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8-10-25

Hi everyone,

Let’s answer a question about “Little Lamb Dragonfly” this week.

A listener wrote in relative to this passage in the Playlist Commentary Rabbit Hole—

“In 1973, when “Little Lamb Dragonfly” is written, Paul is married to and living with Linda in England, while John is in New York. They’ve not yet reconciled and are still speaking only through song.”

The question is about the 1973 date, given that “Little Lamb Dragonfly” was first recorded in 1970 as part of the sessions for RAM. Originally intended for the Rupert the Bear animation project, the song was instead released on the 1973 album Red Rose Speedway.

While “Little Lamb Dragonfly” was started in 1970, it's a little tricky to determine when the lyrics were written. And it’s the lyrics that matter for our purposes relative to Beautiful Possibility.

The only extant recording that we have of “Little Lamb Dragonfly” prior to its official release is a 1970 “early mix” included on the 2018 Archive release of Red Rose Speedway. In this early version of the song, the music is (minus overdubs) complete, but there are virtually no lyrics. There’s only the repetition throughout the song of two phrases — “fly by my window” and “you and I have a ways to go” — placeholders for the full lyrics presumably yet to be written. (1)

Paul didn’t include “Little Lamb Dragonfly” in his 2022 memoir The Lyrics, nor do there seem to be any extant in-progress lyrics drafts available elsewhere. So while the “early mix” recording tells us that the music was mostly written during or prior to 1970, we don’t know when the lyrics were written. All we know for sure is that it was sometime between that 1970 recording and the 1973 Red Rose Speedway sessions.

It’s possible Paul finished the lyrics sometime during the RAM sessions after the “early mix” recording. It’s also possible that lyrics that were written during the RAM sessions were subsequently rewritten when the song became part of Red Rose Speedway rather than the Rupert the Bear project.

But it seems most likely that, having rejected the song for the Rupert the Bear project, “Little Lamb Dragonfly” sat unfinished until Paul returned to it in 1973 for Red Rose Speedway, when the song was brought back into the studio. Here’s why—

As we already talked about in the Playlist Commentary, Paul and John’s songs tend to follow the emotional arc of their relationship with each other, and that in turn makes it likely that “Little Lamb Dragonfly” was written for and to John — which is, of course, why we’re talking about it in the first place. I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone else — in 1970 or ever, really — that Paul would be referring to when he sings “you and I still have a ways to go” as he does on the “early mix,” especially given the plaintive quality of the melody and his vocal line.

Assuming that the song is for John, the part of the lyric to pay attention to relative to date of composition is the verses referring to the absent lover having “been away too long” and the plea to “come on home and make it right” —

Dragonfly you've been away too long

How did two rights make a wrong

Since you've gone I never know

I go on but I miss you so

In my heart I feel the pain

Keeps coming back again

and

Dragonfly the years ahead will show

How little we really know

Since you've gone it's never right

They go on, the lonely nights

Come on home and make it right

Everything about “Little Lamb Dragonfly,” including Paul’s obvious pain and longing as he sings it, makes it abundantly clear that he’s writing autobiographically, about a specific person. This isn’t a generic “heartbreak” song. And as we also talked about in the Playlist Commentary, while the song may have been inspired by the baby lamb of the title, as Paul claims, nothing else about the lyric has anything to do with any kind of farm animal. So, again, as we talked about at length in the Playlist Commentary, it’s hard to see who else lyrics like “how did two rights make a wrong” and “come on home and make it right” would be referring to, other than John.

The question is, then, when were these verses written?

John was still living in England during the RAM sessions in 1970. If Paul finished the lyrics to “Little Lamb Dragonfly” during that time period, and if the song is written for John, then the reference to having been “away for too long” and the “come on home and make it right” are metaphorical — Paul calling John back to him not so much geographically, but rather personally, possibly romantically, and certainly creatively.

But if — again, assuming the song is for John — Paul finished the lyrics to “Little Lamb Dragonfly” after John moved to New York in September 1971, then the theme of separation by distance caused by estrangement and the call to come home become literal as well as metaphorical. And this more literal meaning beneath the more metaphorical meaning suggests that the full lyric was likely written after John’s move to New York, when John and Paul are an ocean apart (and still, according to Paul, not speaking outside of song). So it’s likely that Paul would have finished the song in 1973, during the Red Rose Speedway sessions.

This timing is supported by a 2001 recollection from Wings drummer Denny Seiwell, who played on the Red Rose Speedway sessions —

“We had recorded [“Little Lamb Dragonfly”] during RAM, and it wasn’t finished. One day we were over at Trident Studios, Paul was sitting at the piano, and he was saying, ‘I never really finished this.’ and I helped him finish a little bit, but I wouldn't call it co-writing... (sic) but I wrote some background harmonies.” (2)

Denny Siewell played on RAM, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. Of the three, only Red Rose Speedway was (partially) recorded at Trident Studios. So Siewell’s memory here is almost certainly of the Red Rose Speedway sessions.

All of which is why, while we can’t know for sure based on the information available, it seems likely that the lyrics for “Little Lamb Dragonfly” were written in 1973.

We might get more information on the creation of “Little Lamb Dragonfly” in November, when the 500+ page “Wings” book is released. For now, what I should have written in the Playlist Commentary Rabbit Hole is that the lyric, rather than the song as a whole, was likely written in 1973. I’ve made that small change in the text of the episode, but I haven’t edited, as per usual, the audio version.

