Paul McCartney gives his version of what happened with John Lennon: “It came to a push between Yoko and the Beatles”

In October 1980, in one of his last interviews, John Lennon was asked what he thought about Paul McCartney‘s recent projects with Wings and whether he was ever surprised by his former bandmate’s creative output. His reply was telling. “No, he never surprised me. Like, can you be surprised by your brother? From aged 15 on?”

And he was right. Lennon and McCartney were so tight-knit that they were practically blood-related - and John recognized that their sibling-like relationship was still very much in existence, even a decade after The Beatles had split, with all four members going their separate ways.

Brought together by rock ‘n’ roll

From the thousands of books and biographies that have been written about them, Paul’s relationship with John was not especially complex - they admired each other, respected each other - despite the slight age difference, and having different personalities. In some ways they shared a similar background, growing up in the south end of post-war Liverpool just as an exciting new brand of music, rock ‘n’ roll, started seeping in from the United States. They both got the bug at the same time.

They had a mutual understanding - one glance, one raised eyebrow, a smile, the occasional comedy expression... enough for them to know exactly what the other was thinking, without having to say a word.

As individuals, they were different but complimentary - in terms of their characters and musically - their singing voices just seemed to go together perfectly. Added to that, the Beatles were different to the rest in that they really were a group - not a frontman with a backing band. They functioned as a unit, one which Mick Jagger described as like “a four-headed monster”, John and Paul were its unspoken leaders. As George Harrison was keen to point out in the Anthology series: “An attitude came over which was John and Paul… of okay, we’re the grooves, and you two [George and Ringo] just watch it. Not that – they never said that or did anything. I think John and Paul were the stars of The Beatles“.

Songwriting buddies with their own personal brand of creative rivalry - never descending into jealousy, but constantly pushing the other to go one better.

Fateful encounter at Woolton fete

That pretty much sums up their relationship from when Paul was vetted and enlisted to become a fully fledged member of John’s schoolboy band, The Quarrymen (late 1957), right up to when the Fabs were at the absolute peak of their powers - at the start of the post-touring years, after Revolver, before Pepper.

1966: enter Yoko

Around this time, someone who would eventually go on to play a pivotal important part in John’s life, entered the scene: Yoko Ono, a conceptual artist from Tokyo, known within London’s underground art crowd, but otherwise, relatively unknown.

Lennon was already married. He’d met his wife Cynthia while they were both studying at Liverpool Art College in the pre-Beatle days. Yoko was also married - and like John, had a young child.

But some kind of subconscious spiritual energy was released when they met and spoke for the first time at London’s Indica Art Gallery in November 1966. Sparks flew. John knew, Yoko knew.

Nothing really happened until John and Yoko consummated their blossoming love affair 18 months later. John’s wife Cynthia was subjected to the appalling ordeal of catching them together after returning home from a holiday break earlier than planned.

Yoko gegging in on the White album sessions

There was now someone new in John’s life and just like in all, heady days of new romance, they were inseparable. The two lovebirds broke one of the band’s golden rules - no girlfriends, partners, spouses in the studio.

Yoko would accompany John to all of the Beatles recording sessions at Abbey Road. Ringo, the last to join the band and partly because of that, close to the bottom of The Beatles’ caste system, didn’t seem to mind. But for Paul and George, having a woman hanging around the studio was a distraction - plunging them into a brand new, uncomfortable situation.

McCartney has admitted that he struggled to handle Yoko’s presence - only the one hand, not happy about having his writing partner tugged away from him, but at the same time not wanting to offend them; he wasn’t even sure how to broach the subject diplomatically with John.

Get off my amp!

“Let’s face it, we didn’t welcome Yoko in the studio,” Macca confessed to Howard Stern years later. “Because we thought it ‘a guy thing’. And if she wants to sit in on the session, it’s something that we wouldn’t have done. Our girlfriends or wives wouldn’t have done that. Y’know, the control room for a quick visit, but actually sit in the studio with us? It was like, er, no, excuse me, we’re working. It was an unspoken rule - you wouldn’t sit in on the session. So I think it created uncomfortable moments.

But he acknowledged that he understands it better now. “This is not an ordinary relationship. She’s not an ordinary woman - you’ve gotta admit that,” Paul recalled, but did concede, “We were just... fuming, and sulking, and being kind of, y’know. It was really just the initial shock of Yoko sitting on one of the amps. Excuse me, that’s my amp, she couldn’t use a stool. It was mind-blowing, but later on, we suddenly thought, ‘Y’know what? John’s in love with this girl, if he wants to bring her in the studio, we’ve got to cope with that’. And we learned to cope with it. I now feel that he had the right to do that - it have been better if he’d been a little more diplomatic, but we had to figure it out. We did eventually, but it took some time”.

McCartney grew a little closer to Yoko after John’s death in December 1980, and readily admits that during the Beatles’ final days, he read her all wrong.

McCartney knew The Beatles had reached the end of the road

And contrary to what others have claimed, Paul says Yoko was not the reason why the Beatles broke up - the band had already come full circle and they were only just start to realize that themselves.

“She certainly didn’t break the group up. The group was [already] breaking up, and I think she attracted John so much to another way of life. He needed a big. big change in his life and he got it," Macca concludes. “I thought she was a hard woman. I don’t think she is now, I think she’s just the opposite. I think she’s a very loving, caring woman. I was wrong about her. She’s just herself. She’s determined more than some other people just to be herself”.

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