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[ljblueteak]

Paul McCartney, Bertrand Russell, Vietnam and “Re-Writing History”

Okay, so I knew how quickly Beatle news could be sensationalized and clickbaited so that whatever was actually said could be distorted, but oh wow did I not realize that Paul discussing his meeting Bertrand Russell and talking about Vietnam had led to outlets scoffing at the idea that Paul had ever expressed a political thought in his life or could have, along with the rest of the Beatles, been interested in making political statements (and the way it’s discussed, like it would be beyond ridiculous to suggest he could *possibly* have been more aware of a particular issue before the others, is maddening. Yes, I see. Paul potentially drawing attention to a particular issue they all cared about erases everything any other Beatle may have said or done about the issue. If one of them’s more known for it, it’s obviously outrageous that any of the others had any thoughts about it on any level).  

Outlets like The Guardian and NME and so on in 2008 ran with quotes suggesting Paul said “I politicized the Beatles,” but those words don’t appear in the interview with Jonathan Power that created this “controversy” (what’s even more ridiculous is that what Paul told Power is basically the same thing he said in Many Years From Now in 1997). The Guardian is especially mocking: “Bono, meanwhile, was honoured in Paris this weekend, at the Peace Summit. ‘I am an over-awarded, over-rewarded rock star,’ Bono said after receiving the Man of Peace prize. ‘You are the people who do the real work.’Somewhere in England, Paul McCartney is squeaking: ‘Me too!’”

Here’s what Paul actually said:

POWER: In the 2007 film Across the Universe the director weaves a love story around Beatles music and, like quite a few other people, she seems to be saying that you somehow encapsulated this mood of the 1960s—you formed in 1960 after all—and you transmitted it like nobody else had been able to transmit it. Do you think that is true?

McCARTNEY: Maybe. But the nice thing about it was that we didn’t do it consciously. We sort of stumbled into things. For instance, Vietnam. Just when we were getting to be well-known someone said to me, “Bertrand Russell is living not far from here in Chelsea why don’t you go and see him?” and so I just took a taxi down there and knocked on the door. There was an American guy who was helping him and he came to the door and I said, “I’d like to meet Mr Russell, if possible.” I waited a little and then met the great man and he was fabulous. He told me about the Vietnam war—most of us didn’t know about it, it wasn’t yet in the papers—and also that it was a very bad war. I remember going back to the studio either that evening or the next day and telling the guys, particularly John [Lennon], about this meeting and saying what a bad war this was. We started to investigate and American pals who were visiting London would be talking about being drafted. Then we went to America, and I remember our publicist—he was a fat, cigar-chomping guy, saying, “Whatever you do, don’t talk about Vietnam.” Of course, that was the wrong thing to say to us. You don’t tell rebellious young men not to say something. So of course we talked about it the whole time and said it was a very bad war. Obviously, we backed the peace movement.

After this story blew up, Power wrote “It seems that the press has a mindset about the McCartney-John Lennon relationship that demands anything that Paul says be squeezed into a mould—even if the words don’t really fit at all” and went on to say “One report, and the world is given misleading information by editors too uncaring or unmotivated or just plain lazy to make a call to Prospect to ask for the original wording. Not one journalist called me.The fact is that the interview carries not a word of rivalry with John Lennon. Nor does it say anything about which Beatle discovered the Vietnam war first.”

The NME has a Times quote from Tariq Ali, who John seems to have first met in ‘71, saying that  “It was John Lennon who was concerned about the war. He never mentioned McCartney, and I never thought of asking him to join us.”

But an article by Tom Garner on historyanswers.co.uk seems to be the only one that bothered to explain why the John of ‘71 may not have talked about Paul’s views on Vietnam: “At the peak of Lennon’s 1970s peace protests, the Beatles had acrimoniously broken up and Lennon was often actively critical of McCartney so it is unlikely he would have given him credit as a political influence.” (There’s a line in that article about Paul crediting Russell that’s confusing because it’s not in Prospect but comes from a Radio Times interview)

Here’s the bit from MYFN because this post just isn’t long enough: 

“Bertrand Russell was then ninety-two years old but was still very active in the peace movement....

Paul: I sat around waiting, then went in and had a great little talk with him. Nothing earth-shattering. He just clued me in to the fact that Vietnam was a very bad war, it was an imperialist war and American vested interests were really all it was about. It was a bad war and we should be against it. That was all I needed. It was pretty good from the mouth of the great philosopher. ‘Slip it to me Bert.’ 

I reported back to John, ‘I met this Bertrand Russell guy, John,’ and I did all the big rap about the Vietnam and stuff and John really came in on it all. And then he did How I Won the War.” (125-126)

In Fab, Howard Sounes suggests that this meeting with Russell happened in 1966 and indirectly (possibly) explains why Paul may have brought up How I Won the War in MYFN by making the connection between Paul’s meeting with Russell and anti-war movies:

Paul and Jane were granted a meeting with the philosopher Bertrand Russell to gain the Nobel Laureate’s views on Vietnam and the Cold War, which Paul and Jane were both concerned about, half expecting Armageddon to come by way of nuclear strike from the East. ‘I think that made us more determined to enjoy ourselves and live for the moment,’ Jane has said. When Paul told the philosopher that the Beatles had a mind to make their next picture an anti-war film, Russell suggested Paul speak to his friend, the author Len Deighton, who was developing the First World War Musical Oh What a Lovely War as a picture.

Deighton invited Paul to dinner to discuss the movie....Paul expressed an interest in the Beatles starring in Oh What a Lovely War, the project falling down when it came to how they would use music in the picture, as Deighton recalls:

I couldn’t use Beatle music as the whole point of Oh What a Lovely War was that all the dialogue, words, and music were taken from those actually sung or spoken at the time of the war 1914-18. Paul explained that they wanted to be in a film with a more direct reference to modern war. Kindle location 2764/15190

It’s just amazing that parts of the press turned this into “Paul can’t possibly have been into politics because he didn’t do a bed-in and I’ve never paid attention to anything politics-related he’s said except to maybe sneer at it so he’s got to be lying, and while he’s at it, he’s obviously trying to take John’s mantle because there’s no way he could ever have possibly met with an anti-war person before John or have had any influence on him ever. I mean c’mon. He was known as The Cute One and wrote Frog Chorus and that’s all you need to know. Brb--have to photoshop Paul into all the bed-in photos because he’s obvi claiming he did more!”