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thewalrusespublicist · 2 days ago

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"Tbh I was starting to feel a bit down about my blog and what I was putting out ( the eternal crisis on how to give full answers and opinions without being stupid, boring and annoying lol)"

OMG no way! Your blog is one of the best here! What i love the most is reading the analysis and meta from the users, there's always more information and good takes, and yours are always quite deep and insightful.

I would love if you share your opinions about Stuart as well. I feel like he is obviously more sanctified that he should be since he died young (like that insane quote from his mom saying that Brian told her that Stuart could have been the Beatles' manager, no way lol) and i feel his memory has been used to attack Paul, sometimes in a very unfair way. Like, i don't deny the teenage drama and jealousy that Paul felt about him but he *was* a shitty bass player and the band was Paul's future, he was allowed to criticized him not only for being John's new bestie. I also think John played with them both but i lack of your eloquence so i will love to read your take about it.

Hi anon! And the other anons!

Thank you again and to all the other messages I got, they were extremely sweet and really made my day. :)

From my inbox, it's clear you guys want to know about Stu and his role in the Beatles legacy. Well you asked for it and a novel you shall have. Be warned this might be the longest post I've done so grab like a drink or something.

A few disclaimers: I wish and had intended for this to be more of a deep dive into Stu as a whole person rather than just his relationship with John and Paul. Unfortunately I just didn't have the space to do it. If you want to know more about Stu I would highly recommend @eppysboys' blog which is the source for all things Stu Sutcliffe and where I got a lot of this info. Please check their stuff out. Also, I'm going to be a bit blunter on this than maybe I usually am because this topic has been irritating me for some time. Oh also I’m trying my best to answer a lot of asks in one post so please forgive if I don’t fully answer your specific ask about this!

Stu in a perfect world should be a fandom darling: an exciting cipher, a handsome artistic talent that died way too soon who had a major influence in the early Beatles style. It's like there’s this secret other James Dean looking mf Beatle hidden away to uncover, that's cool and he is cool! The problem is that he’s sort of becomes radioactive to talk about in a normal way due to how he's been portrayed and utilised in some biographies and fandom spaces, particularly those that have been infected by John Lennon aspirational boy bestie syndrome. As those types of spaces cannot seem to exist without tearing down Paul to prop John up as their special lil guy, Stu as John's other best friend has become the ideal heavy object to hit Paul McCartney over the head with. It's like a corrosive element, the minute Stu hits a Beatles bio, the biographer suddenly loses all training in objectivity and source work and starts waxing lyrical about 100 percent reliable never biased or wrong Saint Stu of Hamburg who died for our condom arson sins and that Paul McCartney should feel bad about every day of his life for not worshipping Stu and not accepting his own ‘place’ in life as John's just-some-guy placeholder best friend. I’ve personally seen so many posts and forums where Stu being mentioned leads to a legion of comments about how Paul could never have been Stu (correct both ways) and how John would never have even glanced at Paul for much longer if Stu had been alive. Sidenote: If you seriously think that the musical savant from down the road whom John went on to produce the most prolific song writing partnership in history with couldnt have kept his attention for long then I'm begging you on hands and knees to get your head out of the arse of your John Lennon body pillow and be serious. But anyway…

This boy bestie battle royale approach has in turn lead to a reflex reaction where Stu gets studiously ignored by other sections of the fandom as a precedent has been set that shining a light on him diminishes Paul and John's relationship with Paul. It's frustrating because if people weren't so keen to cut Paul out of his own story then we would get a much better nuanced view of every single person involved.

So let's put aside all of our defenses, cut the John Lennon loved one ranking system bullshit and lets look at the actual question here which is what was John and Stu's relationship really like and what did he mean to John?

John and Stu met at art college a year or so after Paul and John met. Up to that point John and Paul had their fun little codependant thing going on but Stu quickly became a huge fixture in John's life. Stu had things that Paul couldn't really offer at that point in time. John was at his heart a musician who aspired to be seen as an artist (he would later express surprise that he didn't become an artist). Stu was the passionate artist who knew tons about the art of the period that could teach and inspire John. Their creative leanings meant they could work on projects together and share art notebooks and poetry. (Including yes the one with anti-semitic story which I mention again as I believe it's an important thing to remember when it comes to both John and Stu and the culture of the time.) Stuart by the sounds of it was even writing a novel about John at the time of his death. They were fascinated and inspired by each other.