So thank you, listener, for the question and the opportunity to clarify, and also the opportunity to revisit one of the most beautiful and poignant of all Paul’s (possible) ‘John songs.’ Given their reconciliation not long after, it’s possible “Little Lamb Dragonfly” helped make that reconciliation happen.

Before we wrap up this week, one more quick answer to another question—

One of Beautiful Possibility’s much-appreciated volunteer researchers asked why I don’t include page numbers in citations in footnotes. The answer is that page numbers in modern research are tricky. Different re-issues of books have different page numbers, and there is often a difference between a UK and a US version. And if the source is a digital book or article, that makes it even harder because digital sources usually have no page numbers at all, or page numbers that are format-dependent. So a page number in a footnote is, more often than not, useless, especially in light of the ability to digitally search for a character string.

As always, you can email questions about Beautiful Possibility to my fab research assistant Robyn. I’m behind in answering those questions, my apologies — but I’ll continue to work my way through them in weekly updates here as I research and outline Part Two.

Until next week, when we might talk about AMM.

Peace, love and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

(1) This is something songwriters tend to do while they're working on the music for the song and haven’t finished the lyrics yet. Paul did this most famously with “scrambled eggs, ooh baby, I love your legs” as a placeholder for the final lyrics of “Yesterday.” John did the same — an example is the “Yellow Submarine” songwriter’s worktape on the Super Deluxe release of Revolver, where he sings, “in the town where I was born, no one cared, no one cared” over and over as a placeholder for the lyrics still to be written.

(2) Andrew Croft, Interview with Denny Seiwell, Beatlelogy, vol 3, no 5, 2001.

NOTE: Denny Laine, as per usual, also says he contributed lyrics—

“[Paul] plays us a song and as he plays I’m into something already. He picks up on that and advises me as to what he sees in it. It’s even getting into that way songwriting now. I helped him with the words on Little Lamb Dragonfly and we will probably write a lot more songs together in the future.” (Denny Laine — A Special Musical Gift, Record Mirror, August 11, 1973.)

Since, also as per usual, Denny’s claims about what parts of the lyrics he “helped with” are vague and since we don’t have anything more tangible to go on and since Paul has not mentioned any co-writing with Denny on this song, and given the obviously personal and John-themed nature of the lyrics relative to Paul’s situation at the time, I think we’d be wise to take Denny’s claim here as the same level of vague exaggeration as his claim to have written “No Words” (discussed in detail in episode 1:5 (He Said He Said Part One).

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8-3-25

Hi everyone,

This week, I was going to answer to a question that came in about “Little Lamb Dragonfly,” but we’ll need to do that next week, because —

In doing some tidying up, I discovered that the footnotes for episode 1:4 “Are You Afraid Or Is It True?” were out of sequence (to say the least). It took me the better part of the working day to sort it all out, but the footnotes are fixed now.

My deepest apologies for anyone who was thrown by that problem, which is presumably a fair number of you, since “Are You Afraid Or Is It True?” is the most read/listened to episode.

This sort of problem happened in part because I was still finishing writing Part One of Beautiful Possibility whe nI started recording and publishing it — how hard could it be… I’m almost done with the writing…. surely I can start recording/publishing it while I finish… And as a result, without a second pair of eyes to proofread, there wasn’t always time to go back and double-check things like footnotes — which I’m now working my way through doing, albeit slowly.

As it usually is with ventures like this, the learning curve was steep with Part One — and thank you to all of you for being patient while I learn to navigate said curve. The good news is, lesson learned — Part Two will (hopefully) get itself recorded and published only when the writing is 100% complete, so I’ll (hopefully) have time to check those things before they’re published.

But I don’t want to leave you with nothing other than fixed footnotes this week, so here’s one of my favourite pieces of research, from ‘60s impresario Simon Napier-Bell.

“So much of [The Beatles’ appeal] had depended on that fantastic intimacy they projected in their stage act which made all the kids in the audience long to know what they were saying to each other, what secrets were behind those intimately exchanged glances. But the main secret The Beatles shared was how four tough working-class lads had come to accept the benefits of acting coquettishly for a wealthy, middle-class homosexual. People said their image was that of the boy next door, but it wasn’t. To anyone who’d seen it before, their image was instantly identifiable. It was the cool, cocky brashness of a kid who’s found a sugar-daddy and got himself set up in Mayfair.”

There are, of course, many, many things to unpack about this quote, and we’ll get to that in Part Two.

For here, notice his reference to the collective longing to know the meaning of The Beatles’ mysterious “intimately exchanged glances.” With this reference, Napier-Bell is — consciously or not, it’s hard to tell with him — acknowledging what we talked about at length in the Rabbit Hole on how the possibility of John and Paul as lovers gives us what seems to be, so far, the only coherent explanation for Beatlemania.

As for the book You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, take Napier Bell’s stories for what you will — but I think it’s one of the best reads in all of BeatleBookLand. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure, I don’t think you’ll regret hunting down a copy.

Till next week.

