Ethical Reflections on John/Paul

By |2023-04-12T11:02:33-07:00January 14, 2020|Beatle myth, Beatles fiction, fans, John and Paul, Linda McCartney, Uncategorized, Yoko Ono|

I’m writing this because the discussion on the “Were John and Paul Lovers?” post has been niggling at me for a while now. Though it was published more than six years ago, it's one of Hey Dullblog’s most viewed and most contentious posts. And because Michael Gerber and I read every comment as it goes through moderation, we're aware of movements on the blog in a way others may not be. Given the persistent interest in this topic, I've decided that it’s worth articulating my thoughts about it in more depth.  Backstage at Hey Dullblog can get complicated   I want to [...]

Lennon and McCartney’s “lost reunion,” by David Gambacorta

By |2019-06-25T11:11:23-07:00June 25, 2019|1974, Beatles in LA, bootlegs, Breakup, Chris Carter/Breakfast With the Beatles, Harry NIlsson, John and Paul, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Uncategorized, Unreleased/Outtakes|

Posted at the excellent aggregator and original writing site Longreads is David Gambacorta's exploration of the 1974 California jam session John Lennon and Paul McCartney engaged in -- the last time they would play together. Most Beatles fans will be familiar with the history Gambacorta recounts, but it's nice to see it laid out succinctly. Gambacorta does turn up a few facts that were, at least, new to me: for example, it's not clear what happened to the master tapes made that night. And the piece is well worth reading for the recent comments Gambacorta got from several people, including Elliot Mintz, [...]

McCartney on Lennon as his hero

By |2016-03-03T23:54:02-08:00March 1, 2016|books, Interviews, John and Paul|

Over on the "Paul's Essential Elements" thread, in response to an excellent post by Chris Dingman, we've been having a fascinating conversation about what both Lennon and McCartney brought to their artistic partnership. We're also having a conversation about it over on Mike's post, "John Lennon: Man of the Decade," because that's how we roll on Dullblog. In writing a comment on Chris' post, I mentioned that I'd read a magazine article in which McCartney identified Lennon as his hero. It was in the November 2015 issue of Mojo, in a piece titled "The Two of Us," excerpted from Paul du Noyer's [...]

John Lennon: Man of the Decade

By |2016-02-29T13:08:04-08:00February 29, 2016|John and Paul|

Guest Dullblogger Chris Dingman has just written a very interesting and well-expressed post on Paul McCartney's essential contribution to the Lennon/McCartney partnership, and you should probably read that before reading this. This post began as a comment to that post, but as I wrote I felt it ranged too widely, and touched on something too essential, not to be surfaced on its own. It's true that Paul was the more natural musician, and the Beatles were, after all, a band -- but they were so much more than their music, just as Valentino was more than movies, and JFK was more than politics. Music [...]

Paul McCartney’s Essential Elements

By |2016-02-29T11:12:25-08:00February 29, 2016|Bandmembers, John and Paul, Paul McCartney|

by Chris Dingman, guest Dullblogger So many stars had to align for the Beatles to come blazing forth. Without a slew of key elements—the end of compulsory National Service in 1960, Hamburg, Brian Epstein, and George Martin, to name just a few—The Beatles as we know them might never have been. Of course the band needed to be those four guys, together resonating far beyond the sum of their parts. But the most essential element in The Beatles’ story was the Lennon-McCartney partnership. It was a connection that could only be forged from the dreams of youth, a marriage that was arguably [...]

John and Paul, Friends and Rivals

By |2015-10-15T12:42:31-07:00October 15, 2015|1969, Breakup, India, John and Paul, rishikesh|

This started as a comment on Mike's "Were John and Paul Lovers?" post. Though I wrote it before commenter Marcua's thoughts came in, we're expressing some similar ideas about the probable roots of John's post-India hostility toward Paul. I very much doubt that Lennon and McCartney were ever lovers. There's enough credible evidence that Lennon talked about and expressed interest in bisexuality for me to think he, at some point, recognized a degree of attraction to Paul. And there's enough from Paul ("he had beautiful hands," etc.) for me to think it might have gone both ways, if not as strongly. Could [...]

Were John and Paul Lovers?

By |2022-07-25T11:36:56-07:00October 14, 2015|John and Paul|

Two heads are better than one, 1965. There's a topic simmering in a few comment threads at once, and so I thought I'd surface the topic as a post. Basically, it's the old question of John's attraction to Paul, and whether it was sexual in nature; and furthermore, whether the friendship of these two men -- undeniably close in every other way between 1957-68 -- ever became sexual in nature as well. (This just in, courtesy of commenter @Karen: according to a new interview with Yoko Ono, John "had a desire to have sex with men." If this is true, [...]

A Heartbeat in the Brain

By |2020-02-03T21:39:34-08:00September 3, 2015|John and Paul|

"A hole in my what?" I was inspired by our recent mention of the ancient medical (?) practice of trepanning to seek out the source of John Lennon's inspiration all those years ago: the documentary "A Heartbeat in the Brain." In this 1970 film, scientist and seeker Amanda Feilding trepans herself on camera. Like many who saw it, this blew John Lennon's mind. Unlike many who saw it, he was actually interested in doing it. According to a scene in the fictional "Two of Us," he suggests that he, Paul and Yoko do it. The film's fictional, but his interest [...]

Ziggy Stardust was McCartney? Could be…

By |2016-01-11T18:33:13-08:00May 16, 2015|Beatle-inspired, David Bowie, John and Paul|

J.R. Clark, guest Dullblogger • Of the many personas David Bowie created during his entertainment career, perhaps none was more memorable and influential than the protagonist of his song, “Ziggy Stardust”. The song tells the story of a musician in a rock band who becomes famous. The fame makes him conceited; he seizes control of the band from the other members, and the fame ultimately destroys the band and the musician. David Bowie, 1971 Rock music fans in general, and Bowie fans in particular, continue to debate which musician(s) Bowie drew upon for inspiration in writing the song, including Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Marc Bolan, Gene [...]

Fab Foto Fakes: Photoshopping Beatles History

By |2015-04-15T16:01:30-07:00January 20, 2015|alternate history, Beatles on the Web, John and Paul, Photos|

DEVIN McKINNEY  •  There used to be a fun little shadow business going in fake Beatles records—songs with a Beatlesque sound, or just a Beatle-sounding name on the label, that got taken, however briefly and inexplicably, for the real thing. The Knickerbockers’ highly convincing knockoff “Lies” lay at one end of the scale, with something like “The Girl I Love” by “the Beatles”—in reality, a New Jersey doo wop group known elsewise as The Five Shits—at the other. (Castleman and Podrazik’s All Together Now [1975] gave the first comprehensive listing of these purposeful or inadvertent fakeries, under the succinct and irrefutable chapter [...]

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