“Some people think John was speaking directly to me [in Now and Then]. And you know what? That is very nice to think about, so I’ll stick with that interpretation.”

— Paul McCartney about being the inspiration for Now and Then to Brazilian journalist Pedro Bial (Dec. 01, 2023) (translated from portuguese version of the interview)

Currently thinking about Paul admitting he wrote a song with the title of the last words John ever heard.

Of course, he uses it to take a sad song a make it better. In Paul's story the wife of Paul's character survives and they're able to patch up their relationship and live happily ever after.

Also I'm crying.

George Martin and also me to John and Paul re: And Your Bird Can Sing Take 2

I have a few reasons for thinking this: 1. Paul's increasing positivity about it the further out he gets from actually having to deal with alive!John ("frightening phone calls, glad those aren't in my life anymore"). 2. Decades of confusion and anguish that John never liked him at all. 3. There's this recurring theme that crops up in his music after John dies... (not that these lyrics are literally about John, but in the sense that this is a general sentiment added to his emotional vocabulary after John died)(I do think a few of these are about John tho').

4. The fact that 'Here Today' is defensive in a similar genre ("well, you didn't give me a single inch on this front, but I'm gonna view our history positively anyway!!!!!")

5. Defensiveness in general and still fighting perceived rivalries with John years after his death (commissioned in the 90's not just a biography, but a biog aimed to set the record straight on who brought avant garde to the band). 6. On the day of, Paul said "remind me never to fall out with anyone again". Within ten years this changed to "it's so sad George never made up from falling out with John before he died like I did." 7. That George had to tell Paul to stop fighting Yoko basically on his deathbed, and that Paul's entire perception of his and John's relationship could still be warped, controlled and filtered entirely by Yoko despite them having "made up". 8. Vagueness and repetitive paucity re: his and John's cross-ocean post-75 correspondence. Okay yeah, he and John could small talk about their children and baking hobbies without yelling at each other, but did they actually resolve any of the issues that put barriers up between them in the first place, let alone scale the walls erected during their break up? 9. Paul sounds extremely not even a little bit resolved re: his relationship with John in the infamous off the record convo with Hunter Davies. I take his attitude here - when he was in the thick of the emotional storm almost immediately after the event - over things said to the press 10-40 years later.

And I don't think it's lying at all. It's a completely normal function of human psychology to re-frame traumatic or unresolved events more positively or soberly the further you get away from them, otherwise we'd all go completely insane. Paul wasn't really allowed to process his anger at and grief over John without the fantastical abstraction "St John" marketing construct, or having Yoko jump down his throat, so there isn't really any mental recourse left except to tell himself that they were "okay in the end". Also: even if he were fully conscious that they didn't make up and just sort of tells this pat story in interviews to avoid talking about it, that's also not lying??? Refusing to air your dirtiest laundry in public isn't lying, the press and fans aren't entitled to shit. If I were Paul I would say even less than he has (I say, spending all day thinking deeply invasive thoughts about this man's inner psychology; but see, I do it on tumblr under an anon identity lmao). I think his headspace is more likely the former than the latter, but I wouldn't define either of these as lying.

But I also think where you stand on this issue depends on what you mean by "make up". If you mean they were able to be friendly and polite with each other, then yes: they made up. If you mean "did they exhume the skeletons in their closet as to be able to move on a form a new kind of honest, intimate friendship", then I think the answer is definitively no. It's not unusual to have more formalized, shallow relationships with your teen-hood friends as an adult, esp for someone like Paul who has a very traditionally male attitude of saving all his emotional intimacy for The Wife/Girlfriend and one or two close confidantes, but I think it's clear from the way Paul has struggled with parsing and accepting John's death for about forty years indicates that "formal small talk relationship in which the wounds are efficiently ignored or suppressed" is not what he was hoping to have with John going forward.

Indeed, Get Back serves in part as a study in male friendship. What you see on screen between John and Paul, especially when they play, is a chemistry that crackles as fiercely as any sexual or romantic attraction. The connection between the two is so intimate, the shared glances full of such understanding, that when they play Two of Us, you realise that the love that song celebrates is theirs – even if they didn’t know it.

*stares into the middle distance* y'know i like to exercise the barest minimum clinical distance so i'm not as convinced that '(Just Like) Starting Over' is about Paul as the rest of the fandom (or rather: my ~personal~ tinhat narrative complicates this reading), but i really do wonder who the fuck Paul thought the song was about.

via [x]

come on bro...you almost got it you're almost there.....

the fact that the majority of the mainstream coverage about now and then is like “yes this is about paul isn’t that sweet and heartbreaking” is so insane to me and also probably so vindicating to paul. i wonder if this newfound post-get back media acceptance/acknowledgment of their love for each other changes the way paul’ll talk about john in future in-depth interviews. wonder if someone’ll outright (finally) ask him about it in a serious tone instead of “what do you think about this conspiracy theory?”. things are changing in the outsider narrative – i wonder if there will be chances (or more openness?) in paul’s narrative too

one of the things I really struggle with when conceptualizing the relationship between j&p is that i fundamentally think it was a romantic relationship, but not in a shippy way? no i don't think they were dating but yes i think they were partners. i think they were both pretty in love with each other, but not in the way they were in love with their wives and girlfriends. it makes it hard to talk about without seeming like you're pushing their other significant others away. i just think the way rock historians and enthusiasts go about shaping the relationship is limiting, and to stop short and say only that they were "best friends" or simply had a "musical love affair" is ultimately a confusing way to portray them, given the intensity of the relationship.

Today I’m yet again feeling robbed that we didn’t get to hear John wail out Call Me Back Again. The angst. The idea of Paul making John sing out his own desires. Robbed.

lived my whole life in guilt bc i thought i was responsible for people's feelings. newly realizing that other people are responsible for their feelings and reactions, even if they make it seem like i'm the problem. a lot of the time it really has to do w them and their own emotional regulation. i can't keep thinking i'm not allowed to have space bc of other people's insecurities. like i literally refuse to dim myself. other people are responsible for their feelings just as i'm responsible for mine.