Hi everyone,
This week, I thought I’d bring your attention to a quote from a 1982 interview with Paul McCartney, in answer to an interview question about whether or not “Tug Of War”— the title song from his 1982 album of the same name — is about John.
Before we get to the quote, let’s just notice that it would be a difficult case to make that “Tug Of War” isn’t about John. There are a number of reasons for that, most obviously the title and the opening verse—
It’s a tug of war
What with one thing and another
It’s a tug of war
We expected more
But with one thing and another
We were trying to outdo each other
In a tug of war
Which is probably why the journalist asked the question in the first place—
Q. Did you have John Lennon in mind [when you wrote “Tug of War”]?
PAUL: No. But halfway through it, John was killed. I can’t believe it to this day, I can’t even say those words... But “Here Today” is the only song specifically about that. Obviously, “Tug of War” ties in. And so does “Somebody Who Cares.” I remember being aware of John’s death while writing it.1
You may have noticed that recent updates have been usually Paul-focused. That’s because I’ve been working my way through the interviews with him in the research from the Northwestern archive. And this quote especially caught my eye because while Paul frequently hints indirectly that “Tug Of War” is about John, this is the example I’ve found in which he most explicitly acknowledges it.
On first glance, it might not seem that Paul is explicitly acknowledging that “Tug Of War” is about John, given the “no” at the beginning of it. And that’s the other reason this quote caught my attention — because it’s a good example of the sort of thing Paul routinely does when talking to the press, especially about the meanings of his songs, and especially about the meaning of his songs that might be about John.
Here’s what’s happening in this quote—
By starting with a clear and unqualified “no,” Paul establishes that “no” as his definitive answer to the question. And that means that anything Paul says after the “no” is in essence cloaked with an invisibility shield — because the “no” means that confirmation bias will cause the interviewer (and the reader) to hear what they expect to hear rather than what’s really there.
The net result is that Paul starts out denying that “Tug of War” was written for John, and ends up acknowledging that it was. No, he didn’t have John in mind, but yes, it ties into “Here Today,” which is, of course, without question written for John.
Paul has said that he likes to lie in interview, but it might be more accurate to say he likes to misdirect. This quote is a masterful example of that misdirection — though in this case, it’s hard to say if Paul’s misdirecting intentionally or just struggling to figure out how to talk about John post-1980. This was in 1982, and the interviewer opens the article by commenting that when talking about John’s murder, Paul “refers haltingly to ‘the event,’ to ‘John’s thing.’”2
Either way, I’m far from the first to point out that Paul has a remarkable ability to give one answer and make it seem like he’s giving another, or to give no answer at all and make it seem as if he’s been very forthcoming. One interviewer noted in 1986 that, “part of McCartney’s agility as a communicator has frequently been the paradoxical mastery of revealing nothing whatsoever of himself to journalists.”
This “Tug Of War” quote reveals quite a bit — though nothing that’s not obvious if you’re even a little bit Grail-fluent and willing to see what’s actually there rather than what we expect to see.
Paul’s answer to the “Tug Of War” question is an example of why researching Paul’s interviews is brain-twisting work. It’s also an example of why there hasn’t yet been a truly substantive interview with Paul McCartney and probably never will be, from this man who is reluctant to reveal his innermost thoughts outside of song.
Paul’s answer is also an example of why exact language matters. And why the editing of quotes, and worse, the gluing together of different quotes from different interviews and presenting them as a single quote — all-too-common in Beatles writing, even beyond Mark Lewisohn’s monkey business in his books and in Anthology — is so damaging to our ability to understand this story.
And it’s also maybe a good example of why Paul has explicitly told us that the truth of his life is not in books or interviews, but in his songs — like for example, “Tug Of War.”
(YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txBuoR3DzI4 )
Until next week.
Peace, love, and strawberry fields,
Faith 🍓
PS — We talked briefly about “Tug Of War” in Part One of Beautiful Possibility — at the very end of episode 1:5 (He Said He Said Part 1) and in more detail in the Playlist Commentary Rabbit Hole.
“Paul McCartney Looks Back,” Newsweek, May 3, 1982.
If it was unintentional, it’s an approach he’s stuck with. Exactly four decades later, Paul uses the same technique, albeit a bit more obliquely and in longer form, in his discussion of “Tug Of War” in The Lyrics (Liveright, 2022).