So, creatively they fired each other up but more importantly perhaps, Stu and John were peers. It's funny to think about when you see the Beatles later but at the time Paul and George were the kids in their school uniform coming to see their cool older friend at art school. That's an important divide. When Paul and George's parents insisted their kids do their homework and go to bed, John and Stu could stay up and talk all hours of the night, which they did. They also could rent a place together and spend long hours chatting (despite John moving out later after realising electricity cost money lol.) There's a different dynamic that the age similarity offered as well. Whilst Paul would later somewhat grow into this role, Stu could act as an authority figure to John as well as open up to John in a way you can really only do with your peers. Stu was the person John opened up to throughout Stu's life:

How long can one go on writing and writing like you. I now don’t really know who I’m writing to or why it’s quiet peculiar. I usually write like this and forget about it but if I put it in a little part of my [almost?] secret self in the hands of someone miles away who will wonder what the hell is going on or just pass it off as toilet paper. Anyway I don’t care really what happens because when I think about it, it’s so bloody unimportant – but what is important who has the right to say that this letter is not important and this is a something any way – anyway – anyway – yeah! I wonder what it would be like to be a cretin or something. I bet it’s gear. & how are you keepin Stuart old chap are you as ok – is life as good – bad shite, great – wonderful as it was or is it just a thousand years of nothing and coolness on and on and on. I think this is it Goodbye Stu don’t write out of – er what is it? well not because you think you ought to write when you feel like So goodbye (from John you know the one with glasses) ANYWAY BYE BYE see you soon I don’t know why I said that I remember a time when everyone I loved hated me because I hated them so what so what so fucking what I remember a time when belly buttons were knee high when only shitting was dirty and everything else clean + beautiful I can’t remember anything without a sadness So deep that it hardly becomes known to me so deep that its tears leave me a spectator of my own STUPIDITY + so I go rambling on with a hey nonny nonny nonny no

Extract from a letter to Stuart Sutcliffe from John Lennon, 1961

By lots of accounts Stu was gentle but firm when it came to telling John he'd gone too far. John references this aspect of Stu to Hunter Davies:

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I'd believe him."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

In this way I kind of see Stu as a proto-Yoko. John was so insecure and uncertain about his grip on the world and reality that he relied on Stu to be his point of reference and guide. Paul did this too later and I think in Hunter Davies John mentions this, but not at this time period and not as much due to their competitiveness. This may be why some people saw Stu as the person that really understood John at this time period:

"During the turbulent adolescence that prefaced a turbulent manhood, hardly anyone knew Lennon as intimately as Stuart Sutcliffe. If they weren't exactly David and Jonathan, June Furlong, one of the life models at Liverpool's Regional College of Art, had "never seen two teenagers as close as those two."

The Gospel According To Lennon by Alan Clayson

Now this person likely never met John and Paul together but this is only one of many similar quotes and even Julia captain of John and Paul's friendship boat seems to agree there was a period where Stu dominated and Paul 'kept his distance' from the John-Cyn-Stu 'menage-a-trois'. But the friendship wasn't perfect and his position as John's ultimate best friend was never iron clad. This is best outlined by the shit they pulled when John convinced him to join on Bass for the Beatles.

Despite being John's best friend, Stu was teased and bullied:

"They argued as usual amongst themselves, but most of all they picked on Stu, the newest member of the group. John, George and Paul had been with each other long enough to know that rows and arguments and criticism didn't mean much. If it did, you just argued back. "We were terrible," says John. "We'd tell Stu he couldn't sit with us, or eat with us. We'd tell him to go away, and he did." At one hotel they stayed at, a variety show had just left. There had been a dwarf in the show and they found out which bed he had slept in and said that would have to be Stu's. They certainly weren't going to sleep in it. So Stu had to. "That was how he learned to be with us," says John. "It was all stupid, but that was what we were like."

The Beatles: The Authorised Biography (Hunter Davies)

Why John encouraged this I have no idea, maybe jealousy over Stu's looks and wanting to play people off each other? Things were tense in both Scotland and Hamburg, especially between Stu and Paul. As I said in my last post, the girls were fighting and it was mutual. Paul was mad for both fair and immature teenage-boy reasons. Stu could not be bothered with the bass most of the time and couldn't really play well and was only there as he was '(John's) best friend' (ouch for Paul). Paul conversely had given up higher education to be there and was sending lots of money back home. He also was dating the girl Paul fancied. Stu was popular with the new group and also did mean things like help John steal Paul's money when money was really tight for him. Paul in turn was a passive aggressive, jealous and mean. It all came to ahead in the punch up onstage which according to Spitz came about from Paul wanting money back and saying that Stu could borrow some from Astrid. Stu goes for him and reports vary from full-on bust up to embarrassing scuffle. Stu then goes to where Astrid and Paul's gf Dot are, demands Dot leaves and goes on a rant about Paul. Now all of this must be framed in the context of Stu receiving increasing brain damage from his condition that seemingly lead to mood swings and anger. Nevertheless, the mutual needling and anger, as well as John's refusal to do/say fuck all about it, especially given how protective John was of Stu, suggests that it wasn’t straightforward and/or John may have been playing some games to make both feel threatened. This would also make sense as to why we hear conflicting accounts of John and Stu being the centre of everything and everyone else in orbit AND John and Paul being the centre and everyone else playing catch-up, as well as John giving Paul the lead to take him round the Reeperbahn when John got dressed in the gorilla costume. (I know Paul may have just been the closest there but that always gave off bestie behaviour to me.)

