#thinking about paul in get back

[georgeharrisonswizardhat]

HELLO?? PAUL WOAH.

[certainlyathrill]

they were boys together !!!

[stepbackattack]

Get back to where you once belonged

[purecommemasolitude]

Thinking about how if we accept Paul’s narrative of the night as truth (barring the holding hands of course) Bob fully thought Cherry was putting the moves on a 14-year-old

Are you sure he wasn’t a jealous man buddy 🤨

[m1ssunderstanding]

Understanding Lennon McCartney Rewatch Part 1.1

So disclaimer: I took screenshots instead of photographing my screen this time, but the quality of footage is a thousand times worse so the images are still mostly shit. But anyway, here we go :)

We're going to have to keep a tally on how many times they refer to their relationship in romantic terms. Less than a minute in, Paul has used the description, “great love affair.”

And John's right on his heels with “the sexual equivalent of . . . People in love.” So there's 2 already. Oh boy.

That opening montage of John and Paul just living for the light in each other's eyes should actually be the official music video for “I wanna hold your hand.”

Also I wonder how many songs they have about hiding. Someone's got to have a list somewhere right?

I adore the absolute lack of reaction to John manhandling Paul.

And then This Look. He's in love with him, ladies and gentlemen.

I remember seeing somewhere that this footage was literally right after they'd finished “she loves you.” Which was pretty recently after Bob Wooler, which was right after Barcelona. And if you're like me and you think that song is secretly about their relationship? If Paul's just been singing “she said you hurt her so, she almost lost her mind, but now she says she knows you're not the hurting kind. She said she loves you” at you, after all of that? Of course John's acting like a fucking puppy dog.

Poor George tally number 1

Excuse me??? John wants to live in the Beatle apartment instead of with his actual literal wife until Paul decides to move in with his girlfriend? What? He's so insane. Cynthia, you're lucky Paul's a fucking social climber.

I think it's indicative of two things that Paul said “screw secret girlfriends” while John happily went along with secret wives. One: different levels of security in masculinity (John doesn't have gay eyebrows etc) and two: different relationships. Jane and Paul's relationship was a smart career move for both of them and I think, being upper-class, and having her own career, and not being a mother, Jane was in more of a position to have a say.

Every time I watch that footage of Ken Dodd asking about their parents I physically cringe. Poor poor babies. Do your research you idiot! I don't think that ever happened again. I wonder if Brian made sure of that.

Paul literally talks like such a husband here. “We've thought about it, and probably the thing that John and I will do . . .”

Obsessed with Paul shouldering himself between George and John after George's little joke shove. It's so protective and yet so subtle. Exactly the same strong posture and easy smile as when he stepped between John and that interviewer during the Jesus scandal.

Poor George tally number 2 (you can't quite tell from the pic but John is shoving him out of the way because how dare he put his suitcase by Paul's?! That's John's suitcase's spot!!)

All the Beatles were cuddly with each other. It's one of the cutest bits about them, the puppies in a basket aspect. But I think we'll need a “noticable spacing difference” tally for this rewatch, too, and here's the first.

Paul wearing John's hat for attention and it fully and completely doing the job? They're so embarrassing!

I actually love that John's imitation of his upper-class Scottish family (which Paul can't do) is actually much more convincing than his broad Liverpudlian (which Paul nails in two variations, one based off his own family) I'm obsessed with the class dynamics between them.

Poor George tally three. He shares this one with Ringo. That moment when Paul's pretending to interview them about their purple hearts and cuts them both off with, “thank you. Mi-mister Lennon,” and John and Paul proceed to completely forget the other two exist for who knows how long – certainly longer than the videographer was willing to record.

I find John sliding into Paul's raspy “tiiight yeeeah” with his very turned on “mmmMM it's been a hard” extremely suggestive. I'm sorry but I do.

It's like he thinks if he looks away for too long he's going to disappear or something. Which. Now that I said that. Yeah. That is what it is. Poor separation-issues baby.

Ringo: Paul, you wrote a beautiful song and you sing it great. John: yeah and you're SEXY! Let's not forget that, everyone.

Am I crazy to obsess over every little musical similarity in their songs? Yes. Can I help it? No. The little “oh-oh ohoho” in the If I Fell demo is exactly the same as in Imagine and (frothing and writhing) it means something I can feel it! I just have no idea what.

I also find the lyric change from “i hope that she won't cry” to “i hope that she will cry” extremely interesting. There's always a heterosexual explanation. Trust me, the straights are the Simone Biles of mental gymnastics. But while the published lyric can be read as a man bitter toward his ex girlfriend hoping to hurt her by flaunting his new relationship, the demo version is trickier. Could it be that he doesn't want to hurt his wife's feelings by letting her know he's in love with someone else? But who else could John Lennon possibly have been in love with at the time?

“Too too much in love. Woah, too too much in love with you.” My heart

[robinson-graves]

[sits up suddenly from my coffin] anybody fuck with my super danganronpa 2 x guy who didnt like musicals au

[nonbinary-arsonists]

oohh i love ur post-end tord... that guy is not doing well at all!! what r ur thoughts on how hes doing post-end if i may ask? and what r ur thoughts on how the guys r doing post-end if i may ask :3

short answer: not good.

tord just gets angrier and angrier. he lost his arm, his eye, his friends, and even the robot he went back to retrieve in the first place. i think he either A) drowns himself in work creating weapons of mass destruction, or B) becomes so god damn guilty he spends his time working on a time travel device to go back and "fix" everything. nobody knows what exactly he means by that.

the other three don't do well either.

tom may have not liked tord all that much, but knowing how much edd liked him, tom feels conflicted about killing tord (to his knowledge). he doesn't really show it, aside from drinking even more than usual.

edd lost his oldest friend, and always thinks back on how it all went down and what he could've done to change it (much like tord. muahaha the parallels). the most affected by tord's apparent death.

matt lost pretty much all of his stuff... which was a lot. he's a lot more distrusting of people after the end, and regularly mourns his awesome "junk" collection.