Peace, love, and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

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7-27-25

Hi everyone,

I’m in the midst of researching Part Two of Beautiful Possibility, and also wrestling with an especially stubborn chapter of “A Complicated Passion.” All of it is tortuously slow going, because summer is my absolute worst season for doing any kind of creative or intellectual work. This isn’t because I’m distracted with fun in the sun — quite the opposite. Summer in New England certainly has its charms, but neither my brain nor my creative spirit thrives in bright light. There’s a reason most of Part One of Beautiful Possibility was written in the deep winter.

This is (mostly) why I'm way behind on questions. So let’s see if I can address one of them this week.

More than one person has asked or commented about my voice. These voice-related questions/comments — I confess — tend to get me a bit grouchy. As much as they’re intended (I think) as compliments, I’d much prefer people focus on and respond to the content of Beautiful Possibility. And I’m somewhat worried that my voice has become something of a distraction from that content.

But it is what it is, so—

Yes, it’s 100% really me, no gimmicks, no tricks, and absolutely positively no AI.

I tried with AI, I really did. I didn’t want to be like the luddites who booed Dylan when he went electric at the ‘65 Newport Folk Festival. But AI is in no way the same thing as plugging into an amplifier. Putting aside the ethical implications, my relationship with AI ended when ChatGPT insisted that Yoko Ono was John’s high school English teacher and no amount of persuasion on my part could dissuade it.(1)

Not being a visual artist outside of photography and basic graphic design, I did experiment a bit with AI graphics for the initial announcement of Beautiful Possibility. But that was a one-time experience — sterile and unsatisfying, like making love in a sex laboratory. I’ve left that graphic on The Abbey, despite being constantly tempted to delete it, as a testament to the failed relationship between me and any kind of AI, until such time as it becomes Data on Star Trek.

But I digress. The point is, my voice — on The Abbey or anywhere else you might hear it — is my real voice, full stop. And always will be.

That isn’t to say, though, that I just hit “record” on my phone and leave it at that. That’s a bit more to getting good audio, even when a real voice is involved.

I have a simple-but-effective home recording studio set-up with a good Neumann microphone, a shock mount and pop-screen. And I do some basic audio sweetening — removing breath noise, softening “P” pops and hard consonants, and adding a bit of EQ. But that’s just the basic things that that anyone with any kind of rudimentary recording knowledge would do. (btw, I might be looking for someone to help with the post-production part of things for Part Two. If you’re interested, email Robyn and let her know.)

Most of what you’re hearing, though, is probably because I’m also a singer with a decent amount of recording studio experience, mostly in Nashville. And it’s also the result of a lifetime of public speaking experience, beginning when I was in junior high school and up to the present day.

This isn’t to say that I’m “performing,” when I record for The Abbey. At least I try not to. But if you have any kind of serious onstage or recording experience, you probably know that being faced with a microphone tends to trigger a subtle psychological shift from "everyday voice” into “studio voice.” It’s not necessarily a conscious shift. It’s just the result of habit and experience.

And finally, you’ve probably noticed by now that whether it’s spoken or written, I have a deep respect for the power of language. To speak aloud especially is to engage in the ancient art of spellcasting, which literally means to affect change by speaking words in a prescribed sequence. That means all writers, singers, poets, storytellers and broadcasters are, whether they intend or not, sorcerers with the (literally) awesome power to change the world in large and small ways.

I don’t take that power lightly — especially given that the mission of The Abbey is to restore the lifeforce love to the sacred story that forms the foundational mythology of our world. There’s a lot at stake here. When I record a piece for The Abbey, it’s not something to be done casually. I want to get it as right as I can, in every way that I can.

So I hope that answers the questions. And again, as lovely as it is that most of you seem to find my voice reasonably pleasant to listen to, I’d be far happier with a focus on the content of Beautiful Possibility and why it matters so much that we heal this story. I hope my voice and the care I take in recording helps convey that message. But it’s the message that matters.

Until next week.

Peace, love, and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

PS Questions can, as always, be emailed to Robyn. I’ll get to all of them eventually.

1. BTW, the unreliability of AI — along with a commitment to the sanctity of human creativity over tech — is why my fab research assistant Robyn is banned from using AI in any way at all relative to research. AI simply can’t get anywhere near the research standards for Beautiful Possibility and this story already has enough trouble with the truth without introducing AI (which is fed on the distorted narrative) into it.

   I obviously have no standing to impose the same ban on those of you who are generous enough to volunteer your research time, but I do hope that your research, too, is human rather than AI. Even beyond its inaccuracies, AI is fundamentally counter to the spirit of Beautiful Possibility, which celebrates the power of lifeforce love as the creation force of the universe — something AI is not capable of feeling.

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7-20-25

Hi everyone,

I’m behind — way behind — on answering questions, apologies. This week, I had planned to, with no small reluctance, answer the questions about... sigh... my voice (preview: yes, that’s really me). But then Paul’s tour schedule for the remainder of 2025 landed in my inbox.

Now, as we’ve talked about before, for my own sanity, I deliberately don’t pay much attention — unless absolutely necessary — to what the wider world says about anything Beatles-related (or more or less anything else, at this point, really). But I expect there are quite a few people on various forums, etc. suggesting with varying degrees of politeness that maybe it’d be prudent for Paul to take it a bit easier, maybe ease up on the live touring, or at least schedule a bit less ambitiously. Maybe (I’m guessing some are suggesting) do some smaller acoustic shows like Bruce Springsteen. Or maybe spend more time in the studio, focus on burnishing the legacy with the remixes, or maybe (and this is me now) consider finishing up some of those maybe-probably-gotta-be-some-in-the-vault unrecorded Lennon/McCartney songs that are still awaiting the Macca touch.

