The Lyrics: The Statistics

I suspect that Paul was a lot like his mother. As you said, there's really no way to know what she was like, but I felt like I understood a little more about Paul after learning that Mary had grown up in abject poverty, and that she said nothing but made sure the house was clean and the kids' lunches were packed before going to the hospital to die. :(

Absolutely. Mary had it rough growing up, her mother died when she was young, her father moved the family to Ireland to try farming, had to move them back to Liverpool when he proved to be kind of bad at it, and then he got married to a stepmother that hated Mary. Mary reputedly ran away from home and signed on to be a nurse after her stepmother slapped her. She insisted on being her own person until she met Jim in a bomb shelter and they hit it off.

I think about that parallel a lot because Paul was also similarly furious about being struck by a parent figure (there's a fan interview from 1965 maybe? where Paul, with George as a witness, made a jibe that he'd had enough of being struck by his father). John has that quote about how "your dad can't do anything to you, you could kill him if you wanted to" or something like that which in hindsight really reads like John telling Paul not to put up with being kicked around anymore. And then there's the fact that Paul dropped out of school to run away to Hamburg with John which...

Paul has a lot in common with his mother. Paul and Mary shared a lot of hardnosed qualities where they are both willing to abandon unsalvageable situations and they don't put up with being disrespected. They even both ran away from home...though eventually Paul went back. His relationship with his dad was really shot through with a lot resentment and sadness.

And yeah, Mary looking after the kids and putting them over her health, and the way she said nothing the day she went to the hospital. Jim was a similar way, he couldn't verbalize his feelings either. It's easy to see why Paul struggles so much with putting words to his feelings, not just that he's uncomfortable doing it but that he doesn't know what he is feeling unless he uses music to access it.

Pisces Rising

Paul McCartney

Did Paul and Robert have an affair or was that just Tara Browne

there is no hard, tangible evidence that paul had an affair with robert fraser or an affair with tara browne – or any man at all, for that matter. 

i do, however, think that robert and paul did share a special connection. over anything else we can speculate, but this, to me, is fact. i will delve deeper into why i think it was special and what exactly i mean by that in a different post, but i think these quotes illustrate a bit:

Robert represented to me freedom, freedom of speech, of view. [x]

Paul visited Robert’s gallery and would often drop by his flat to see who was there and what was happening. Robert was a superb host; he always mixed the latest drinks, had the best drugs, and a room full of interesting people.Through Robert, Paul entered the world of art; he met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton and, in the course of listening to their conversations, he learned a great deal about art appreciation.Paul: ‘The most formative influence for me was Robert Fraser. Obviously the other Beatles were very important but the most formative art influence was Robert. I expect people to die so I don’t feel a loss but there’s a vacuum where he used to be.’ [x]

Actually I remember one of the most touching conversations we had was about his mum and dad. I said, ‘My mum died when I was young but I think my dad’s great. He’s a real fine man and I’ve got a lot of respect for him and I’m not ashamed to admit it.’ Feeling slight peer pressure as I did admit it. And he said, ‘Well uh uh uhg. I feel the same way about my mother. I love my parents!’ and we had a little moment where we both admitted we loved our parents, which then was not the kind of thing you did. I don’t think I ever had it with the Beatles, it certainly was not a common thing. [x]

Paul saw a lot of Robert during 1966 and in the period leading up to the release of Sgt. Pepper in 1967.PAUL: The way Robert lived, which became the way I lived for a couple of years and which I now figure for a rather aristocratic way of life, would be that he’d ring early in the day and say, ‘What are we doing for dinner tonight?’ It all hinged round dinner. Once he’d had dinner fixed, then he could fill in the rest of the day. It all worked around the event. Robert generally liked to eat down Chelsea: King’s Road, Fulham Road area. The San Lorenzo, the Trattoria.As well as dinner or hanging out at Mount Street, Paul would often put in an appearance at the gallery. ‘Once I got to know Robert, a nice thing would be going to the gallery and helping install an exhibition. Just sit around and smoke a bit of pot while somebody else was installing the exhibition. Helping. Play a little music for him.’  [x]

In my garden at Cavendish Avenue, which was a 100-year-old house I’d bought, Robert was a frequent visitor.One day he got a hold of a Magritte he thought I’d love. Being Robert, he would just get it and bring it.  I was out in the garden with some friends. I think I was filming Mary Hopkin with a film crew, just getting her to sing live in the garden, with bees and flies buzzing around, high summer. We were in the long grass, very beautiful, very country-like. We were out in the garden and Robert didn’t want to interrupt so when we went back in the big door from the garden to the living room, there on the table he’d just propped up this little Magritte. It was of a green apple. That became the basis of the Apple logo. Across the painting Magritte had written in that beautiful handwriting of his ‘Au Revoir’. And Robert had split.I thought that was the coolest thing anyone’s ever done with me. When I saw it, I just thought: ‘Robert.’ Nobody else could have done that. [x]  

