edinburgh in the BBC. It’s ironic, he was always very ‘fuck you!’ and he wrote the song ‘Working Class Hero’ – in fact, he wasn’t at all working class. Anyway, one of John’s relatives gave him £100 for his birthday. A hundred smackers in your hand! That was a real windfall. None of us could believe it. To this day if you gave me £100 I would be impressed. And I was his mate, enough said? ‘Let’s go on holiday.’ – ‘You mean me too? With the hundred quid? Great! I’m part of this windfall.’” - Paul McCartney, Anthology

“We planned to hitchhike to Spain. I had done a spot of hitchhiking with George and we knew you had to have a gimmick; we had been turned down so often and we’d seen that guys that had a gimmick (like a Union Jack round them) had always got the lifts. So I said to John, ‘Let’s get a couple of bowler hats.’ It was showbiz creeping in. We still had our leather jackets and drainpipes – we were too proud of them not to wear them, in case we met a girl; and if we did meet a girl, off would come the bowlers. But for lifts we would put the bowlers on. Two guys in bowler hats – a lorry would stop! Sense of Humour. This, and the train, is how we got to Paris. - Paul McCartney, Anthology

“And Paul and I also did the same thing, once. We just cancelled. We’d made it, in Liverpool. We were making good money, for those days. I can’t remember what it was – maybe a couple of hundred dollars a week – but enough that you’d have a little extra. You’d have it in your back pocket. And Paul and I just— A relative of mine gave me a hundred pounds, for my birthday, which I’d never seen that much money in me life. Paul and I just canceled all the engagements, and left for Paris… And George was furious, because he needed the money – to work, you know. But that was another time when the group was in debate as whether it would exist or not.” - John Lennon, 1976, an interview with Elliot Mintz

“Last night I heard that John and Paul have gone to Paris to play together – in other words, the band has broken up! It sounds mad to me, I don’t believe it…” - Stuart Sutcliffe, Anthology

“We’d never been there before. We were a bit tired so we checked into a little hotel for the night, intending to go off hitchhiking the next morning. Of course, it was too nice a bed after having hitched so we said, ‘We’ll stay a little longer,’ then we thought, ‘God, Spain is a long way, and we’d have to work to get down there.’ We ended up staying the week in Paris – John was funding it all with his hundred quid.

We would walk miles from our hotel; you do in Paris. We’d go to a place near the Avenue des Anglais and we’d sit in the bars, looking good. I still have some classic photos from there. Linda loves one where I am sitting in a gendarme’s mac as a cape and John has got his glasses on askew and his trousers down revealing a bit of Y-front. The photographs are so beautiful, we’re really hamming it up. We’re looking at the camera like, ‘Hey, we are artsy guys, in a café: this is us in Paris,’ and we felt like that.

We went up to Montmartre because of all the artists, and the Folies Bergères, and we saw guys walking around in short leather jackets and very wide pantaloons. Talk about fashion! This was going to kill them when we got back. This was totally happening. They were tight to the knee and then they flared out; they must have been about fifty inches around the bottom and our drainpipe trousers were something like fifteen or sixteen inches. We saw these trousers and said, ‘Excusez-moi, Monsieur, où did you get them?’ It was a cheap little rack down the street so we bought a pair each, went back to the hotel, put them on, went out on the street – and we couldn’t handle it: ‘Do your feet feel like they are flapping? Feel more comfortable in me drainies, don’t you?’ So it was back to the hotel at a run, needle and cotton out and we took them in to a nice sixteen with which we were quite happy. And then we met Jürgen Vollmer on the street. He was still taking pictures." - Paul McCartney, Anthology

“Jürgen had a flattened-down hairstyle with a fringe in the front, which we rather took to. We went over to his place and there and then he cut – hacked would be a better word – our hair into the same style.” - John Lennon, 1963