If you’re thinking that or know anyone who is, now might be a good time to offer the following in response, relative to what we talked about in Beautiful Possibility, and especially in “Ecce Cor Meum,” the final episode of Part One—

It’s possible that every time Paul steps onstage at one of those massive arena concerts (that were invented because of the Fabs, remember), every time he’s reminded so directly and viscerally of the enduring power of his music, every time he feels the rush of being Paul McCartney on the world stage, the wound inflicted by distorted “John/more vs Paul/less” narrative is healed just a little bit more. Maybe every time he steps off that stage, he feels the pain just a little bit less.

And even more than that — to quote that final episode — it’s also likely that part of why Paul seems so reluctant to wrap up the tour is that every show is one more time he gets to sing onstage with John. Because for that minute, as he put it when I saw him at Fenway in 2022, they’re together again.

The outpouring of lifeforce love that Paul experiences (and channels) every time he stands onstage, re-baptized in the adulation of tens of thousands, is as essential to health and life as is “taking it easy.” Probably more so, if you’re Paul McCartney.

So — to quote another world-class wordsmith — if music be the food of love, play on, Macca, play on.

Until next week, when I promise we’ll get back to answering questions.

Peace, love and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

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7-13-25

Hi everyone,

For those of you who suspect that maybe I made up this whole predictive mythology business that frames Part One of Beautiful Possibility, here’s pioneering psychologist/mythologist Rollo May—

“We first are surprised to note the curious phenomenon that myths precede discovery. Medieval Europe did not “want” a new world in the centuries before Columbus set forth in his three tiny ships in 1492. The Vikings under Leif Ericson had come to America in the eleventh century, and the Irish had made several trips to North America before them. But these discoveries were largely ignored. Medieval people were concerned with their own inner world and with heaven, the world above, not a new world like their present one. It took an inner change in Europe before the people could let themselves see and experience a new world. A new mythic world had first to be born; it was then time to discover a new outer world as well. We note that people’s myth is decisive, rather than bare historical fact, in when they let themselves see and not see. It is not by its history that the mythology of a nation is determined, but conversely, its history is determined by its mythology. This reminds one of Virgil’s saying, ‘We make our destiny by our choice of the gods.’ “— The Cry for Myth, Rollo May, 1991.

So much good research I didn’t get to use for Part One….

If you’re looking to understand more about how mythology tends to shape history far more than history shapes mythology, The Cry for Myth is a good place to start.

Also, a reminder that there’s a new chapter of A Complicated Passion posted. This one is, I’m told, much better to listen to than to read.

Love Among The Ruins: Penny Lane

Peace, love and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

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7-8-25

Happy belated John Met Paul Day, everyone.

I’m sorry to be late posting. It was a stressful holiday weekend and things got away from me. But…

For those of you not yet subscribed and receiving emails to let you know about such things, there is a new chapter of A Complicated Passion posted—

Love Among The Ruins: Penny Lane

For those of you who are primarily here for the love story, despite this being a different project from Beautiful Possibility, the new chapter does indeed relate directly to the John and Paul as lovers narrative. And it also directly relates to the day that John met Paul. So I thought it an appropriate piece to publish in honour of July 6.

Also, I’ve been told that the audio version is more fun than the written. So you might want to listen instead of reading this one, even if you’re generally more inclined towards reading.

More next week.

Peace, love, and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

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6-22-25

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone,

As I mentioned last week, I'm going to try to post at least a short update every week — usually Sunday or Monday. But please don't hold me to either the frequency or the day of the week. I’ve proven myself unreliable at long-term posting on a regular schedule. And as I also mentioned, these updates will be very scruffy — and that you can hold me to. More precariously, they won’t be vetted by a second pair of eyes, as everything formally posted on The Abbey is. So it’s likely I’ll get myself into trouble doing these updates — at least that part will be good theatre.

Anyroad, things are looking good for being able to post a new chapter of A Complicated Passion in the next week or two. As I mentioned in the Part One Wrap-Up, that project is also dear to me and unlike Beautiful Possibility, it has the notable advantage of being publishable (which helps with the credibility of The Abbey). So I’m going to try to make some serious progress on it through the summer, while I continue to outline and research Part 2 of Beautiful Possibility.

The most important thing to say about that research is a big thank you! to those of you who have emailed offering to help.

As fab as my fab research assistant Robyn is, the tragic reality is that I simply do not have the budget just now to pay for the research this series requires, and there is a lot still to be done for Part 2. So if Beautiful Possibility is going to make it into the world in any reasonable length of time (and by “reasonable,” I mean sooner than the three years it took for Part One), I'm going to need help.

Part of the research that needs done is the In Search Of list that I posted a few weeks ago. To make that list easier to access, I’ve given it its own page on The Abbey, and you’ll find that link in the menu bar. I’ll keep it updated with new additions, as well as updates when items are found.

