#paul and grief

[sounwise]

[The day he learned of John’s death] Paul arrived at AIR at the same time as his record plugger Joe Reddington. As the men walked through the lobby to the lift, a journalist tried to follow them in and had to be ejected before they could ascend to the fifth-floor recording studio. Paul then attempted to do a day’s work. ‘He was just very, very quiet, and upset, as we all were,’ recalls Denny Laine. ‘He said to me, “I’m never going to fall out with anybody again in my life,” which is impossible to do, but that’s the way he felt. I knew he felt that maybe they didn’t make up like they should have done, so therefore he felt a bit guilty…’ As the musicians stood looking out of the window, they saw a furniture van below on Oxford Street with the name Lennon’s on the side, a type of van neither man had seen in London before. ‘We looked at each other and went, “Uh-ho! That was an omen.”’ The phone rang. Joe Reddington picked up. ‘Can I speak to Paul McCartney?’ asked a woman. ‘He’s busy at the moment. Who’s calling?’ ‘It’s Yoko.’ Joe knew instinctively it really was John’s widow, rather than a hoax. He told everybody to clear the room. ‘And [Paul] took the call. I just closed the door and he was crying—he’d lost his best friend.’

[—from Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney, Howard Sounes]

#had seen denny's description of this elsewhere but the way he tells it here is slightly different and frankly even more sad :'( #and reddington too #awful awful awful #cw death #paul mccartney #denny laine #joe reddington #john and paul #fab: an intimate life of paul mccartney #howard sounes #the beatles #1980 #paul and grief

[k-wame]

PAUL MESCAL as Harry All Of Us Strangers (2023) · dir. Andrew Haigh

#he's absolutely masterful at emoting grief & sadness in ways that'll be studied in acting schools for yrs to come #paul mescal #aous #all of us strangers #queer #affection #intimacy #queer characters #queer media #beautiful men

[lamentofspring]

all of us strangers (2023), adam & harry / portrait of a boy with grief, wale ayinla / sonnet of the wreath of roses, federico garcia lorca / an oresteia, anne carson / dancing with ghosts, hania rani & patrick wilson / every poem is a child of love, marina tsvetaeva / meditation: my grief, the sun, sanna wani

#web weaving #paul mescal loml #this film absolutely obliterated me #I read the script while watching the film and I had to get up and take walks it was so unbearable #genuinely I can’t do this anymore it destroyed me #I am Adam and I can’t do this anymore #on tenderness #on grief and love #on grief #on love #all of us strangers #paul mescal #andrew scott #adam and harry #sanna wani #wale ayinla #love as tenderness #love as grief #love as tragedy #love as protection #mine

[luthienne]

Paul Celan, Selections

[Text ID: Memory, / set up your flag at half-mast. / At half-mast / today and forever.]

#paul celan #selections #words #poetry #typography #german literature #on memory #grief is a circular staircase

[franklyimissparis]

if there’s one thing about paul mccartney, it’s that he’s GOING to make a flop of a film when he’s going through it

#my man loves throwing himself into a project to avoid processing his grief #mmt after brian died and gmrtbs after john :/ #not to say i don’t have a soft spot for the films but critically and financially they were both grim #paul mccartney #the beatles #magical mystery tour #give my regards to broad street #beatles

[reflectismo]

“My mum dying when I was fourteen was the big shock in my teenage years. She died of cancer, I learnt later. I didn't know then why she had died.”

[…]

“But I was determined not to let it affect me. I carried on. I learnt to put a shell around me at that age. There was none of this sitting at home crying – that would be recommended now, but not then.”

— The Beatles Anthology (2000)

//

Fan Question: What would you do if you had a time machine?

Paul McCartney: Go back and spend time with my mum.

— You Gave Me The Answer (2013)

//

“Paul was far more affected by Mum's death than any of us imagined. His very character seemed to change and for a while he behaved like a hermit.

He wasn't very nice to live with at this period, I remember. He became completely wrapped up in himself and didn't seem to care about anything or anybody outside himself.”