Interviewer: I heard you took a trip to Spain before once, didn’t you? On Holiday? Paul: I didn’t go to Spain, no. I tried once to make Spain but… and John and I were gonna hitchhike. We hitchhiked down from Liverpool… We didn’t hitchhike. No, we got the train down from Liverpool ‘cause we thought we won’t hitchhike down the first bit. And we got the boat over to Paris. Then we got the train into Paris ‘cause we thought: “Well, it’ll be too hard to get a hitch here”. And we just stayed in Paris all week. And eventually… I mean, all the time trying to get out of Paris and make Spain! We never made it, we just flew home at the end. What a lazy hitchhiking Holiday!

“The thing was all the kissing and holding that was going on in Paris. And it was so romantic just to be there and see them even though I was 21 and sort of not romantic. But I really loved it, the way the people would just stand under a tree kissing. And they weren’t not mauling at each other, they were just kissing.” - John Lennon

"John’s 21st birthday was a month away, and he knew he was getting money — 100 pounds cash, more than he or Paul had ever seen in their lives. (…) Bob Wooler was party to their planning, and fought with them:

They were bored, and decided they would go away for a month. I thought this was disastrous because they would be away from the scene too long and lose their fans, Fans were very capricious: they moved from one group to another. And anyway, what about the other two members, George Harrison and Pete Best?. What about them, what do they do? We argued a lot about this — we argued in the back room of the grapes pub to a large extent —- and they said ‘Well, we’ll go away for a fortnight only’

(…) Equally, the promoters who paid the Beatles over-the-odds to present them every week had to “lump it” (….). To a man, and woman, they were incensed by it - but John and Paul hadn’t a care. They didn’t mean to be rude about it but basically it was tough shit.

it was tough too on Dot and Cyn, Dot simply had to accept the situation, but Cyn had a greater case of grievance. John was heading off without her when he could so easily gave waited for the art school holidays. (…).

That John was taking Paul, no one else, accentuates the renewed closeness since Stu quit The Beatles. They were the Beatles force, an unstoppable and authentically powerful pair. “Lennon had the attitude”, Wooler said, “and taking his lead from Lennon, McCartney could be similar. At times they reminded me of those well-to-do Chicago lads Leopold and Loeb, who killed someone because they felt superior to him. Lennon and McCartney were superior human beings”

"You’d always see them together, in the pub or walking along the street", says Johnny Gustafson of the Big Tree. "They were a duo, and seemed each other’s equal". Bernie Boyle, the young lad hanging around with them at every opportunity, says, "They were like brothers, with John as the elder and Paul’s mentor. They were so tight it was like there was a telepathy between them: on stage, they’d look at each other and know instinctively what the other was thinking"

They were brothers. They were the Nerk Twins, and now they were taking a break from The Beatles and gofin off to Spain.

Gustafson happened to bump into them the day they left, Saturday, September 30. “They both had bowler hats on, with the usual leather jackets and jeans. They said they were off to Paris, so I walked down to Lime Street station and watched them go. They were an incredible pair: always great fun, irreverent and so close. - Mark Lewinsohn, Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years (2013)

As was written in this post: That last picture is one Paul took of John sleeping in Paris. From what I remember of a performance he did of ‘Here Today’, and earlier comments, this picture hangs framed on a wall in Paul’s house.

Unconfirmed quote (may or may not be true):

"He must have been fond of me to spend that money. He let me have all the banana milkshakes I wanted.” - Paul McCartney

In January 1964, only a few scant weeks before the Beatles took America by storm, the band mates settled in for an extended stay in Paris. For the group, the Parisian visit proved to be a magical experience, with the Beatles playing 18 shows at the Olympia Theatre between Jan. 16 and Feb. 4 (source).

The photo Paul took of John (in the "Eyes Of The Storm" book):

1969:

Hoping to get married in France, John Lennon and Yoko Ono flew to Paris on this day [16th March].

