Latest Posts by calabrie - Page 4

divassssssssssss 👑

they make me sick why are they like this

Ok ok ok so basically John Lennon wrote all these sappy love songs about soulmates who never got to be ("if we must start again, we will know, that I will love you", "No need to be afraid, it's real love, it's real") in casettes he was gonna hide forever in his basement titled FOR PAUL, told HIS WIFE that he is bisexual but only has a thing for men who is 'emotionally and artistically' connected with him, constantly referred to Paul as his "ex-wife" in many interviews and that they "divorced" after the beatles broke up, used to jerk off together (I shit you not google this) with Paul and his Beatles mates MORE THAN ONCE, used to have women leaving him because "he never looked at me the way he looked at Paul", and they say rumours about them are overplayed?????

John Lennon on the set of How I Won The War at the Desierto de Tabernas in Almería, Spain | September 1966

“I first met John Lennon through Tony King, who had moved to LA to become Apple Records’ general manager in the US. In fact, the first time I met John Lennon, he was dancing with Tony King. Nothing unusual in that, other than the fact that they weren’t in a nightclub, there was no music playing and Tony was in full drag as Queen Elizabeth II. They were at Capitol Records in Hollywood, where Tony’s new office was, shooting a TV advert for John’s forthcoming album Mind Games, and, for reasons best known to John, this was the big concept. I took to him straight away. It wasn’t just that he was a Beatle and therefore one of my idols. He was a Beatle who thought it was a good idea to promote his new album by dancing around with a man dragged up as the Queen, for fuck’s sake. I thought: We’re going to get on like a house on fire. And I was right. As soon as we started talking, it felt like I’d known him my entire life. We began spending a lot of time together, whenever I was in America. He’d separated from Yoko and was living in Los Angeles with May Pang. I know that period in his life is supposed to have been really troubled and unpleasant and dark, but I’ve got to be honest, I never saw that in him at all. I heard stories occasionally – about some sessions he’d done with Phil Spector that went completely out of control, about him going crazy one night and smashing up the record producer Lou Adler’s house. I could see a darkness in some of the people he was hanging out with: Harry Nilsson was a sweet guy, an incredibly talented singer and songwriter, but one drink too many and he’d turn into someone else, someone you really had to watch yourself around. And John and I certainly took a lot of drugs together and had some berserk nights out, as poor old Dr John would tell you. We went to see him at the Troubadour and he invited John onstage to jam. John was so pissed he ended up playing the organ with his elbows. It somehow fell to me to get him offstage.”

— Elton John, Me. (2019) (Note: You can watch the Mind Games commercial of John and Tony King in drag dancing here. You can read the continuation of this quote here.)

John Lennon in Stuart Sutcliffe’s studio, 45a Eimsbütteler Strasse, Altona, Hamburg, photographed by Astrid Kirchherr. (May, 1962)

-

Why can’t we go for other people to heaven? John asks me that—he said he would go for Stuart to heaven because Stuart was such a marvelous boy and he is nothing.

— Astrid Kirchherr, letter to Millie Sutcliffe. (May 30th, 1962)

I've been feeling bad since my friend pushed me into this fandom. I hope they're happy in another universe

January 13th, 1969 (Twickenham Studios, London): As Paul encourages an unconfident Ringo to go ahead with his plans to record a solo LP, John hedgingly brings up his own apprehensions about following his instincts (especially when he’s not even sure what he really wants to do). In their inimitable and emotionally non-committal fashion, John and Paul engage in metaphors about intentions, conveying these intentions in actions, and how these actions may be conveyed by those who see it. (Basically: what John and Paul talk about when they talk about love.)

PAUL: [to Ringo] The great thing is that you singing like how you really sing – will be it. It will be! 

RINGO: Yes, but the only way is to do it on your own. 

PAUL: Until then – yeah, sure. Until then – until you reach how you really sing, you’ll sing your half-soul. 

RINGO: Yeah. 

PAUL: And it’s probably when we’re all very old, that we’ll all sing together. 

RINGO: Yeah.

PAUL: And we’ll all really sing, and we’ll all show each other how good we are, and in fact we’ll die, then, I don’t know. [Linda laughs; diffident] Probably, you know, probably something sappy or soft like that… I don’t know, but really, I mean, i– it’s really down to all those sort of simple, silly things to me. 

YOKO: But those are the important things, you know. 

PAUL: It’s got to be simple. It’s got to be simple. It can’t be A plus B equals X plus Y plus Z, because that’s them, you know. And it couldn’t be— 

JOHN: [quiet] Maybe that’s what’s evading me. 

PAUL: Yes. [sincere] But it’s okay, that, you know. 

JOHN: [hesitating] I just, uh… because I’m not really sure what or how I feel about it. 