And on that note, I want to thank Sofia who has found two of the lost-long In Search Of quotes within a week — the one in which Denny Laine Lane acknowledges that everybody in the industry knew that Wings was Paul's band, rather than a “band” proper—

AC: Does Wings deserve to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

DL: No, because Wings was never a band. I’m sorry, it wasn’t. It was a Paul McCartney project. You have to know that. We were known as Paul McCartney & Wings, but we weren’t actually a band. We weren’t like the Moody Blues, all equal members. It was Paul’s band. That’s the end of it. Although I stuck around for all those years, it wasn’t a group. In the public eye it was, but in business, we weren’t. It was the Paul McCartney project. That’s why he got inducted as an individual artist. Wings is part of his induction, separately to the Beatles, actually. (“Denny Laine Saves The World,” Austin Chronicle, April 26, 2018)

This is not, BTW, a bad thing, though Denny obviously sees it differently. Paul McCartney obviously had every right and standing in the world to have his own band after the breakup. There are complex psychological reasons why Paul seems to have felt he needed a band rather than continuing to present himself as a solo artist — many of them not that different from John’s reasons for collaborating with Yoko, which we’ll talk about in a future episode.

Sofia also found the quote that I very much wanted for the Entangled Form Rabbit Hole, in which John acknowledges that he writes the way he writes because of his long-term partnership with Paul—

“I copped money for Family Way, the film music that Paul wrote while I was out of the country making How I Won The War,” Lennon remembers, laughing. “I said to Paul ‘you’d better keep that,’ and he said ‘don’t be soft.’ It’s the concept. We inspired each other so much in the early days. We write how we write now because of each other. Paul was there for five or ten years, and I wouldn’t write like I write now if it weren’t for Paul, and he wouldn’t write like he does if it weren’t for me.” (John Lennon interview, Melody Maker, April 19, 1969.)

Note also John sharing with the press, even in 1969 when they were estranged, that Paul called him “soft” to suggest that John shouldn’t share in the profits from The Family Way. This is Paul - and John both acknowledging that even music written “entirely” by the other person is in a meaningful way written by both of them. It is, imo, one of the most beautiful quotes in the body of Beautiful Possibility research.

Both of those quotes and their footnotes have now been incorporated into the written version of Beautiful Possibility, though not into the audio version as corrections/additions to the audio would be time-prohibitive at this point.

So thank you again to Sophia. I'm starting to hope she might be able to find the original source of John’s “Paul was the first love of my life” quote that has for decades eluded not just me, but the entire Beatles studies counterculture, as well as the mainstream (not that the mainstream is especially interested in finding it, mind you). No pressure though. ;-)

In terms of sources for in Search Of quotes, Robyn and I found an archive of rare Beatles interviews dating from 1962 all the way to the present. And it’s likely some of those quotes are in those interviews. Volunteer researcher Ruth has been working her way through that archive looking for those quotes, as well as other things, for a while now. But she is understandably a little bit burned out. So if somebody would like to take over that project, email Robyn and let her know. And thank you to Ruth for having made a big dent in that project.

I, meanwhile, have been working my way through Ken Womack’s two-volume biography of George Martin.

This might surprise some of you, since I don’t normally read biographies cover-to-cover because of all of the biases and distortions we talked about at length in Part One of Beautiful Possibility. Not only is it usually not a good use of time, but it’s also hard on my nervous system.

But in this case, I thought perhaps I could make an exception, since (I hoped) the distorted narrative would not be a big factor in a biography of George Martin. And also, I didn’t detect much distorted narrative bias in Womack’s Mal Evans biography. But alas, my optimism was misplaced.

Much of the biography of George Martin is devoted to a detailed, day-by-day, track-by-track account of the recording of every Beatles song. And while many of John’s songs are detailed as (not inaccurately) as a genre-bending musical or lyrical breakthrough, Paul’s songs are virtually always written off with clinical and perfunctory detachment. And if their artistic merit is acknowledged at all, it’s virtually always to talk about how important John’s (George’s or George Martin’s) contribution was to making them what they were.

I’ve only read through Revolver, so maybe that pattern changes with Pepper. But even if things improve, that still means Womack has dismissed as artistically inconsequential every song primarily composed by Paul through 1966, including “Yesterday,” “Here There and Everywhere,” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

I’m not going to take up our time with specific examples, because by now y’all know the score. But if there’s any doubt about Womack’s bias, he reveals himself in the following quote—

Yet at the same time, “one felt under pressure when doing one of George’s songs.” It was as if Martin were unduly concerned about giving his principal and most accomplished songwriters as much space as they required to develop their ideas, yet he also recognized that Harrison was all too cognizant of his place in the pecking order. Like all great coaches, Martin didn’t want his third-string player to feel slighted at not playing at the top of his game, which was clearly on the upswing in early 1966. (Kenneth Womack, Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin, The Later Years, 1966–2016, Chicago Review Press, 2018.)

We’ll wait to talk about the situation relative to George’s songwriting when we get there in the story. What caught my attention in this passage is the phrase, “third string player.” Because if Womack is calling George Harrison the Beatles’ third string composer, then by definition, there must be a second string composer — and guess who Womack thinks that is?