The couple had decided to marry on 14 March 1969, two days after the wedding of Paul McCartney to Linda Eastman; whether it was in response to this event on some level is open to conjecture.

On McCartney’s wedding day Lennon and Ono were travelling to Poole in Dorset, where he introduced her to his Aunt Mimi. During the journey he asked his chauffeur Les Anthony to go to Southampton to enquire about the possibility of the wedding being held at sea, on the cross-channel ferry to France.

(source)

“On March 12, Paul married Linda Eastman at Marylebone Register Office in London, amid scenes of hysterical grief from his female fans. None of the other Beatles was present. The news reached John as he and Yoko were driving down to visit Aunt Mimi in Poole. Yoko’s divorce decree had become final a few weeks earlier, and, in a resurgence of Beatle copycat, John told her they, too, must get married as soon as possible” - Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (2008)

"We chose Gibraltar because it is quiet, British and friendly. We tried everywhere else first. I set out to get married on the car ferry and we would have arrived in France married, but they wouldn’t do it. We were no more successful with cruise ships. We tried embassies, but three weeks’ residence in Germany or two weeks’ in France were required." - John Lennon

1974:

“After a late lunch, Linda launched into a long paean to the joys of living in England. When she was finished, she turned to John and said, “Don’t you miss England?”

“Frankly,” John replied, “I miss Paris.””

— May Pang, Loving John (1983)

1978:

Wings album "London Town" is released. It includes the song "Cafe on the Left Bank", the lyrics of which clearly refer to John and Paul's trip to Paris.

Late 1970s: John is singing to Paul about Paris in a home recording.

1994 - Paul inducting John to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

“And then on your 21st birthday you got £100 off one of your rich relatives up in Edinburgh, so we decided we’d go to Spain. So we hitch-hiked out of Liverpool. And we got as far as Paris, and decided to stop there for a week. And eventually got our haircut, by a fellow named Jürgen, and that ended up being the ‘Beatle haircut’.”

I also remember watching an interview with Paul about his album "Memory Almost Full" (2007). Thank you for adding, @ringompreg!

youtube

(it's like 7 minutes in) Interviewer: There is a very beautiful song called "The End Of The End", the way you talk about your whole ending, and the lyric goes: "It's a start of a journey to a much better place." You mean, better than England? Paul: It's basically a start of a journey to France. Or Spain through France. Yeah, that's what it is. It's a much better place, Paris.

Also worth mentoning:

"All You Need Is Love" begins with La Marseillaise.

"Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)" contains French-language speech by BBC broadcaster Pierre Le Sève.

#mclennon #mclennon is real #mclennon anthology #paris #frankly i miss paris #may pang #yoko ono #linda eastman #the beatles #gay #bisexual #france #insane #compilation #master post #Youtube

116 notes · View notes

bambi-kinos · 27 days

Note

Re: John being demi - don’t you think it’s possible he had sex because that’s what was expected of him? His age, lifestyle, etc. Especially because of his self-destructive tendencies and not always acting on how he truly feels. Or acting in a way that doesn’t express how he truly feels - i.e. Barcelona. He could have easily slept with Yoko early on, with her throwing herself at him but it wasn’t until correspondence and a deeper connection did he engage sexually. Not to mention him not wanting to have sex with men later in life because he couldn’t find one he connected with in that way. To me even the lyric “My love will turn you on” - is revealing.

If you want to interpret John Lennon as demisexual then you certainly can and I can't and won't stop you. But since you're asking me directly my answer is just a flat "no." John was sexually attracted to women so he slept with them. He was conventional that way. He was also hooking up with Yoko soon after Indica, he did not wait until the night he took LSD with her and recorded the sex tape.

You need to remember the cultural climate John existed in. It was "expected" of John to get married to a woman, settle down with her, have children, hold a steady uninspiring job, and then die at 70 with a gold pocket watch in his waistcoat without ever standing out from the crowd or doing anything that would express his individuality and personal needs. These were the stultifying expectations John grew up under and he hated it.