So, some time early in 1966, Paul and Robert flew to Paris. They checked into the Plaza Athenee on the Avenue Montaigne in the heart of haute-couture Paris, one of the most fashionable and snobbish hotels in France. Going on a trip with Robert caused a few comments from Paul’s friends. PAUL: “Because he was gay, it raised a few small-minded eyebrows and funnily enough, one or two of them were from within the Beatles: ‘Hey, man, he’s gay, what you going off to Paris with him for? They’re gonna talk, you know. Tongues are going to wag.’ I said, ‘I know tongues are going to wag, but tough shit.’” [x]

There were many good times in Robert’s flat. Through my Beatle connections I’d hire a 16mm projector for the evening […] and I started off with Wizard of Oz.Robert got into this, wow, and he’d get some art movies. We got a lot of Bruce Connors, showed a lot of that. It was a very exciting period. [x]

Robert’s flat was like a second gallery. He had a lot of Dubuffet around that he was trying to sell. I wasn’t too interested in him. He had a lot of stuff by Paolozzi, and I bought a big chrome sculpture which was called Solo, which was in the big Pop Art exhibition they had about two years ago at the Tate. I just said, ‘What is that, Robert?’ Fantastic. He said, ‘What is it? I don’t know. It’s a mantelpiece, a bit of a car, who knows?’I was very happy with that attitude, not too academic. There was no dour art talk. It was much more razzy, loose, lively discussion with him. [x]

They [Paul and Robert] happened to come to the studio one night and were just on a trip, you know, they were seeing things that weren’t there–seeing colours and seeing things that simply weren’t there. [x]

Robert could play the academic game quite easily, he was very knowledgeable, but I think he found it a bit boring. It wasn’t our scene, being academic. I’ve heard him hold his own with academics, but that wasn’t the buzz. The buzz was more of a mixture, a cross-over with musicians, etc.He turned me on to quite a few things, quite a few artists. We went down once on an impulse to see Takis, the great sculptor who did things with tank aerials with little lights on the end. That sort of thing was great.We’d just turn up at someone’s studio, smoke a bit of pot, sit around and just chat art. [x]

i have a lot more quotes in my tag, if you are interested and want to form your own picture of their relationship.

to me, if we see john as paul’s connection to music, robert was his connection to art. 

walking martha and discussing house chores somewhere in 67

an ode to Magical Mystery Tour! I love this album and its wonderful insane movie so so so much

(enlarge for good quality, rip tumblr compression)

Fav mclennon fics?

This is my favourite ask ever omg I have so much to say about this! There are so many fics out there that I adore. If I HAD to pick a few absolute favourites, these are the ones that come to mind that I always come back to:

The Birthday Party by @merseydreams: This is one of the first fics I really fell in love with when I started reading mclennon, it has everything and is imo the perfect post-beatles era (1980) fix-it. IT'S SO GOOD. If you like mclennon and haven't read this fic what are you even doing honestly, like, get it together, hello??

Ways to love you by @zilabee: I cannot express enough how phenomenal this fic is. I've read it so many times, it's so wonderfully written, it always makes my day to read it. The love between John and Paul is so palpable and beautiful. This fic is genuinely a masterpiece.

i can only speak my mind by @revollver: True story, I almost missed a plane flight last summer because I couldn't bring myself to turn off my phone and go to the airport until I finished reading this fic. It wasn't even my first time reading it, either, that's just how indescribably engaging and enjoyable of a read this is. The emotions feel so real and the pining is so intense and well-written that it makes me CRAZY.

Knowing that the sun is there by @orphanbeat: I don't even have words to describe my love for this fic, holy fuck. I don't think the words exist. It, like, gives me therapy reading it. Serotonin injected straight into my brain. It's so beautiful. Actually life-changing istg. Read it. Read it, if you haven't omg I just can't express enough how strongly I recommend you read this. Please.

Also! There are a ton more amazing mclennon fics and writers that I adore, pretty much every fic in my bookmarks on ao3 are some of my absolute favs that I love and would highly recommend.

!

My question is, when people have a least favourite beatle, let's say John, because we all know he's not favored in the Beatles fandom, how do you lot avoid them? When you watch interviews or music videos of the Beatles, do you just avoid him as best as you can? Like do you skip parts of the video that you'll know he'll appear in?

I'm just glad that I don't really have a least favourite Beatle, makes my Beatles experience more enjoyable, for me

John Lennon is my mother, my lesbian aunt, my sworn enemy, my personal punching bag, my gender identity, the ghost that haunts me, and the gayboy I keep in a cage and feed with dog food

This is 10000% canon I did not make it up.