#when beatle authors finally get linda’s importance they’ll finally start to tell the story in a way that rings true

[no-reply95]

It’s nice to think that John was aware of Jim hitting Paul, especially because that would suggest a level of trust in John and Paul’s early relationship if Paul was comfortable enough to offload his family troubles on an outsider like John.

I must admit however that I never interpreted John’s comments in that way, so let’s have a look at what John did say in the 1971 St Regis interview:

“Paul always wanted the home life, you see. He liked it with daddy and the brother . . . and obviously missed his mother. And his dad was the whole thing. Just simple things: he wouldn't go against his dad and wear drainpipe trousers. And his dad was always trying to get me out of the group behind me back”

Just to provide context to the above statement from John, the above quote is in response to a question about whether there had always been big differences between John and Paul, so the fact that John’s first thought is to bring up the importance of family is really interesting, especially in the context of the break up of the band and the break down of his relationship with Paul.

John appears to be lamenting the fact that Paul’s father, Jim, had such an influence on him, he was “the whole thing”. Paul wouldn’t go against his father, even though Jim wanted John out of the group. So how did John feel about Paul’s devotion to someone who was determined to see him out of the band and out of his son’s life? Let’s return to the the interview:

“So Paul was always like that. And I was always saying, "Face up to your dad, tell him to fuck off. He can't hit you. You can kill him [laughs], he's an old man." I used to say, "Don't take that shit off him… “He treated Paul like a child all the time, cut his hair and telling him what to wear, at seventeen, eighteen.”

We know that John prided himself on being a rebel from an early age. Not only does it appear that John was an anathema to authority he also wanted Paul to push against the biggest authority in his life at that time, Jim. In the context of trying to get Paul to stand up to his dad and to shake off his influence, John seems to be recounting how he sized up the challenge that Jim would pose, if Paul did stand up to him: “He can’t hit you. You can kill him, he’s an old man” to me these comments seem to be John’s attempts at highlighting how little resistance Jim could/would pose were Paul to stand up for himself, Paul is the younger stronger man so in a physical fight, he would undoubtably win and yet we’re aware now that Jim did hit Paul and that was something that Paul resented and probably does resent to this day. I don’t think John would have made such blazé comments (or literally laugh) about Paul’s obvious physical dominance over Jim if he was aware of the difficulty and relief Paul experienced when he did finally stand up to Jim after being hit one too many times. Paul finally standing up to Jim was such a watershed moment in his life and if John was aware of Paul being hit, he probably also would have known what a big deal it was for Paul to stand up to his dad, so I don’t think John (even in 1971) would be downplaying how monumental that was and I do think his comments here are coming from a place of ignorance on Paul’s home situation but that’s, of course, open for interpretation. As I mentioned before, this part of the interview was meant to be an explanation of how John and Paul were so different, what does Jim have to do with that? Let’s now return to the interview:

“But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, "I need a steady career." We couldn't believe it… “So I told him on the phone, "Either come or you're out." So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me”

John’s early clashes with Jim, I think, are really instructive for understanding the parameters of John and Paul’s relationship, the stressors on their relationship and it’s ultimate breakdown. John needed to be the central figure in his friends’ lives, he needed to be the most loved, the most important, the most influential he needed to be the preeminent force and his relationship with Paul was no different. However, with Jim and more widely Paul’s family, being of the utmost importance in Paul’s life, John’s need to be the most important person to Paul was under threat. I think John’s need to be the most important person in his closest friends’ lives came a lot from his background of not being prioritised by his parents, of never quite getting the unconditional love and approval he craved from Mimi so where else could he get that love and approval he craved? From his friends, from his gang and importantly from Paul. However, what this anecdote from John shows is that, even at the earliest stages of the band’s history, John backed himself to always be chosen by Paul over his family and he backed himself to the degree that he would put the band on the line to test Paul’s loyalty, if Paul chose him over his family in 1961 he would do so again in 1969 right? It’s also interesting that John took Paul ceding to Jim and taking a job as him “dropping the group” even though Paul never quit and continued playing with the group whilst managing his new workload, perhaps suggesting that John had a tendency to overreact when he felt that Paul’s priorities were changing and he seemed less committed to him the group. Then there’s also the use of “we” in “We couldn’t believe it”. It’s possible that John is referring to George and Pete here, but if Paul was still showing up and playing with the group, what would George and Pete have had had to fear? Maybe Paul isn’t the only one who sometimes uses “we” to mask his insecurities… Let’s return to the interview for a final time:

“So it was always the family thing, you see. If Jane [Asher] was to have a career, then that's not going to be a cozy family, is it? All the other girls were just groupies mainly. And with Linda not only did he have a ready-made family, but she knows what he wants, obviously, and has given it to him. The complete family life. He's in Scotland. He told me he doesn't like English cities anymore. So that's how it is.”

So, ultimately in John’s mind it appears that the main sticking point was that Paul would always want the family life, the family life that he lost when his mother died, the family life that Jane, at that time, was reluctant to give him, the family life that John could never give him but that Linda could and did provide. Now that it was again a choice between Allen Klein (backed by John, George and Ringo) and the Eastmans (Paul’s new family) Paul again made his choice but this time it wasn’t John but the family life, that had always posed the biggest threat to John, that won out. I think Joshua Wolf Shenk made a lot of great points in his book “Powers of Two” about creative partnerships, one of his most impactful was that Jim was to John what Stu was to Paul, an obstacle to the strengthening of their friendship. A lot of authors have (correctly) drawn the link between Stu and Yoko as creating a wedge in John and Paul’s relationship but how many have drawn the link between Jim and Linda as the entrance of Linda on the scene was just as impactful and, looking at the way John spoke about Linda and her marriage to Paul (that John and Yoko predicted time and again would be short lived), it’s clear that John, maybe more than anyone, knew just how big Linda’s impact was on Paul and on the break up of not just the Beatles but also John and Paul’s relationship.