(I did get an ask about how John and Paul's friendship survived it, I think it was damaged by Hamburg. When Paul got back home he got a job at a construction site and there's just a vibe of everything being a bit on tenterhooks. John also acts a bit weird at the period, not talking to anyone for a few weeks then making a lot of weird demands from Paul. I'm really not sure what to make of it.)

Even when he's back in Liverpool, John still writes long letters to Stu and vice-versa. I can't find it at all but I’ve read a really sad interview with John saying he missed his best mate and it's a shame that he's not with them. He had no idea at that point that Stu had already died of a brain hemorrhage at 21.

John is said to have gone into hysterics when he found out Stu had died. A lot of people who've spoken about this time (Aunt Mimi, his sister Julia, the Exsis) concur that at this point Stu was his best friend and the death shattered him. He even told Astrid he wished he could give his life for Stu’s. This is backed up by the fact that John never forgot Stu and his shadow lingered for the rest of John's life:

Stu was recalled in In My Life

Years later, after John composed the first of his truly poignant and heartfelt Beatles songs, "In My Life"—with its lines about "friends I still can recall/some are dead and some are living"—he revealed to me that the two people he had had uppermost in mind were myself and Stuart Sutcliffe. And then he stunned me with a statement that I'd never heard him address to anyone—least of all to another man. "You know, Pete," he said softly, "I do love you. But," he quickly added, "I loved Stuart as well."

Weird that Paul isn't mentioned surely you think that he would be mentioned if Pete was there too okay, okay my tin hat is going away this isn't the time

Pete Shotton, Nicholas Schaffner, John Lennon: In My Life

In 1965 John drew Stu on a postcard

He apparently said this about Stu prior to sending the postcard, prompted by an article about Stuart.

The card had been sent from Genoa mid-way through the Beatles' Italian tour. [...] But the conversation had become maudlin when I reminded him that he was going to talk to me for an article about Stuart. [...] In that sad telephone conversation before they set off for Milan, I asked him if he was happy: 'I'd be a lot happier if Stuart was still part of us,' he said, 'The Beatles would be complete.' And before he rang off he said 'Ill send you something.'

He also appears on the cover of Sgt Pepper

As mentioned, Stu gets mentioned in Hunter Davies in terms of wistfulness and guilt AND he gets a mention in John's insane 'if I were a homosexual' ramblings in early 70s. According to Yoko, John also wanted Yoko to write letters to him and didn't think it would be strange because Stu wrote letters to him.

I have a pet theory that as with a lot of things for John, his unresolved grief over Stu really came to the fore in the late 60s now that he had actually had a chance to sit down and think about things. I believe it was partially why he wanted Yoko to write letters and why he gets mentioned in the early 70s as a collaborator/best friend and not in 1980 where John only gives that credit to Paul and Yoko. I think with the cracks with Paul, John had started to think back on his old friend and guide and what advice he would give.

Stuarts presence is still felt throughout the seventies:

“He told me everything. He loved to talk about Hamburg. There were no secrets. It was the kind of life I never knew…. It meant total freedom. At his side always was Stuart, sweet Stuart. There wasn’t a time in John’s life when he didn’t think about Stuart. He spoke always of his love and respect for Stuart.”

Yoko discussing Stu in When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles’ Rise to the Top by Larry Kane

Coming to grips with his death is also present in Skywriting

SEAN O’HAIRE: What happened to Stuart Cliff? DR. FISCHY: What happened was a full exchange of energy where it was not needed within the expression of your own self or in the energies involved around and about you. We cannot call it a happening. We’ll say it is an awakening, for in that way it has served an expression from the past to the present and to the future to where there shall be more of that incomplete vibration expressed to you in a more fuller understanding.

Skywriting by Word of Mouth, John Lennon

This isn't exhaustive but I think from all this it's pretty clear that John adored Stu, John grieved Stu and kept grieving Stu. Stu had a specific place in his life as a confidant that he tried to recreate with Yoko. At the time of Stu's death, he was John's best friend, probably slightly over Paul. Stuart had been able to be both a friend and paternal presence, a confidant and an artistic collaborator. His presence and loss was one of the foundational points in John's life.

But as we've been asked to play this stupid game and so many bios like to make a hoopla about it, were they at their closest ever as close as John and Paul were at their height?