— Mike McCartney, Woman: Portrait of Paul (August 21st, 1965)

//

//

“She also loved music,” McCartney shared. “So one of my great memories is hearing her in the kitchen whistling, and I thought, ‘This is great. Mom’s happy.’

You know, just those little things were great memories for me.”

— Interview for This Cultural Life (2021)

//

Q: What was the biggest disappointment you ever experienced?

Paul: The fact that my mother didn't live to see my success.

— Star Time Presents The Beatles and The Groups (January 1966 Issue)

#The Beatles #Paul McCartney #Mother Mary #Grief

[burninbriight]

bitches after reading the line "it's over. it's finished. you can't take loved away"

#its me im bitches #this quote unironically CHANGED ME #it got me reelaborating every instance where i have felt grief in my life #genuinely so beautiful i want to get it tattooed #nona the ninth #nona the 9th #ntn #the locked tomb #tlt #pyrrha dve #camilla hect #palamedes sextus #paul tlt

[xeaiheai]

Tax evasion.

#I went to comic con Budapest and there was only Paul Dano and the Batman '66 Tv series Riddler merch so I didn't buy anything. #So here. Have tax evader Riddler. Now I will have to draw more of him out of grief for the product that could have been deified. #riddler #the riddler #tax avoidance #edward nygma #hopefully posting doodles migh help with my impostor syndrome #doodle

[chickadee394]

Tim voice, during the knightfall arc: if I had a nickel for every time I had to intervene because a Batman was getting too violent, i’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice, right?

Tim: to be fair, last time the guy in the batsuit wasn’t getting violent with me, but like eh tomato to-mah-to

#tim drake #bruce wayne #batman #robin #jean paul valley #i saw a post that was like tim is the protagonist in a horse girl movie and the horse in question was Bruce in his grief era #and now tim has found himself in the sequel #tim clocking in to his shift at the ‘stop batman this isn’t you’ factory like

[orangerainforest]

from

to

and eventually

All of Us Strangers (2023)

#insert that letterboxd review of #well i didnt want to be happy today anyway 🥲 #grief #all of us strangers #andrew scott #paul mescal #words #film

[asurrogateblog]

just because you two are the blue ones to your red counterparts does not mean you're the normal ones

#david's weirdness about roger and paul's weirdness about john are very VERY different. but its in the same font #this is why david is 'denial' in the five stages of grief #i just re-listened to the divison bell again and im still like...dude. come on we all know what this is about #-paul's songs- on the other hand are funny because #i'll listen to one that sounds Suspicious but i'll be like 'okay yes i hear it but i'm probably reading into things too much' #but then ill read an article about the song later and it'll be like 'john lennon was convinced this song was secretly about him' #like oh alright then. #pink floyd #the beatles #david gilmour #paul mccartney

[sounwise]

CH: How have you dealt with your bereavement? PM: The main answer is my kids. I don’t know what I would have done without them. Being such a close family, it hit us pretty much equally. They lost their best friend as well as their mum. It hit us all hard, but they have been very strong and very helpful. We’ve cried a lot together. None of us has held that back. We pretty much still cry, daily. Because Linda was so important, so much the center of everything in our lives. So it was mainly the kids. But I did get a counselor, realizing that I would need some sort of help. And although it’s not much of a British tradition to do that, I was married to an American so I know quite a lot of people who have no problem with psychiatrists and counselors. Funnily enough, Linda used to know psychiatrists when when was young; she’d say, “I used to sort out all their problems for them.” And you know that’s true. So I knew a particular one, who I talked to. He was a good help. It was mainly to get rid of some of my guilt. When anyone you love this much dies, one of the first things is that you wish you could have been perfect—every minute of every day. But nobody’s like that. I would say to Linda if we were arguing, “Look, I’m not Jesus Christ. I’m not a saint. I’m just some normal man. I’ll try to do something about it but that’s who I am, that’s who you’re married to.” So I had quite a bit of guilt and probably still have. You remember arguments. When you’re married you don’t remember them so much, you just get on the next day and as long as you don’t have too many and they’re not too bad you figure it evens itself out. But when someone dies, you remember only the arguments in the first couple of weeks and the moments when I wasn’t as nice as I would have wanted to be. So I need counseling with that. I found that really helpful. (continued under the cut)