The Beatles kept their orgies secret because it would have destroyed them as a band if it got out that they were nailing groupies, this is the exact OPPOSITE of it being "expected" of them to have sex with lots of women.

The performative aspect was the groupies expectation of John to act like Beatle John while he was thrusting. That doesn't mean John disliked it or was carrying out an act he found distasteful for the sake of expectations. And remember: John kept posters of Bridget Bardot and Elvis Presley in his bedroom at Mendips because he was jerkin' it to their images. He only had a parasocial fanboy relationship with them but he was deeply sexually attracted to both. This is the opposite of demisexuality which requires a personal connection of some kind.

I talked about this in the McLennon server this afternoon so I'll just repost what I said in there:

Leggy「IT'S A GUNDAM 」 — Today at 5:20 PM john was just so laden with PTSD and agoraphobia

like Shotton talks about how John started turtling up once he got Kenwood, the hibernation years were a long time coming. but he was so deeply separated from other people even as a child and that just got worse and worse over time.

like sex was a way for John to connect with human beings and I wonder if it was the only way he could. that's not to say he couldn't fall in love if he met people but he had to keep his connections shallow as a matter of survival, he wasn't able to form those relationships easily and when he did connect to others it was because they pursued him.

Cynthia was the aggressor in her relationship with John, he liked her but he didn't pay attention to her until she dyed her hair blonde to catch his eye. Paul was super down bad. Yoko stalked him.

Otherwise even as a teenager John's relationships were strictly about sex, not romantic love, and he wasn't interested in romantic love until Paul and art school came into his life.

***

This is the exact opposite of demisexuality. John could form personal relationships and he could fall in love with people but when he did, he seemed to back away from them sexually. If we count Paul as one of John's lovers (and I do) then we see this happen to where John broke it off with Paul to pursue someone else physically (in this case Yoko.) John liked using sex as a way to connect with others but the moment genuine feelings got involved he got skittish. Note that he initially was planning to buy a house with May Pang but then he went back to Yoko when the Montauk plans began solidifying. John was certainly attracted to May Pang and he certainly had a personal connection with her but when that started getting a little too real and too deep, then he left her and would only hook up with her occasionally in controlled environments where he could ghost her easily afterwards.

The same thing happened with Yoko: after Sean was born, she and John stopped having sex and she sent him to the massage parlors to avoid dealing with him.

And don't forget how John's relationship with May Pang started: Yoko hired May Pang to be John's mistress. May was paid by Yoko to have sex with John and to keep him within Yoko's reach while they were in Los Angeles, what with Yoko's daily phone calls. May did fall in love with John but John knew that May was a business asset controlled by his wife and that she was being paid to never leave him. This was the foundation of their affection for each other. When May and John went back to New York and started looking for houses in Montauk, John opted to go back to Yoko for her smoking cure and came back ready to leave May Pang, aka the relationship with May Pang was becoming too real and too deeply rooted in actual Love (with that capital L) that meant May would no longer be forced to stay with John due to receiving a salary from Yoko Ono.

What seems to be more of a pattern in his life is that he was very wary of forming personal connections with others, when they did form it was because the second person pursued him vigorously, and then he had a saddening tendency to leave once his love with that second person began to develop into a deep, long lasting adult relationship. If anything, John seemed to use sex as a way to keep himself hidden and to stop forming connections with others because the moment he had sex with someone he could safely label them "disposable" which is exactly what he did with Paul and May despite his intense connections with both of them and the fact that he was sexually intimate with both of them.

John seemed to fear love and the responsibilities and ecstasies that it brings. This is not demisexuality as I understand it and I simply cannot agree with the assertion that John was demisexual.

#there is a McLennon aspect to all this but that would require an entire post of its own #john lennon #yoko ono #may pang #the beatles #beatles meta #my meta

43 notes · View notes