This is, once again, a biographer inserting their own “John/more vs. Paul/less” bias into the narrative where it doesn’t belong. Sound Pictures is meant to be a biography of George Martin. But Womack’s “third string” comment doesn’t seem to reflect George Martin’s point of view. Here’s just one quick example of what Martin said in his own autobiography—

I must emphasise that it was a team effort. Without my arrangements and scoring, very many of the records would not have sounded as they do. Whether they would have been any better, I cannot say. They might have been. That is not modesty on my part; it is an attempt to give a factual picture of the relationship. But equally, there is no doubt in my mind that the main talent of that whole era came from Paul and John. George, Ringo and myself were subsidiary talents. We were not five equal people artistically: two were very strong, and the other three were also-rans. In varying degrees those three could have been other people. (George Martin, All You Need Is Ears, St. Martin’s Press, 1979.)

So I think it’s pretty clear we can add Ken Womack to the running list of biographers whose research and writing has been — perhaps subconsciously, but nonetheless — distorted by the “John/more vs. Paul/less” narrative. And notice that Sound Pictures was published in 2018. The “John/more vs Paul/less” distorted narrative is still very much alive and doing its destructive work.

This is a major problem for all the reasons we talked about in Part One, and especially in episodes 1:8/1:9.

It’s a particular problem because Ken Womack seems to have taken over from Mark Lewisohn as the quasi-official, blessed-by-Apple Beatles authority. This begs the question of why Apple can’t seem to anoint a writer who isn’t under the thrall of the distorted breakup narrative. And the answer is because presumably they haven't found one. (And on that note, here's a good reminder to please keep sharing Beautiful Possibility.).

The more personal reason why it’s unfortunate that Womack is compromised by the distorted narrative is that he’s one of the writers who was kind and helpful to me during the researching of Part One. Sadly, I’m guessing those days are over.

That’s it for this week. Thank you again to those of you who are reading, listening, sharing and subscribing. This is how we put a stop to this kind of thing. This is how we heal the story.

Together.

Peace, love, and strawberry fields,

Faith ❤️

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6-14-25

As promised in the Wrap-Up/Q&A, I’ll continue to answer questions as they come in. Apologies that I’m a little behind in doing that, as well as answering emails overall. It’s taking me a bit longer than expected to recover from midwifing Part One into the world.

I’m going to try to post something here weekly, though not necessarily always on the same day. It might not always be much, but something. Everything posted on the “News” page will always be scruffy.

Here’s a question that came in a while back—

If Paul’s regret is that he never told John he loved him, doesn’t that mean that the love between them was unrequited?

Since we dealt with Paul’s often-expressed regret extensively throughout Part One of Beautiful Possibility, and specifically in episodes 1:5/1:6 and in the Playlist Commentary Rabbit Hole, I’m guessing the person who asked this hadn’t yet listened/read that far. So my first answer is, “keep listening/reading.” But there’s more that we could say beyond what we’ve already talked about, so let’s do that here.

First, let’s clarify our terms. “Unrequited,” “unconsummated” and “un-acted on” are three terms often confused in the discussion of the lovers possibility, but they each have very different meanings.

“Unrequited” means one person has romantic/erotic feelings that are not reciprocated/felt by the other person. “Unconsummated” means that two lovers might acknowledge and express their love/desire for one another in other ways, but haven’t expressed it through literal sexual intercourse. And “un-acted on” is when both lovers are aware of their mutual attraction/love, but for whatever reason, haven’t physically expressed (or perhaps even acknowledged) that attraction/love at all.

I think a case could be made that “unconsummated” has little to no relevance in our modern world in any relationship regardless of gender configuration — it’s a narrow and somewhat antiquated definition of sex that was probably invented for legal reasons. But either way, we’re not going to talk about whether or not John and Paul’s love for one another was “consummated,” because that kind of speculation falls outside the ethical boundaries of Beautiful Possibility. It would involve speculating on the intimate details of a possible romantic relationship between them, and those details are for Paul and John — and only Paul and John — to know.

As for “unrequited,” we talked at length throughout Part One about the abundance of research, as well as multiple lines of a priori analysis, that suggest that the romantic/erotic love between John and Paul was mutual, whether acted on or not. It’s evident throughout their music and their other published art, and in what they’ve said about their relationship in interview. We also talked at length in episode 1:4 about their body language in photographs and films, including all of those long, lingering gazes and the physical closeness they demonstrated even in public. And in episode 1:9, we talked at length about how Paul’s projects over the past few years seem to be offering us a peek inside his “shoebox of memories” of his relationship with John.

So I suspect what this question is really asking is whether Paul’s regret at feeling he couldn't tell John he loved him indicates that their mutual love and desire wasn’t acted on. And again, Part One deals extensively with the credibility of the possibility that they did, in fact, act on their mutual love/desire for one another, and we’ll continue to explore that in Part Two.

As for Paul’s regret, given the frenzied blur of Beatlemania and the haze of mind-altering drugs throughout most of their relationship, the passage of time and the self-doubt created by the distorted breakup narrative, it’s easy to see how Paul might well have said “I love you” and simply not recall having done so. This is probably in part why, in the wake of John’s murder, there are multiple stories from various sources of Paul seeking reassurance that John loved him.