[—from “Tears and Laughter” in USA Weekend (October 30, 1998)]

Friends have been very supportive, we’ve got a lot of lovely sincere friends who, because of the nature of Linda and I, unless they’re sincere they’re not our friends anyway, and they’ve been very helpful. And funnily enough, and something that I didn’t expect, the public at large have been a huge help. I thought that if you didn’t know Linda, you might not get it. But I was wrong. So many of the thousands of letters that I got said, “Although we never met Linda, you could tell that she was a great woman.” For some of them, it was because of her attitude to animals. A lot of others said it was because of the way that she brought up our kids. Yet they wouldn’t even know that we had kids, you hardly ever saw their pictures in the paper, we guarded their privacy in case when they grew up they wanted it. We figured you couldn’t rob them of that. The public said, a lot of them said, “It was just the way that she brought the family up,” and I realized that so many people did get what Linda was about. From one little fragment, you could tell. It still shone through. The public sent very uplifting quotes and prayers. A lot of them had been through a similar grief. They���d write and say how they’d lost their wife and this little poem they’d enclose had sustained them. A lot of people sent me a lot of good stuff that helped me. But it was mainly the kids. Now, when I get sad, I do pretty often; like if I go for a ride she’s not with me—I find myself going down, I let myself go down for a moment, just because I have to. And then I try to counterbalance it and think that Linda’s life was very upbeat. She wasn’t a downbeat kind of person, so she wouldn’t like it now if I went downbeat. She was always the one for the joke. If you spat inadvertently while you were talking to her, she’d say, “Do you serve towels with your showers?” She just had a line for everything. If you looked a little inattentive while she’s talking she’d say, “What, am I boring you?” She was a really funny lady, very witty. A delicious sense of humour. She was happy. So I use that now. I balance every sad moment with a happy moment. That kind of helps day to day. It helps me get through.

#paul mccartney #paul and linda mccartney #1998 #usa weekend #paul and grief #this has been in my drafts for many moons but it remains A Lot :'(

[crepesuzette2023]

Let's worship at the church of Paul's private grief, feat. the McCartney brothers, fathers and sons

About 10 years ago Paul released the ‘Chaos and Creation in the Backyard’ album. The cover was one of the evocative photos that you did in the early 60s. For me it’s the composition of the photo that makes it, taking it behind the window frames. Mike: It’s through me mum’s net curtains. She made them. She died when we were in Forthlin Road when I was 12 years of age. They are very important to me and our family. So my mum had died and there’s our kid sitting on the deck chair in our back garden with his guitar. He used to get lost in his guitar and there he is, miles away, sitting on a deck chair with the washing above his head. It’s such a lovely picture. I took it through the gap in the curtains.

In fact years later, James, our kid’s son. He’s a great musician and singer. He was up and said “Uncle Mike, can I see your’s and dad’s old house?” So I took him and there is the photograph on the wall. They’d put a deck chair in the yard and the washing on the line so you can look out and imagine our kid in the deck chair. I said to the guy running the house “Have you got a guitar?” He said “It’s an old one upstairs. It’s all out of tune.” Eventually he brought it down. I said “Here you are James. Look at the picture. See the way he’s holding it and looking.” You go be your dad.” So I sent him outside and took his picture, exactly the same way all those years later. I gave it to him and our kid as a present, the two of them together.

