Hi everyone,
This week, I want to share with you a short piece written by Will, a former journalist and reader of Beautiful Possibility.
Over the course of the past months, Will has been sharing with me via email his journey through Beautiful Possibility. I asked if he would condense his experience into a single piece so I could share it on The Abbey, and he generously agreed. I’ll let him take over from here—
“I first heard of the 'McLennon' theory1 in passing in the early 2010s, and viewed it in the same light as other Beatles “conspiracy theories” — obvious nonsense from the immature minds of ignorant Americans. No, Paul isn't dead. No, John wasn't assassinated by the CIA. And no, they weren't secret lovers. Full stop.
“I’ve always felt a certain connection to The Beatles — I grew up in the north of England thirty years after them, but the humour and the attitudes were the same. The ‘50s were still around in the ‘80s — men didn't show their feelings, women's opinions weren't taken seriously, kids were hit when they misbehaved, ‘gays’ were a joke on TV and a target on the street.
“As an adult I didn't subscribe to those views. But I understood the importance of male friendship groups to those who grew up in that environment, and I resented kids on social media writing things like "Those two were SO fucking each other" under images of the early Beatles laughing together. I felt those kids didn’t have a clue about the world The Beatles knew, so how could they ever understand the power of platonic male bonding, the kind that made thousands of young boys go out and buy guitars and start bands after seeing The Ed Sullivan Show?
“I remember reading a comment online that went something like, "Young women are incapable of true friendship because they're always in unspoken sexual competition with each other, so when they see two men with a true and deep friendship they automatically assume they must be lovers." That's pretty much how I dismissed the 'McLennon shippers' who occasionally intruded into my online Beatle world.
“It simply wasn't true, I decided. And even if it was true — a very big if — how could you prove it? And even if you could prove it — an equally big if — why would it matter? Enjoy the music, and let their private lives be private.
“As a Gen-Xer, I'm too young to have experienced firsthand the solo ‘70s Beatles, and of course too ‘not-born-yet’ to have experienced them first-hand in the ‘60s. I saw them through the lens of the ‘80s and ‘90s, during the 'Martin Luther Lennon' period, when Paul was seen as the sappy establishment guy, riding John's coattails. It was, I realise now, a fiction propagated by the all-powerful music press, feeding into the ‘John cool/Paul uncool, John rebel/Paul conformist’ dichotomy. Very different people who came together to get rich and famous, and when they achieved it, they met their wives and drifted apart like so many old friends do. We didn't have the internet, so how could we know any different? Remember, we were the generation that thought Freddie Mercury was straight.
“But then in the 21st century, new generations came along who hadn't grown up with that narrative, and they looked at The Beatles through a different lens. Most importantly, they had access to hundreds of youtube videos of Beatles press conferences, concerts, films, TV shows and home movies. The kinds of things we would have paid large sums to see on a cinema screen, they could see for free any time and as often as they liked.
“And these new generations saw things people had never noticed before — the long, loving looks between John and Paul, the intimate glances, the smiles, the touching. They heard the quiet asides spoken during interviews that nobody picked up at the time. They analysed the lyrics of John and Paul’s post-Beatles songs, those semi-public messages sent back and forth across the Atlantic. To the finely-tuned worldviews of Millennials and Gen-Zers, it was all so obvious. How could those old boomers not have seen it?
“Having been interested in The Beatles’ story since childhood, I kept up-to-date with the various blogs and fan sites, and gradually — and against my will — found myself getting more and more intrigued by the whole 'McLennon' thing. What finally made me question my assumptions was a youtube series titled “Understanding Lennon/McCartney” that edited together archive clips of John and Paul without any voiceover or captions, just letting their songs and voices tell the story. I saw things I had never seen before, and things I had seen before in a new light. Could it really be true? Surely not...
“I still couldn't accept it, but I also couldn't just dismiss it. I took refuge in the comfortable halfway house of 'They loved each other like brothers... Well OK, maybe more than just brothers... Well OK, John may have been bi and wanted Paul, but Paul wasn't... Well OK, maybe a little bit, but...'
“Then one day I stumbled on Beautiful Possibility. This was a very different proposition entirely. It was written in a thoughtful, intelligent style without sensationalism or over-speculation. Unlike much of the speculation surrounding this topic, you stuck scrupulously to the known facts and seemed to be particularly concerned not to hurt anyone's feelings or intrude too far into personal spaces. Your work seemed the nearest thing to academia in this feverish corner of the internet.
“Your writings are also concerned with the link between The Beatles and the Arthurian legends — what you call the 'Lance and the Grail' — the balance of masculine and feminine energy we need in order to bring human society to its full potential, which we have abandoned in favour of a 'Might is Right' mindset.2 At first, it all seemed a bit far-fetched, but the more I read the more I understood its truth. Although you emphasise the importance of the 'Grail' — i.e. the feminine — it isn’t at the expense of the 'Lance', but in harmony with it.
“And most important of all, Beautiful Possibility provided me with an answer to the question - 'So what? Why does it matter? Why should we make public the private lives of people who — even if the theory's true — have thus far chosen not to make it public?'
“One answer you gave is that The Beatles — and the ‘60s social revolution they kickstarted — was the Return of the Grail after generations of being forgotten or ignored. It was the energy of the Feminine reclaiming its rightful place, not as an adjunct of the Masculine but as its equal. And this could only have been done by men who felt that energy within themselves and embraced it.
“The world The Beatles and I grew up in — the world of mockery and violence, alcohol and nicotine, feelings repressed — has largely disappeared from the West, or at least diminished. But the damage of its legacy lives on in us, and in our relationships. The Beatles showed us that another way was — and still is — possible.
“It took some time, but I now believe that those who dedicate themselves to awakening people to the truth3 about John and Paul's love are helping to bring about that Beautiful Possibility.”
Until next week.
Peace, love, and strawberry fields,
Faith ❤️
I’m just briefly interrupting here to say that you’ve probably noticed I (Faith, not the writer of this piece) avoid the use of the term “McLennon” in my own writing. It might be obvious why. My goal is to legitimateize the study of the lovers possibility in mainstream scholarship and to show that it’s credible and important to the story and to our world, and that there is an ethical and respectful way to include it in the story. “McLennon”, as with the words “fan” and “fandom,” tends to trivialize the credibility and importance of the relationship between John and Paul and the study of that relationship. Also, I just generally think “couple names” are daft.
But this isn’t my piece, which is why the term appears here. More than that, I think the way it’s used here effectively makes the point that trivial and daft is the way many people — including Will himself — initially perceive the lovers possibility.
A reminder that, as we talked about at length in Beautiful Possibility, the qualities of the Lance and the Grail are not inherently masculinie or feminine. They’ve been erroneously assigned along gender lines only because we live in a society has for thousands of years (excluding the Love Revolution) resisted the truth that the qualities of the Lance and the Grail combined are essential for becoming a whole, healthy human being, regardless of biology or gender.
*possible truth