PAUL: No, but you’re—

JOHN: Because any time— 

PAUL: You’re unsure because you’re not sure whether to go left or right on an issue. You’ve noticed the two ways open to us. You know the way we all want to go. And you know the way you want to go. Which is positive! ‘Cause you want to go – now, okay. So your positive thing might actually be to kick that telephone box in. It might occasionally be to do that. So you know that’s the way you’ve gotta go.  

YOKO: Everybody would want to see that, actually.

PAUL: But you don’t want to actually look like you’re kicking the telephone box in. So you have to sort of say to everyone, “Look at that over there, everyone!” And while they’re not looking, you’ll kick the telephone box in, and sort of— [whistles innocently] 

JOHN: I don’t think that’s a fair representation. [laughs] 

PAUL: [conceding] Oh, well, it involves me, that’s me. I do that, too. And I think we all do that. But I think the answer is, that – while you’ve got us all looking at nothing over there, and you’ve thrown us for a minute, we would actually all have dug to see you kick that telephone box in.  Because we wanna see you do it. 

YOKO: But we’d have to say it too, though. That’s another thing. 

Keep reading

Hello!

I'm looking for a section of the lunchroom tape (from the Get Back sessions) where John says something to Paul along the lines of "I mean, you've only recently realised what you were doing to me". Does that ring any bells?

You seem to know your way around amoralto's archives, and I'm not having any luck searching there :)

Thanks!

Hi, @i-am-the-oyster (love the name, by the way)!

I think you might be referring to this section of the Lunchroom Tape:

JOHN: And it’s just that, you know. It’s only this year that you’ve suddenly realised, like who I am, or who he is, or anything like that.

I find this bit of the conversation particularly impenetrable; and all the more fascinating because of it. It's here that we have this famed exchange (whose full meaning still eludes me):

JOHN: Because you – ’cause you’ve suddenly got it all, you see. PAUL: Mm. JOHN: I know that, because of the way I am, like when we were in Mendips, like I said, “Do you like me?” or whatever it is. I’ve always – uh, played that one. PAUL: [laughs nervously] Yes. JOHN: So. PAUL: Uh, I’d been watching, I’d been watching. I’d been watching the picture. YOKO: Go back to George. What are we going to do about George?

I encourage folks to go listen to the full audio and transcript and try their hand at decoding it!

I don't know if it's accessible on the mobile app, but @amoralto has a separate page with links to all the Get Back excerpts, listed in chronological order. It's a pretty neat resource if you want to just binge through interesting little snippets from these sessions (some that made it onto the documentary, and many that didn't).

To those curious about the Lunchroom Tape in particular, here's a (play)list of all the transcribed excerpts, with @amoralto's descriptions for context:

We Have Egos

Over lunch, the remaining Beatles touch on George’s resignation from the band on the 10th, as well as a group meeting held the previous day which ended in less than desirable circumstances (with George leaving the room, frustrated by John’s persistently Yoko-filtered standard of communication). While Yoko contends that it would be easy for John (and Paul) to regain George’s favour, John points out that this is a more deeply-rooted issue than it may seem, compounded over the years by John and Paul’s treatment of George and his defaulted status within the group. Upon this problem of overriding egos, however, Paul suggests (passive-aggressively) that it isn’t just the Lennon-and-McCartney tandem that is causing George upset and consternation. 

Jealousy For You

As the problem of George’s current resignation from the band is discussed, John makes it about him and Paul wonders what it’s all worth.

The Way We All Feel Guilty About Our Relationship To Each Other

John contends with how the force of his partnership with Paul and his relationship with Yoko has negatively affected George and perhaps directly contributed to George’s walkout on the group three days prior.

Cabbage

During a discussion on how the rest of the group should move forward after George’s departure on the 10th, John wonders if they should get George back at all, suggesting his role as a Beatle is replaceable (unlike his own or Paul’s), and likens this unkindly to how Ringo first replaced Pete Best. Paul notes that John has been the top buck in getting himself heard (and getting his way) since the inception of the group (which John protests) and quickly reassures Ringo when he wryly declares himself to be little more than rabbit food for the group. Paul admits that both he and John have done one over on George, albeit unconsciously as an effect of the competition and unaware of how it may have hurt George in the process, but John argues that he’s known since early childhood how manipulative he himself can be, and has tried to curb it to little avail.

What You Are

In the middle of a personal discussion with John and Ringo about the band, its tenuous future, and their relationships with one another, Paul (in response to John’s admission of insecurity in the face of external pressures from the public and media to perform) is emphatic about his faith in them and their abilities and contends that whatever interpersonal problems they have can be resolved, for what their music is worth.

Working At A Relationship

While Yoko and Paul conduct their own conversation with each other, Linda talks to John about the inevitable difficulties any relationship faces - even in the context of a musical partnership - and why it doesn’t prove the relationship itself is an expired one. John (inexplicably or not) laments that the White Album doesn’t sound like the genuine, inspired band collaboration they achieved in the past. 