But counter to his regret, Paul seems to have at least one strong memory of having told John he loved him—

“We were in Key West in 1964. We were due to fly into Jacksonville, in Florida, and do a concert there, but we’d been diverted because of a hurricane. We stayed there for a couple of days, not knowing what to do except, like, drink. I remember drinking way too much, and having one of those talking-to-the-toilet bowl evenings. It was during that night, when we’d all stayed up way too late, and we got so pissed that we ended up crying - about, you know, how wonderful we were, and how much we loved each other, even though we’d never said anything. It was a good one: you never say anything like that. Especially if you’re a Northern Man.” (Paul McCartney interview, Esquire, Alex Bilmes, July 2, 2015.) (1)

Paul’s memory of “the night we cried” is important enough in their relationship story that it features in “Here Today,” his official “love song for John.” And “the night we cried” is also a story he’s told many times in various permutations in interview and in his published memoirs. And we also know Paul said “I love you” in song, even before John’s murder — for example, in 1973’s “No Words,” which we focused on at length in episode 1:5 and which may have been key to their Lost Weekend reconciliation.

But even if it’s still somehow true that Paul never said the actual words “I love you” to John, that doesn’t tell us much, if anything, about whether or not they acted on that love.

I can speak from personal experience when I say that it’s entirely possible to have an intense, long-term romantic relationship and never say “I love you.” Looking back on my own love relationships, one of which lasted over a decade, in none of those relationships do I have a clear memory of either myself or the other person saying “I love you.”

That doesn’t mean I (and they) didn’t say it — maybe I, too, just don’t remember. But it’s highly likely I didn’t say it, because (like Paul) I have a difficult time sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings. So I can easily believe that I‘ve never said the actual words in my own relationships, but instead have attempted to show my feelings in other, less difficult, ways. Whether I’ve succeeded or not is, of course, a whole other question.

Despite his memories of “the night we cried” and the many ways in which Paul clearly seems to have shown John that he loved him, Paul seems to have similar doubts relative to John. Those doubts are reflected most explicitly in Paul’s 1989 song, “This One,” which Paul has specifically talked about in interview in the context of his relationship with John—

Did I ever take you in my arms,

Look you in the eye, tell you that I do,

Did I ever open up my heart

And let you look inside.

If I never did it, I was only waiting

For a better moment that didn't come.

There never could be a better moment

Than this one, this one.(2)

Notice in “This One” that Paul’s not saying he didn’t do or say these things. He’s asking himself (and his beloved) for reassurance that he did — which is a common reaction to sudden loss. Grieving the unexpected death of a loved one often includes feeling haunted by a fear that our beloved died without truly knowing how much we loved them. And as a result, we often to focus on all the things we wish we’d said and done better while they were still with us. We often long for just one more chance to say “I love you” — as Paul probably had with Linda, but didn’t have with John. And because grief distorts memory, we often think we didn’t do things that we actually did just fine.

Given everything we’ve talked about in Part One relative to John and Paul’s shared history, this seems a needless worry on Paul’s part, but it’s also a very human one. But that kind of longing and regret doesn’t mean those words were never said, or that the love wasn’t mutually understood to be there. And it certainly doesn’t mean that love wasn’t acted on. Only that we’re afraid that we didn’t communicate it well enough or say it often enough or in the right ways.

There’s more to notice here, too.

As we talked about several times throughout Part One, Paul is quite careful in saying that what he regrets is that he “couldn’t” tell John he loved him, rather that he didn’t. And that’s an important difference.

Much of Paul and John’s relationship took place during a time when same sex love was illegal in the US and the UK. And even after it was decriminalized in 1967 in the UK and state-by-state in the US beginning in 1962, the overwhelming mainstream public attitude towards same sex love was still that it was a psychological disorder that required psychiatric treatment.

We’ve already talked a bit in Part One about how it seems likely that what John wanted most in the world was to be able to love and be loved by Paul openly, rather than in secret. And Paul’s regret relative to not having been able to tell John he loved him might also relate to those cultural prejudices that made it difficult and even impossible for him to give John what he (and perhaps both of them) most wanted in that “better world” Paul wrote about in his 1981 song “Tug of War” — a world where they could “stand on top of the mountain with our flag unfurled.”

December 8, 1980, stole the most direct and important chance for Paul and John to do that. But even today, it’s not too late to give Paul the chance to love John openly. As we talked about at length in episode 1:9, acknowledging the credibility of the lovers possibility matters because it fully restores Paul’s right to tell his story (if there is a story to tell), and it restores Paul’s right to express his love for John for the romantic/erotic love for what it might more truly have been. And the best way to help restore that right and give John what he wanted most in the world is to counter the distorted narrative and spread the word about the credibility of the lovers possibility.

I’ll continue to answer questions here, and I’m happy for this to turn into an ongoing Q&A, so feel free to send questions to Robyn. They won’t all get this long of an answer, but I’ll do my best. Please try to send questions only after having listened to or read Beautiful Possibility in its entirety. You’ll probably find many of your questions answered in Part One, and that saves me having to repeat answers, which means that Part Two gets written more quickly.

In other news, thank you to those of you who have reached out and offered to help with researching Beautiful Possibility. If you’d like to help, please feel free to email Robyn about that as well.

Thank you to all of you who are sharing Beautiful Possibility — that matters so much to healing this story.

PS — I really need to get some kind of confirmation on whether Dot’s pregnancy was in the spring of 1960 or 1961. Sources conflict, probably because memory is fuzzy. If anyone has info to share or wants to track that down, I’d be most grateful.

FOOTNOTES:

(1) We already talked extensively in Part One about the more complex masculinity that The Beatles role modeled as part of sparking the Love Revolution — they were in most ways not in any meaningful way “Northern men,” aka men who adopted traditional “hard” masculinity. And we’ll talk more about that in Part Two.