..... to be honest, i'm not a huge fan of where the end leaves the characters. part 2 manages to end on a bittersweet note, but it still doesnt really sit right with me. i guess my art takes place in a time where tord comes back for other reasons, and ends up moving back in for real.

[pinazee]

Paul protec

Emma protec

Emma and paul protec

Paul no protec 😔

[silverfoxstole]

For anyone who might have wanted to see the 2002 Big Finish Talks Back interview with Paul (and India, though sadly the separate little interview with them both is missing), I came across it while looking for other links yesterday:

Interview

Extras

[thewalrusespublicist]

hi! really enjoying reading your blog. i've listened to the beatles all my life but only now have i started looking into the more fandom side of things, and reading your interpretations/insights into a huge variety of beatles topics has been super interesting and informative!

as for my question, i've only recently learned how much paul is still like, actively grieving john. (obviously i knew he mourned his death, but john's now been dead longer than he was alive and paul seems just as grief-stricken as he was decades ago.) and something i've been wondering is if he's ever performed his songs that were obviously/highly suspected of being critical of john live since his death? based on much of what i've seen, i imagine he'd have a hard time even looking the fact that he was ever publicly reproachful of john in its face, so to speak. (when considering how wistful and rose-tinted he seems re: john, etc., if that makes sense?)

Hi anon!,

Thank you so much!

I would honestly have to look back at his set lists but to my knowledge, no. I really don't think he'd want to and, to be fair, I don't think there are many songs about John that are that critical and the small pool that are, aren't really suitable for live performances compared to others. Edit: I was wrong, Paul did perform Too Many People in 2005 as part of the setlist and briefly in 2008.

On the slight contrary though, as per the mention of 'mixed feelings' about John in the Lyrics book and other things, I think Paul's grief is intensely complex and that the public only get to see some of it. I don't think he is that upset or regretful about being critical, if you listen to the Salewicz tape closer to the time of John's death Paul says that he could have said an awful lot worse about John and Yoko but he hasn't because he loved John. In the context of the absolute tidal wave of garbage John threw at him, Paul arguably had the sense to not do or say anything really unforgivable so I think his conscious is pretty clear aside from not making up properly. I am not saying that Paul doesn't mean the nice things he says about John publicly (and if any of the anecdotes and stories about him in private are true, these stories are potentially more frequent and intense than you'd expect), but judging from various places and comments he seems to also hold some very difficult feelings about the last ten years of John's life too.

On the grief being so raw, sorry to go on a bit of a tangent but I've been listening to a podcast on grief recently with Anderson Cooper, and it's made me realise that Paul's presentation of grief is a realistic reflection of how intense grief for a loved one actually is compared to how it gets portrayed in the media and how Western culture likes to see it (ie you get like three years and it's done, moving on). A lot of people on that show talk in similar ways to how Paul talks about John (I see signs of them, they talk to me, they're a part of me, the grief can hit me randomly no matter how long its been, I keep things of theirs etc.) With Paul, the level of grief is I suspect how a lot of people actually feel when they lose someone who was extremely dear to them, but his is more on a public stage and so more visible than the standard person's. I do think his grief for John is complicated however by so much: the horror and senselessness of what happened, their unresolved issues, Paul's tendency to bury things deep, deep down, the intensity of his love for people and inability to process the death as 'it's too much' as well as the intense public attention. It's no wonder that the grief still feels so raw and unprocessed.

Paul is also an excellent example of how one's relationship with the deceased continues and evolves over time. Paul hasn't stayed in one place over John's death, his grief has evolved and transformed and I suspect intensified again in the wake of Get Back. I'm glad that by the sounds of it he is coming to a much happier place about it, even if it's potentially more rose-tinted than the reality. But hey, he's in his eighties, if he's going to have this weight of grief forever and if it gives him comfort he may as well focus on all the happy and sunny moments. More than power to him.

[sword-swallower-pin]

we're in such a strange era where men will just casually wax poetic for several paragraphs in mainstream media outlets about how john and paul were in love with each other but no one dares to explore the real questions (were they having gay sex? when were they having gay sex? what kind of gay sex were they having?) mate you're a journalist, do your job

[zirconpetals]

I’ve never been... happy Wouldn’t that be nice? Is this the secret? Singing and dancing through life? Is my integrity worth anything at all?But happiness can’t come before its fall

[rpgmaking]

some more time skip pauling

[moeblob]

Right and his work menaces (Brent and Karen).

I don't remember last I mentioned it but apart from crude nicknames to people (except Chris), he also just puts them in his phone really weird (except Chris, who is literally in his phone as Chris). And I bring this up because in Right's phone, Karen is saved as "Lawful Obligation".

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

It is truly fascinating how the common tumblr narrative around John and Paul somehow makes the guy who literally got violent multiple times over people insinuating he was queer appear more "on board with the whole gay thing" than the guy who said some awkward/dated stuff in interviews a couple of times.

[ratatatastic]

the epic highs and lows of pantrs hockey and what it does to a man in the span of two days