You've Got To Blame Yourself

As Paul encourages an unconfident Ringo to go ahead with his plans to record a solo LP, John hedgingly brings up his own apprehensions about following his instincts (especially when he’s not even sure what he really wants to do). In their inimitable and emotionally non-committal fashion, John and Paul engage in metaphors about intentions, conveying these intentions in actions, and how these actions may be conveyed by those who see it. (Basically: what John and Paul talk about when they talk about love.)

How Much More Have I Done Towards Helping You Write?

John and Paul have an obfuscating conversation about their songwriting partnership and creative process, which has been incapacitated by a lack of direction, misplaced (misread) intentions, and the unmet (unrealised) expectations they’ve inflicted upon each other. (In other words: issues. And some projecting of issues onto George, for good measure.)

What We're All About

In the midst of a personal discussion about working together within the band, John tries to explain the disconnect in their process, and why he can’t envision their songs the way Paul can. As both John and Paul circle around the issues of honest communication and (living up to) each other’s expectations, they eventually project onto George bring George into the quandary of the Lennon-McCartney partnership. 

January 13th, 1969 (Twickenham Film Studios, London): John contends with how the force of his partnership with Paul and his relationship with Yoko has negatively affected George and perhaps directly contributed to George’s walkout on the group three days prior. (Note: Follows shortly after this clip. My apologies for the vagueness; this is a very difficult excerpt to interpret, and I change my mind about it constantly, as the emotional nuances of what is being conveyed shift significantly depending on whom you presume John is speaking to (Paul or Yoko) about whom (Paul, George, or Yoko) and whom it is in reference to or is directed towards (Paul, George, or Yoko), word to word. I did initially try to indicate who’s who in brackets next to the relevant pronouns, but the transcript got dreadfully cluttered, and as I said, I have hardly nailed myself to a mast. Basically, this is a fannish Rorschach test and Your Mileage May Vary.)

JOHN: And it’s just that, you know. It’s only this year that you’ve suddenly realised, like who I am, or who he is, or anything like that. But the thing is—

PAUL: But I still haven’t realised that. What I’m – the process.

YOKO: [inaudible]

JOHN: Yeah yeah, but you realise that some – like you were saying, like George was some other part. But up till then, you’d had a – your thing that carried you forward. [pause; Yoko speaking?] I know, I’d adjusted before you. Alright, that would make me hipper than you, but I know that I’d adjusted to you before that – for selfish reasons, and for good reasons, not knowing what else to do, and for all these reasons. I’d adjusted to all these and allowed you [inaudible] – you know, if you wanted to let me— [inaudible] —very, very… whatever it is. But this year, you’ve seen, you’ve seen what you’ve been doing, and what everybody’s been doing, and not only did we feel guilty about it, the way we all feel guilty about our relationship to each other, because we could do more… 

YOKO: [inaudible]

JOHN: I know, the thing is that I’m – I can’t – I’m not putting any blame on you for only suddenly realising it, see, because it’s [inaudible] our game, you know; it might have been masochistic, but the goal was still the same, self-preservation. And I knew what I liked about that. I know where the – even if I didn’t know where I was at, you know, the table’s there, and… let him do what he wants, and George too, you know…

PAUL: I know. I know—

JOHN: And I have won.

PAUL: But this thing has been—

JOHN: But I think you—

PAUL: You have—

JOHN: I feel it’s you.

PAUL: Whatever it is, you have. Yeah, I know. Well, I’ve had [inaudible]—

JOHN: Because you – ’cause you’ve suddenly got it all, you see.

PAUL: Mm.

JOHN: I know that, because of the way I am, like when we were in Mendips, like I said, “Do you like me?” or whatever it is. I’ve always – uh, played that one.

PAUL: [laughs nervously] Yes.

JOHN: So.

PAUL: Uh, I’d been watching, I’d been watching. I’d been watching the picture.

YOKO: Go back to George. What are we going to do about George?

JOHN: Yeah, I’m – yeah, sure. But this year, suddenly, it’s all happened to you, and you sort of go – you’re taking the blame, suddenly, as if, uh… Oh, he’d say, “Oh yeah, you know [inaudible],” as if I’ve never known it. And then he thought, “Fucking hell. I know what he’s like. I know he used to kick people. I know how he connived with Len, Ivan. I know him, you know? Fuck him.” And then, oh, but, but right, I’ve done such things… all that. So you’ve taken the five years that [inaudible], you’ve taken the five years of trouble, this year. So half of me says, alright, you know I’ll do anything to save you, to help you. And the other half of me says, well serves him fucking right. I’ve chewed through fucking shit because of him for five years, and he’s only just realised what he was doing [to her?]. So, and that’s something – we’ve both known it, you know? [laughs] And it is incredible. [pause] PAUL: Yeah.

