In a well-disposed mixture of “mild with age” and “needed to be said again,” Paul McCartney has spoken on various occasions about his relationship with the late John Lennon.
You can currently hear from him:
“It would have been the worst thing in the world if he had just been killed and we still had a bad relationship.”
Sentences like these can be found in McCartney’s new twelve-part podcast series “McCartney: A Life in Lyrics”, which is played on audio platforms such as iHeartRadio, Apple and Spotify.
He adds: In the end he would have been very happy about various discussions before this terrible assassination attempt took place in front of the Lennon estate in New York’s Central Park. “Because I had had some really good times with him before that happened,” said his Liverpool boyhood friend.
As is well known, the tensions between the two Beatles musicians were palpable at times. The two, eagerly watched by the London gossip and trade press, fought in annoying legal disputes over the group’s back catalogue.
The relationship between the two remained tense throughout the 1970s.
McCartney repeatedly stated that they were able to get closer again before Lennon was shot dead by stalker fan Mark David Chapman in 1980 at the age of 40.
Macca 2023 even gets into a chat: “After all, you have to remember that I sued him badly in court at the time, and I also have his “mates” from Liverpool, friends for life. There was a lot to process.”
McCartney had already opened the Fab Four sewing box in the past, talking about a telephone conversation he had with Lennon a few weeks before his death.
He told the US edition of men’s magazine Playboy in 1984: “I think it’s sad that we never sat down and really sorted out our differences. But luckily for me, the last phone conversation I had with him was great and we didn’t argue.
In a previous episode of the new podcast, McCartney also revealed that Lennon remains an influence on his songwriting to this day: “I often think, ‘What would John think of this?’ – he might have found it too cheesy and corny. So I’m changing it!”