No.

How do we know? Because John told us so:

" He [Paul] still is the closest friend I've ever had, except for Yoko, so I'm still close to him whatever goes on."

John Lennon to an interviewer, 1971

But Walrus! John just says shit! How do we know he isn't leaving out Stu because the press don't know Stu. Well true John does just say shit but this is at a time where John isn't the most glowing about Paul and he's had no problem mentioning Stu in this time period ('one of my best friends ever' would have made a similar point).

But Walrus again! If John picked Stu over Paul when they were young why wouldn't he be the boy bestie of all time, and why would John say that he was closer to Paul? Well, because of the environment and timings. Stu's death happened near the beginning of John and Paul's major bonding moments. If you look at their personal timeline, Paris, the Nerk twins, and getting signed happened just before Stu died. That's missing the major years of Beatlemania, Key West, LSD, Paul growing more into being John's peer and a load of other huge moments in their lives. It's like how John writes to Cyn in 1962 about wanting the house to themselves and not have Paul around all the time. Would you say because he feels closer to Cyn then that John in his overall lifetime loved Cyn more than Paul? No, because relationships change over time and theirs were no exception. (One thing to consider as well is that we don't yet have many letters between John and Paul during their Beatles years and earlier, probably because they were spending so much time with each other. We know a couple exist that Paul considers too personal for publication but I'm sure there are others. It's easy to understand what John felt for Stu as we have the letters, I think we would also have an easier time understanding what John felt for Paul if we had the equivalent of those.)

At the end of the day Paul was the man he believed he had a psychic bond with, the man he couldn’t shut up about, the man whom he’d conquered the world with with their endless collaboration, the man with a twin personality to him and according to John spent more time with throughout the 60s than he had with Yoko ever. To be frank if Paul had died in 67' I don't think this would have been a conversation.

As mentioned early, in early 1970s John elevates his partnership with Stu to his collaborations with Paul and Yoko but by 1980 he’s pretty clear that Paul and Yoko are their own category.

"I was saying to somebody the other day, “There’s only two artists I’ve ever worked with for more than a one night stand, as it were. That’s Paul McCartney, and Yoko Ono.” And I think that’s a pretty damned good choice!!"

John Lennon interview with DJ Dave Sholin, 1980

There are of course the what ifs. Would Stu still being alive mean that John was not as close with Paul? Maybe, highly doubtful though as the Beatles experience was so intense. If Stu remained a Beatle would John be as close with Paul? If Stu remained a Beatle he wouldn't be Stu so no. At the same time who knows what it would have been like if Paul and John were peers from the off? I said this to @the62ndbugsfan when it comes to Stu vs Paul (hi girl sorry i've made our chat a whole ass post lol) but to go a bit Wuthering Heights, soulmates are made as much from the earth as they are of the stars. What binds us is our experiences just as much as our personalities. There may be a universe where Stu and John took on the art world together or became inseparable bffs again after the Beatles disbanded, but it is not our universe. In this universe Stu tragically died and John and Paul chose to become Lennon/McCartney and artistically unite themselves forever.

Even going back to Stu's lifetime, I've said it before and I'll say it again I find it interesting that not only did John choose to go to Paris with Paul rather than pay to meet up with Stu somewhere but that they arranged to meet up with Juergen and nobody told Stu until they'd already gone. Stu was shocked and didn't know if it meant the end of the Beatles which is a pretty big thing for him not to know about. Why didn't John tell him if they're apparently still writing long letters? Was it because he really wanted to do this with Paul and didn't want to hurt Stu's feelings? And that's really the point I want to make here. Due to his trauma John was preoccupied with reinforcing ranking of relationships within his life. But the thing is friendship rankings are made up guidelines and the reality is far more complicated. You can have a designated best friend but feel closer to another friend at times, you can want to do one thing specifically with one friend and not the other for various reasons. You can (as I do) have more than one equal best friend. Friendship as with most relationships are in a constant state of flux and each friendship you have will give and mean a different thing, even if they are of similar value to you.

Paul may have ended up closer to John than Stu had been, but that doesen't make John's relationship with Stu any less special. Nor does Stu negate the significance of Paul. Whilst both fit into John's pattern of intense relationships and demands related to that, both had unique positions and meaning to him. Considering what I've gone into about John's closeness to Stu, it actually says something deeply, borderline unnervingly, intense about John and Paul that Paul pipped Stu to the post. Maybe it's time Beatles bios accept the fact that John Lennon just wouldn't be into them like that, stop using a tragically prematurely deceased young man as a prop in their jealous psychological warfare against Paul McCartney, stop perpetuating one of the most damaging games that John did to his loved ones and allow both relationships the space to shine and showcase the amazing talent that was the Beatles and those that surrounded them.

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