Paul’s Instagram April 4, 2024

🥲 I love them so much

Hey can you tell me more about I Don't Know (Johnny, Johnny)? because there is very very little info about it online and the only source of the song i can listen to was a youtube video. Considering the excessive research of everything beatles by a fuckton of people, I'm surprised we don't know much about this. (because really, it it is what people say it is, it burned down all the mclennon doubts i had)

You’re right. This song was written around 1959/1960. The only audio we have, this one,  is the recording of a rehearsal made in 1960 at Paul’s house. 

Even if the recording is damaged and the sound is shitty the lyrics are quite easy to understand:

P- Well oh Johnny, oh Johnny, oh god Johnny boy

How are we gonna tell him

Why don’t we go somewhere where he don’t own me

Where can i go?

Oh Johnny boy you wore me out.

Oh Johnny, oh Johnny, oh Johnny boy

Oh Johnny, you got me, you be my boy

Well, a long time ago, I called you Johnny boy.

J- Hey little boy, I’m packing my shoes, and I’m leaving you.

I told my Mama I’m going to see my sister

She don’t see me, I don’t know what I’m going to do.

P- A long time ago I called you Johnny boy.

I don’t know what to tell the fellas.

Please, oh please, Johnny.

J- Well I’ll tell the fellas that I do love you.

P- I don’t know what I’m gonna do.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I tell my father

You love me Johnny, I love you Johnny

I’m not gonna let you go.

P- I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I tell my father

You wore me down, you wore me down.

You’re gonna leave, you’re gonna leave me

Please, oh, I’m not gonna let you go

J- Take the next bus out of town

Then you won’t let your father down.

I don’t know what good I am since I see life in front of us.

P- Well get out of town,

don’t hold me down.

I don’t care.

J- Get out of town,

I don’t know (3x)

I want to leave right now

To get out of town.

P- You know I want to do it all.

I want to go far away, far away,

I want to go far away.

J- No, no, no, no

P- Yeah, I’m going far away.

Yeah, we’re going far away.

We’re gonna leave.

J- We’re going away,

Yeah, we’re going away,

Gonna leave town right now.

This is one of the very first mclennon song, it’s very clear that they sing their desire to escape together: Paul is afraid of what his father might think of it cause he loves John:

 “ I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I tell my father” 

and at 2:39 John replies:

‘And i love you Paul’. 

Like, it’s so clear you don’t even need to investigate much about it, no metaphors, no double-meanings, it’s all SO SIMPLE AND EVIDENT, they’ re singing I LOVE YOU  to each other, that’s it! And the song ends with both John and Paul singing that the only solution is to leave and go away from the town.

This song was never put in any Anthology, even if there’s another song of the same year, You’ll be mine, that has the same shitty audio (the same recording)  but they decided to include it! “I don’t know (Johnny Johnny)” instead was never included, neither edited or cleaned, that’s why some people have doubted its veracity, because very few people have ever listened to it, and it’s considered rare. It’s such a pity they didn’t try to clean it a bit, but, i think WE ALL KNOW WHY. Can’t imagine this song listed in the Anthology, cleaned, a bit edited, and a random 40s old white man listening to it and exclaiming: “Wow! what a friendship!”

Paul’s message to his most loyal Spotify listeners, 2023

“I luv ya. And…you love me! So, thanks a lot”

BLUR - "For Tomorrow" (1993) 4K Colour Version (2023)

"I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted" I think this quote is so telling but I haven't seen much commentary on it. Do you have any particular thoughts? It seems to put John in a very sad light. And to me it's one of his most revealingly repressed-gay quotes, but maybe there's another way to interpret & I'm overstepping.

Hello there, dear anon! 

I hope you’re still around to see this! As usual, I’ve taken an appalling amount of time answering this thought-provoking ask. However, in this instance, that “appalling amount of time” is probably over a year; a new record for me. Wherever you are now, I hope you are well, and if my ramblings don’t reach you, may they interest others. 

I also have to admit that at the time I received this ask, I was most likely not equipped to understand all the layers of meaning in this sentence. And it’d be quite presumptuous of me to assume that I am completely prepared now. But let’s just hope that my ability to perceive their nuances has grown since then, and will continue to do so in the future. 

Needless to say, this is only my current interpretation, and I welcome any commentaries that will help broaden it! (And please don’t fret for a second about offering your own interpretation and somehow “overstepping”; we’re all just having a decades-spanning conversation here.)

Now, on with your question.

