#including ram & I listened to monkberry moon delight way too many times

[myokk]

some pen drawings♥️

[no-reply95]

What songs on paul's solo album do you think were written for john？

Hi anon, thanks for the ask :)

Given the fact that Paul’s had a 50+ year solo career I’m only going to focus on his albums from 1970 and 1971. If you’d like my thoughts on any specific later albums/periods, happy to give them too! Or, if you'd just like me to draw up a list of songs I think can be traced back to John, without additional explanation, I can probably cover more albums, within a limit of course.

McCartney (1970)

Hot as Sun/Glasses

Junk

I’ve already made a post here about how I think the run from Hot as Sun/Glasses to Junk (including that tiny snatch of Suicide) is kind of a microcosm of Paul’s experience in the Beatles and his relationship with John. I think the potential link back to John in Hot as Sun/Glasses is very subconscious, but that’s the vibe I picked up as I listened to it for the first time.

Junk, on the other hand, I do think more explicitly ties back to John. I don’t think John was in mind when Junk was initially conceived (Hunter Davies mentions in the Authorised Biography that Paul was currently working on it, so it dates back to at least 1967) but we know from the Esher Demos that Paul still hadn’t completed the lyrics by the White album so I think it’s highly possible that the feeling of abandonment and no longer being fit for purpose, that pervades the song, is likely to be in reference to John and their fractured relationship.

Ram (1971)

Too Many People

3 Legs

Dear Boy

Monkberry Moon Delight

Too Many People needs no further explanation so all I will say (again) is that I wish people would look at the song in its entirety, not just the parts that John and Yoko felt comfortable pointing out in public...

3 Legs is another pretty clear song about Paul’s grievances about the way he was treated at that time.

When I thought you was my friend

(When I thought that I could call you my friend)

But you let me down

Put my heart around the bend

It’s obvious that he felt betrayed by the other Beatles decision to go with Klein against his wishes. However, it’s interesting that Paul uses the phrase “let me down” almost as a call back to Don’t Let Me Down, so that could be an extra nod to John in particular, even more that George and Ringo, John's betrayal hurt most of all.

I actually believe Paul when he says that he consciously wrote Dear Boy about Linda’s ex-husband Melville See, in this vein, the song is a sister to Get Back. However, I do think some of the lyrics equally apply to John, and Paul, knowing the extent of John's paranoia, was probably cognisant of that.

I guess you never knew, dear boy

That she was just the cutest thing around

The Beatles all had one dimensional characterisations in the Press and Paul's was the "Cute Beatle", so it's possible he wanted to convey that John had blown it by choosing a partnership with Yoko over continuing the Lennon-McCartney partnership within the Beatles. In short, even if this song had zero to do with John, I think Paul knew John would seem himself all over it and that makes the song about him, reverse logic for the win!

Monkberry Moon Delight, I think of in a similar vein to 3 Legs, but I think it's much more veiled. Similarly, I don't think it's directed just at John but at the other Beatles and the situation Paul feels they've put him in.

So I sat in the attic, a piano up my nose

And the wind played a dreadful cantata

Sore was I from a crack of an enemy's hose

And the horrible sound of tomato

I find these lyrics to be so visceral. For me, this verse conjures up the image of Paul, Linda, Heather and Mary up in Scotland, but they're not just braced against the harsh weather they're also "sore" from the crack of "an enemy's hose" - it makes me think of Paul's initial retreat to Scotland, after the trauma of all the meetings at Apple against Klein and the other Beatles and the fall out of the 3-1 division. Again, like 3 Legs I do find a line that seems more pointed at John.

And I don't get the gist of your letter

This line always reminds me of the letter exchange John and Paul had in 1970(?) when Paul asked John to be let out of the Beatles' contract and John sent back a picture of him and Yoko in bed with speech bubbles saying "How?" and "Why?". I have no way of knowing if that's the letter exchange Paul is referring to here or if it's completely surreal (as so much of the song is) but that's what my mind always goes to. John appeared to like this song a couple of years later so maybe he didn't detect any obvious references to him in this song, who knows!

Wild Life (1971)

Some People Never Know

Dear Friend

John and Yoko were all over the Press in 1970 and 1971 and neither was shy about criticising Paul and Linda's relationship - Yoko and Klein were giving it two years, John, being the generous man that he was, was willing to up his bet to five years. In this climate, when the Press already hated Linda for not being Jane and having the gall to marry Paul, when she was a Jewish-American divorcee with a child from her previous marriage, it's not surprising that Paul was so defensive.

Some people can sleep at nightime,

Believing that love is a lie.

I'm only a person like you, love,

And who in the world can be right

All the right time.

I know I was wrong, make me right, right.

The recording of Wild Life predates the release of Imagine but follows its recording so it's possible that Paul got wind of How Do You Sleep? from someone (maybe Mal?) and built that into Some People Never Know. In any case, I do think this song is directed at everyone who was doubting the longevity and sincerity of Paul and Linda's relationship - John most of all.

Dear Friend, similarly to Too Many People, is a mainstream song, as far as people recognising that it's a song Paul wrote to John and that Paul has spoken extensively about publicly. Despite what writers like Philip Norman have speculated, Dear Friend isn't a response to How Do You Sleep?, as it was actually written in 1970 I believe.

Dear friend, what's the time?

Is this really the borderline?

Does it really mean so much to you?

Are you afraid, or is it true?

It seems that Paul is having a direct conversation with John here (who he's addressing as the "friend" gets harder to decipher later on in the song but I'm fairly confident it's John in verse 1) to try and understand if their relationship is truly over. When he says "Does it really mean so much to you?" It makes me think of the break-up announcement, Paul stumbled into the announcement that the band had broken up then John lamented publicly that Paul had beat him to the punch, all to sell an album, it seems like Paul is questioning if that was the reason John was so upset with him. Paul again seems to be questioning the exact nature of John's anger "Are you afraid, or is it true?" Is John's anger born out of fear? Fear that Lennon-McCartney are done? Fear that the Beatles are over? Fear that he now has to find his way in the music business without the support network he'd always had? Or is it true? Did John really always resent Paul for being bossy in the studio? Was John never really as close to him as Paul thought he was? I think a lot of these questions were floating around Paul's head in 1970/71 and even to this day, I do still think he questions how and why things fell apart as dramatically as they did between him and John, so I think, most of all, that confusion is really conveyed in this song.