Even though John is under-powered in this period we still see what made him so magnetic to Paul and to others around him. There is a scene early in Part Two that I find riveting. It takes place a couple of days after George has left. The status of everything - the project, the band - remains uncertain, but they are ploughing on for now. John, Yoko, Ringo, Paul and some of the crew are sitting in a semi-circle. Paul looks pensive. Ringo looks tired. John is speaking only in deadpan comic riffs, to which Paul responds now and again. Peter Sellers comes in and sits down, looks ill-at-ease, and leaves having barely said a word, unable to penetrate the Beatle bubble. At some point they’re joined by Lindsay-Hogg, and the conversation dribbles on. John mentions that he had to leave an interview that morning in order to throw up (he and Yoko had taken heroin the night before). Paul, looking into space rather than addressing anyone in particular, attempts to turn the conversation towards what they’re meant to be doing:

Paul: See, what we need is a serious program of work. Not an endless rambling among the canyons of your mind.

John: Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores… We’re all together, boy.

Paul: To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip.

John: And when I touch you, I feel happy inside. I can’t hide, I can’t hide. [pause] Ask me why, I’ll say I love you.

Paul: What we need is a schedule.

John: A garden schedule.

I mean first of all, who is writing this incredible dialogue? Samuel Beckett?

Let’s break it down a little. The first thing to note is that John and Paul are talking to each other without talking to each other. This is partly because they’re aware of the cameras and also because they’re just not sure how to communicate with each other at the moment. John’s contributions are oblique, gnomic, riddling, comprised only of songs and jokes, like the Fool in King Lear. Take me on that trip upon that golden ship of shores sounds like a Lennonised version of a line from Dylan’s Tambourine Man (“take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship”). “We’re altogether, boy”? I have no idea. Does Paul? I think John expects Paul to understand him because he has such faith in what they used to call their “heightened awareness”, a dreamlike, automatic connection to each other’s minds. But right now, Paul is not much in the mood for it. His speech is more direct, though he too adopts a quasi-poetic mode (“canyons of your mind” is borrowed from a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) and he can’t bring himself to make eye contact. “To wander aimlessly is very unswinging,” he says (another great line, I will pin it above my writing desk). Then John does something amazing: he starts talking in Beatle, dropping in lyrics from the early years of the band, I Want To Hold Your Hand and Ask Me Why. (To appreciate John’s response to Paul’s mention of a schedule, American readers may need reminding that English people pronounce it “shed - dule”.)

What’s going on throughout this exchange? Maybe Lennon is just filling dead air, or playing to the gallery, but I think he is (also) attempting to communicate to Paul in their shared code - something like he loves him, he loves The Beatles, they’re still in this together. Of course, we can’t know. I can’t hide, John says, hiding behind his wordplay.

— Ian Leslie, "The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson's Get Back" (January 26, 2022).

[I was curious to read more of Ian Leslie's approach to the Beatles in general and Lennon-McCartney in particular, since he's currently writing a book about John and Paul's relationship: “John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs". He's also the author of that New York Times opinion piece that came out today.]

I’ve only listened one time to Paul’s new single, “Get Enough,” which he released on midnight of New Year’s 2019, and I already know for sure that it is a song for John. Paul sings about walking on the docks with his love, knowing that he’ll need that person forever, being young together, full of hope, dreaming of the future. Remembering that person’s face. He’ll never get enough of that person. Does the other person remember, as Paul does? It’s about their “early days” (as Paul calls it in another truly great song for John) in Liverpool, and their rise to the toppermost of the poppermost.  It’s full of longing and love. Even though the refrain goes “I can’t get enough, girl,” I know that Paul and John both used “girl” and “woman” and “she” and “her” when they wrote and sang songs to and for each other, often.  I know that on the other side, John is listening to it and loves it.

it's kinda funny that get back gave them name credits. imagine sitting down to watch 8 hours of beatles footage and not being clear on which ones are the beatles

there’s a lot of bullshit lennon/mccartney quotes out there, misattributed by biases in biographers or straight-up fabrications. but there’s also “if i was a girl”. there’s also “if he had been a woman”. there’s also “is this a self-portrait?” there’s “in bed.” there’s “maybe that would’ve satisfied it”. there’s “nothing to worry about”, and “life begins at 40”, and “it’s only me.” there’s “the emperor of eternity”. “he chose me.” “i’m still in love with you”. there’s “i can always deny that it was ever written about him.” so who cares

craziest beatle interview ive ever read (playboy)

i heart submarines ❤️

yuka

what’s the best sterek fanfic you’ve ever read?

GRIAN N THE WATCHER👁️👁️

I'll try to be more active on here since I mostly use YT n Instagram the most soooo YAHH ENJOY HEHE

DND au anyone??

wolf form roier and cellbit:,)?

that’s a biiiiiig puppy