First, let’s integrate that sentence in its full quote:

Q: So, John. You and Paul were probably the greatest songwriting team in a generation. And you had this huge falling out. Were there always huge differences between you and Paul, or was there a time when you had a lot in common?

JOHN: Well, Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother… and obviously missed his mother. […]

JOHN: So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that’s not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He’s in Scotland. He told me he doesn’t like English cities anymore. So that’s how it is.

Q: So you think with Linda he’s found what he wanted?

JOHN: I guess so. I guess so. I just don’t understand. I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty. But you don’t really know what you want until you find it. So anyway, I was very surprised with Linda. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d married Jane (Asher) because it had been going on for a long time and they went through a whole ordinary love scene. But with Linda it was just like – boom! She was in and that was the end of it.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So, the interviewer inquires about their differences and similarities during the relationship, probably to assess the pervasiveness of the clashes that supposedly led to the “huge falling out” in “the greatest songwriting team in a generation.”

And John answers that “Paul always wanted the home life.” 

At first glance, and following the logic of what was asked, one might assume John was pointing to a difference that always existed between them. And an irreconcilable difference at that, given that it’s the first thing he points out in answer to a question that is probing for sources of conflict that might explain their falling out.

So we get a feeling that John saw Paul having a family as incompatible with Paul maintaining a partnership with him. They were mutually exclusive; thus, Paul getting a family resulted in a falling out between them.

That right there carries a lot of implications already.

Because John himself also wanted the “complete family life”:

Q: But with that much experience behind you, now, would you like to have more children?

JOHN: Yeah, I – as – as many as come, you know. If Lennon roll out, as they. [thoughtful] I like large families. The idea of it.  

— John Lennon, interviewed by Brian Matthew (13 November 1965).

And we shouldn’t take his disappointment with the suburban life in Weybridge as proof that he’d given up on that fantasy. It’s all about the circumstances, in the end; who you’re sharing your dream with. 

After all, Yoko herself came with a “ready-made family”: a six-year-old daughter named Kyoko, who she was fighting to get the custody of, after divorcing the father, Anthony Cox, in February 1969; by then John and Yoko would even have a baby of their own. 

This would all eventually fall through, as Yoko suffered a miscarriage in late November 1968, and Cox would disappear with Kyoko in 1971. Yoko would not see her daughter again until almost three decades later.

So you could see how John could have felt resentful of the family life Paul had built. Always perfect mirror images, Paul was living the dream, while John’s turned into a nightmare.

But with John, the situation is always doubly complicated. Because if he was often envious of Paul, John was also jealous. Note that “envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you’re worried someone’s trying to take what you have.”

So we have to go back to his first answer. We’ve established that wanting “the complete family life” was something they had in common rather than something they differed in. 

But Paul wanting a family is still presented here as a reason for their falling out, or at least tangentially related. And John goes on to present his theory about how Paul’s choice in life partner was based on who could provide that for him. It wouldn’t be the career-focused Jane, or the inconsequential groupies. 

And it couldn’t be John himself.

We should also note that, in answer to the second question, it is made clear that John’s previous declarations were but a retrospective interpretation of what happened. As he goes on to admit, at the time, John was surprised by Paul marrying Linda instead of Jane.

And that is how we finally get to the sentence in question: 

“I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.” 

A possible first layer of meaning is what I’m guessing you meant by this being “one of his most revealingly repressed-gay quotes.” 

1. The emphasis being placed on John never knowing what he wanted in a woman, and thus not being able to know what Paul would find more desirable in a wife.

He does go on to use admittedly questionable pronouns: “I knew I wanted something intelligent or something arty.” It happened in other instances in this interview:

I just realized that [Yoko] knew everything I knew, and more, probably, and it was coming out of a woman’s head. It just sort of bowled me over, you know? And it was like finding gold or something. To find somebody that you can go and get pissed with, and have exactly the same relationship as any mate in Liverpool you’d ever had, but also you could go to bed with him, and it could stroke your head when you felt tired, or sick, or depressed. It could also be Mother. And obviously, that’s what the male-female – you know, you could take those roles with each other.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfeld, at St. Regis Hotel, New York City (5 September 1971).

So one could see how, at this time, John was struggling to manage the differences between male and female partners. As Cynthia put it:

I think he was trying to find himself a… what he’d call a soulmate. Someone who had as mad ideas as he had. I think he felt that she had the talent… but that’s debatable. But he needed that— he didn’t need a ‘mumsie’ partner at that point. He needed a mate. And I think he actually said, at some stage, in an interview that, you know— She’s the nearest thing to a man — a mate; man — that he’s ever had in a woman.