(Mike McCartney on the Strange Brew Podcast)

(photograph by Mike McCartney)

#It's that they recreated the scene of young Paul's grief and depression and invite people to re-imagine it #as an important part of his and the Beatles' becoming #and Mike going 'go sit in your father's deck chair James' #mike mccartney #paul mccartney #James McCartney #20 Forthlin Rd #the beatles

[get-back-homeward]

The Beatles, Flowers, and Love

A white sport coat and a pink carnation I'm all dressed up for the dance A white sport coat and a pink carnation I'm all alone in romance

Once you told me long ago To the prom with me you'd go Now you've changed your mind it seems Someone else will hold my dreams

—A White Sports Coat (and A Pink Carnation)* (1957)

I send you flowers but you don't care You never seem to see me standing there I often wonder what you're thinking of I hope it's me and love love love

—Hello Little Girl (1957)

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers That grow so incredibly high

—Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds (1967)

Find me in my field of grass Mother Nature's son Swaying daisies, sing a lazy song Beneath the sun

—Mother Nature's Son (1968)

Songs that lingered on my lips excite me now And linger on my mind Leave your flowers at my door I'll leave them for the one who waits behind

—Goodbye (1968)

Some call it magic The search for the grail Love is the answer And you know that for sure Love is a flower You got to let it grow

—Mind Games (1970, 1973)

Sweep through the heather like deer in the glen Carry me back to the days I knew then Nights when we sang like a heavenly choir Of the life and the times of the Mull of Kintyre

—Mull of Kintyre (1977)

All through the summer, I have followed you around Bringing a rose for the winter that's coming Now the snow is on the ground... Love awake to the day When we can make our love awake

—Winter Rose/Love Awake (1978)

You want a love to last forever One that will never fade away I want to help you with your problem Stick around, I say Coming up, coming up, yeah Coming up like a flower Coming up, I say

—Coming Up (1979)

If you'll forgive me my little flower princess Never too late unless you can't forgive

Time is on our side Let's not waste another minute 'Cause I love you my little friend I really love you

Give me just one more chance And I'll show you, take up the dance Where we left off

—Forgive Me (My Little Flower Princess)** (1980)

After hours  Late in the bar  By a darkened corner seat  Faded flowers wait in the jar  Till the evening is complete 

—Take It Away (1981)

She sprinkles flowers in the dirt That's when a thrill becomes a hurt I know I'll never see her face She walks away from my resting place

That day is done, that day is done You know where I've gone I won't be coming back That day is done

—That Day Is Done (1988)

#lennon mccartney #bugs with flowers #goodbye #thematics #threads #mine #coming up #grief #flowers in the dirt #I've been collecting a theme on bugs with flowers for ages now #but goodbye got stuck in my head and I suddenly realized the link with mind games and coming up #the whole flowers in the dirt album ate my brain last february #yes i know the verses are costello but he even credits paul for the chorus that brings it together #flower princess recalls a similar funky riff to coming up #so regardless of who its addressed to (seaman suggests may? yoko thought it was about her) the musical link to paul is there #added the photos and now i feel sick #im sorry i had no clue when i started this #forgive me i hit 30 before even getting to george :( #eta footnotes for breadcrumbs

[elsaqueenofstress]

AFTERSUN + THE FABELMANS.

charlotte wells + steven spielberg

#aftersun #paul mescal #frankie corio #charlotte wells #a24 #the fabelmans #gabriel labelle #paul dano #michelle williams #steven spielberg #2022 films #web weaving #word collage #grief #parenthood #filmmaking #childhood #heyyy spielberg + wells sorry for drawing parallels between these intensely personal portraits of ur families on tumblr won't happen again #notes

[johns-prince]

Now and Then (the demo and this completed version by Paul) falls in perfectly with the group of songs like Dear Friend, Jealous Guy, [Just Like] Starting Over, and most definitely Here Today, that I can only listen to every once in awhile blue moon, because if I'm not careful playing these songs on repeat, one after the other, I could spiral into a sad ball of grief and palpable secondhand regret and longing from these two fools

#mclennon #these songs are so potent with how John and Paul felt for each other it's like handling radioactive letters of yearning love grief regret