"McCartney Realised He Was Sitting At His Father's Old Piano, Which He Used To Compose Tracks For Memory

I’m curious about something. Is there concrete evidence of John attempting to strike Linda? I’ve. seen it mentioned various places but I’m a little skeptical. If it’s true that seems like it would be very hard for Paul to forgive. Your thoughts? Thanks.

Hiya @missu4everjohnny,

So for anyone reading this post who might not already be familiar with the story in question, Ill give you some brief business context: 

The company Northern Songs was set up in 1963 by Dick James and Charles Silver, in order to publish Lennon/McCartney songs.

February 1965 it became a public company on the London Stock Exchange.

John and Paul each have 750,000 shares (15% each), while George and Ringo have 40,000 (0.8 %) each. During his divorce, John sold over 100,000 of his shares in order to set up a trust fund for Julian. Paul on the other hand bought 1000 shares (or 0.02% of the company). 

By January 1969, Dick James had a growing concern about John Lennon’s recent behaviours, and the negative consequences they may have for the Northern Songs company in terms of stock value.

March 1969, Dick James and Charles Silver sell their shares in Northern Songs to ATV for £1,525,000, giving John and Paul no notice or the chance to buy them out. That way, ATV acquired 1,604,750 shares, which, in addition to the 137,000 they already had, gave them nearly 35% of the company.

John and Paul, who were both away on their honeymoons as they received the news about Northern Songs, felt betrayed and upset by James’s choice to sell his shares. 

In April 1969, John found out that he had 644,000 shares (£1.25m), while Paul had 751,000 shares (£1.4m). John was furious with Paul. 

@thecoleopterawithana did a particularly good breakdown on this whole saga, touching on both the business logistics and the emotional responses within it from John and Paul. So massive credit due to them for explaining the Northern Songs situation in a way that My-Little-Pea-Brain can actually understand, and do go give their post a read for a far more comprehensive understanding of all this!

But onto Johns reaction and whether he did in fact attempt to physically assault Linda McCartney. 

Ken McNab writes in his book And In The End: the last days of the Beatles:

Various accounts over the years have suggested the two men almost came to blows. One unverified report has the volatile Lennon shaking his fist at Linda McCartney with Klein holding him back. Sheepishly, McCartney tried to defend his underhand actions: ‘I had some beanies and I wanted more.’ (pg. 101)

And Peter Doggett wrote in You Never Give Me Your Money: 

Then Klein informed Lennon that McCartney had secretly been increasing his stake in Northern Songs. ‘John flew into a rage,’ recalled Apple executive Peter Brown. ‘At one point I thought he was really going to hit Paul, but he managed to calm himself down.’ One unconfirmed report of this meeting had Lennon leaping towards Linda McCartney, his fists raised in her face. (pg. 79)

These are the only two texts I could find specifying the report that John had made an attempt at physically assaulting Linda. Unfortunately, neither writer cites a source for the unconfirmed report, and Ive been unable to locate the claims origins—so I cant tell you how reliable its author is. 

To the extent of my knowledge, no one else present during the occurrence has spoken about the alleged incident either—however, Peter Brown makes note that he believes John came close to physically attacking Paul, although in his original text The Love You Make he doesn't write anything on this:

“You bastard!” John spit. “You’ve been buying up shares behind our backs!”

Paul blushed and shrugged limply. “Oops, sorry!” he smiled. 

“This is fuckin’ low!” John said. “This is the first time any of us have gone behind each other’s backs.”

Paul shrugged again. “I felt like I had some beanies and I wanted some more,” he said. (pg. 305)

So what is the likelihood of this being true, and what do I personally believe?

Honestly, I don’t know. I see it as plausible being that John has a history of physical violence, which Ive written about in more depth here. Im aware that he made conscious-efforts to change his behaviours over the years, and claimed in his 1971 interview with Peter McCabe and Robert Schonfield to have given up violence following the Bob Wooler incident in 1963—but we know from May Pang that there were still occasional incidents of physical violence. During a moment of stress, I could imagine he might have returned to old habits (and please note as well that ‘stress’ would not be a justification of this action in any way) and tried to attack Linda.

If John did make an attempt to physically attack Linda, my guess as to why Paul have been able to forgive (and seemingly forget) about the incident, is because it would have remained a hypothetical. It never really happened, so I feel like it would have been relatively easy for him to brush it off, because there were no actual consequences (or at least, no physical harm towards Linda caused). 

However, I can also see that theres reasons not to believe the story. Both McNab and Doggett write of an ‘unconfirmed’ or ‘unverified’ report, meaning we have no idea who made this claim. As far as we know, the original claimant might not have even been in the room; it could be complete bollocks. 

And although I wouldn’t really be surprised if Paul and even the Eastmans had chosen not to make a big deal out of the incident, Id be surprised if no one else present mentioned it—especially Peter Brown, given that he thought John came close to attacking Paul. 

However, to counter that last point, another theory I have is that if Paul had been standing close to Linda at the time, perhaps it wouldn’t have been clear based on Johns erratic behaviour who he was aiming for—so while some people might have believed John was attempting to attack Linda, others might have thought he was aiming for Paul.

So in short—and I apologise about the very dissatisfactory response—my opinion on this really is just an ‘I Don’t Know’ one. It could go either way imo. It would be easier to discern an answer I think if we had access to the original report, but as far as Im aware, that hasn’t been released. 

Sources:  

Northern Songs breakdown (x) — @thecoleopterawithana

Dick James sells his Northern Songs shares to ATV (x)

The Beatles and ATV fight for the control of Northern Songs (x)

You Never Give Me Your Money — Peter Doggett

And In The End: the last days of The Beatles — Ken McNab

The Making Of John Lennon — Frances Kenny

The Love You Make: an insiders story of The Beatles — Peter Brown & Steve Gaines

For The Record — Peter McCabe & Robert Schonfield

it'll pass

I wanted to know what Paul's looking so lovingly at on the back of their cover so I recreated his hand placement and this is approximately where his left hand is pointing at.

Here is a clean copy for my John girlies:

Ringo and Paul from Ringo’s Lifted. Caption reads: “This unusual and interesting photograph of me and Paul McCartney together was taken on a timer. And I’m thankful that even after all this time had passed, Paul and I are still here and still holding on to one another.”

"This blurring of sexual lines was part of the creative mix of the culture, but it also had its dark side. The homoerotic subculture had as a nasty by-product a virulent strain of misogyny. .. the [redlands] trial and acquittal bonded Mick and Keith--but it created a very odd dynamic. For Keith it was just an alliance within the group, but for mick it was a lot more than that. It has all the irrationally and passion of a love affair. Lennon and McCartney had a similar bond between them".----Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithful with Paul

This Is Not Here Press Conference @ Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY (October 8, 1971).

Reporter: What do you think of Paul, John?

John: I’ve changed, you know, he’s still the closest friend I’ve ever had except for Yoko. So I mean I’m still close to him whatever goes on.

In terms of timeline, the next day was John’s 31st birthday, where I believe we have audio recording of John conducting a nostalgic singalong of Yesterday during the party.

Brian Ray on threads

real talk paul mccartney is such a resilient guy if my mum died when i was a teenager and then my manager died at the peak of my fame forcing me to take a leadership position that all my bandmates/brothers would hate me for and then leave me and write songs talking shit about me and then my closest friend/songwriting partner/ex lover was shot outside his home and then my beloved wife and other musical partner died relatively young (of the aame disease that killed my mum) and then my baby brother died a couple years later (also of cancer) i wouldnt even be a recluse i would just kill myself.

sharing the sofa like normal people

insp:

yeah imagine