— Cynthia Lennon, interviewed by Alex Belfield for BBC Radio (2006).

Another angle that I find curious is:

2. The parallel drawn between Linda’s knowledge of Paul’s wants (and her ability to satisfy them) versus John’s.

“[Linda] knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him.” / “I never knew what he wanted”

This one integrates a theme I’ve been interested in exploring recently: their epistemology of each other. Basically, assumptions of knowledge; when it works out and when it doesn’t.

1968: I wonder should I call you but I know what you would do

JOHN: Well, [‘How Do You Sleep’]’s an answer, you know? Paul, uh, personally doesn’t feel as though I insulted him or anything. ’Cause I had dinner with him last week, and he was quite happy.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Mike Douglas on The Mike Douglas Show (12 February 1972).

1973: And I know just how you feel / And I know now what I have done / And I know and I’m guilty (yes I am) / But I never could read your mind

In this specific case, he could be humbly admitting he never knew what Paul wanted. But another possible reading of the sentence is the exact opposite:

3. The assumption that they were so connected, so much like a single entity, that to know himself was to know Paul. That their wants and needs are aligned, and what John wants must be what Paul wants.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted.

1967: I am he / As you are he / As you are me / And we are all together

1969: I know you, you know me

The mirror image of this interpretation would be Paul’s own thought-provoking declarations:

[T]he Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals— all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl.

— Paul McCartney, for Life Magazine (7 November 1969).

Q: Will Paul and Linda become John and Yoko?

PAUL: No, they will become Paul and Linda. 

— McCartney press release (9 April 1970).

And finally, I believe another very important facet expressed in this sentence is:

4. The theme of John not knowing what he wants for himself.

I never knew what he wanted in a woman because I never knew what I wanted. […] But you don’t really know what you want until you find it.

This is a sentiment that John has expressed before.

JOHN: Weybridge won’t do at all. I’m just stopping at it […] I think of it every day — me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I’ll take my time; I’ll get my real house when I know what I want. You see there’s something else I’m going to do, something I must do — only I don’t know what it is. That’s why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn’t it for me.

— John Lennon, interviewed by Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard (4 March 1966).

JOHN: I think, in one way, all of us were under the slight illusion that we might— or maybe it wasn’t an illusion and maybe had we pushed harder we would have got what we wanted, but I’m not sure that anybody really knew what we wanted. We knew we didn’t like what was happening but nobody quite knew what it was that we wanted, cus we’d never had it!

This is another very fascinating avenue I’ve been wondering about. 

John Lennon, the Dreamer, not actually knowing how that dream would manifest. Him having a vague romantic idea of what he wanted, but not really knowing how to practically bring it about. 

[Imagine here a whole essay of John versus Paul in the studio, and their contrasting abilities to materialize the sounds they heard in their head and turn them into something that others could experience with them.]

In conclusion, these are about all the potential levels of nuance I can read in John’s statement at the moment. All of them fascinating and worth exploring. So I’m truly grateful to you for giving me the perfect opportunity to do so. 

It would fill me with joy to have this conversation continued with all who feel like adding their own perspectives to it!

THE BEATLES being presented with an award from Radio Caroline Awards while on set filming for HELP!. Twickenham Film Studios, London, England. April 6th 1965.

Hey! I was wondering if there is actually any evidence for Paul Mc. actually really liking Two of Us -- everything I found was an Aidan Quinn interview in which he mentioned he met Paul and asked him if he liked it and he said yes. It's just that the way everyone says it, it makes it seem like he loved it, when in reality maybe he was just being nice? Is it a meme I am not aware of? Help.

Hi! :) The answer is yes, Paul does genuinely like Two of Us (2000)! I think he's been asked about it in a few interviews but the one I specifically remember was on the Adam Buxton podcast in 2020 (it's episode 144 around the 50 minute mark if you want to listen to it yourself). Here's what Paul said:

I did see [Two of Us] actually, yeah. And what was OK about that was that at the beginning of the film it said, you know, 'John and Paul met on such and such a date in New York and this is us imagining what might have happened.' It's pure fiction. They did it like a disclaimer at the front. So I thought, well, that's OK. 'Cause I can get into this. And I mean, I must say, I enjoyed it. I thought, 'I wish that had happened.' [Laughs] It didn't happen quite like that.

So yeah, basically Paul is an RPF understander and enjoyer. An open-minded king!

Ok, we’re used to the eye f*cking on stage, but this is on a whole new level.

Wish they had kept this in the video.

John and Paul during the Beatles press conference in Atlantic City (September 9, 1964)