(2) Paul McCartney, interview with Bernard Goldberg for 48 Hours (January 1990) —

Q: One of the new songs, “This One”, is it about a marriage?

Paul: A relationship. Yeah.

Q: And about, not expressing emotions and feelings?

Paul: You get those moments, late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think: “I hope I tell her I love her, enough”. And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [brusquely] “Love you, goodbye!”, and so on. Life’s like that, there’s never enough time to tell them, like your parents for instance, oh god just what you meant to me. You always think, “I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day”. Something like John, for instance. He died.

I was lucky, the last few weeks, months that he was alive, we’d managed to get our relationship back on track. And we were talking and having really good conversations. But George actually didn't get his relationship right. They were arguing right up to the end. Which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, right now. Take this moment to say, “I love you”."

(NOTE Paul’s initial “yeah,” confirming, yes, marriage, and then also correcting/equating “marriage” to “relationship” and then using “relationship” relative to John in his follow-up answer — thus in the way of a master wordsmith practiced at sharing his innermost thoughts only indirectly, Paul seems to be implictly telling us “This One” is indeed about his relationshp with John.

There are other reasons that also point to “This One” being a song about John.

There’s the obvious theme of regret/difficulty expressing love that Paul talks about in the quote above, and which seems to be a “tell” in Paul’s songs that he’s writing about John.

Then there’s the official video — or rather, one of the two official videos — which has an Indian theme and features images and iconography that reference their trip to the ashram in 1968. (We'll talk more about why references to India point strongly to John when we get there in the story.)

There’s also the McCartney-esque wordplay of “this one” and “this swan”—

The swan is gliding above the ocean

A god is riding upon his back

How calm the water and bright the rainbow

Fade this swan to black

Birds, of course, feature prominently throughout Paul’s songwriting. And while I'm not by no means an expert in bird mating behaviour, most of us know that swans famously mate for life. And more than that, notice the final line of the “swan” verse, in which the swan “fades to black,” indicating separation by death, leaving the surviving swan to grief and remember and regret (and yes, the rainbow reference, too, which, if I have the history right, became a symbol for same sex love in the late ‘70s).

The reference to a god might refer to a meditation experience in India or a bit of symbolic mythological lore that they picked up while there. Or the “god” reference might refer back to Paul’s story of the first time he and John tripped together and spent the night at Cavendish staring into each other’s eyes. Paul has shared that during that acid trip, he saw John as the emperor of the universe — which is, essentially, seeing John as God. (There is more we could say about the “swan” verse relative to that possibility, but it crosses into the private details of their possible love affair, so I’ll leave you to notice that on your own.)

And then there’s the bridge —

What opportunities did we allow to flow by

Feeling like the timing wasn't quite right?

What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm?

Couldn't I have given you a better life?

— which seems fairly clearly to reference, once again, regret, but also the turbulent emotions and many impulsive/ill-considered choices by both of them during the breakup. And also, perhaps, Paul’s regret at not having been able to offer John the public commitment that John seems to have longed for (as we’ll get to in future parts of Beautiful Possibility).

Finally, I should mention that there is an interpretation of “This One” (particularly given the India-themed video and the “swan” verse) that suggests that “what happened in India” is that John and Paul acted for the first time on their mutual love for one another, and that’s what broke them up, and thus by extension, what broke the band up.

This is a somewhat credible interpretation (though only somewhat, given that Paul is asking for reassurance, rather than saying that he never did these things). And that interpretation is supported by some of the research, including most notably the “microphone conversation” in Get Back that we talked about briefly in episode 1:9. So that their love was acted on for the first and/or only timein India is certainly possible, but as we explored at length in Part One and will continue to explore in parts two and three, the overall body of research doesn’t seem to support that theory.

We’ll get to all of that — respectfully and without detail — in future parts of Beautiful Possibility.

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5-29-25

Hi all, I’m back from the monestary (which yes, was a literal thing and not a metaphor), and I’ll probably talk on The Red Abbess about how spending four days with only the company of my own thoughts as a way to decompress was perhaps not the bestest idea I’ve ever had…. For here, I’m posting the list of specific research I’m currently in search of, in case anyone either wants to lend a hand searching, or simply has any of these to hand already—

In Search of...

I’m looking for the original, primary sources for these quotes — meaning not quoted/referenced by a second source, but the original interview in which they were said. If anyone has them, I’d be deeply grateful if you’d email them to Robyn.

• primary source of Chris Salewicz’s mention in his bio of Paul: “In later years John would admit that Paul had been the first love of his life, and Yoko the second.” (I’m guessing this is something John said to Harry Nilsson)

• Confirmation on the year of Dot’s pregnancy. 60 or 61? Sources conflict and it’s important.

• John once said something like (not verbatim): I write the way I write because of Paul, and he writes the way he writes because of me.

• John re: “In My Life” (or “If I Fell”) that includes something like "written for someone I was in love with at the time." (not the version in Sheff)

• John: Paul and I know each other on a lot of levels very few people know about. (not the reference in the Sheff interview)

• Brian Epstein: I have the mentality of a teenage girl. (this one is ubiquitous, yet somehow I’ve lost it...)

• George Martin: “It was like a tug of war. Imagine two people pulling on a rope smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond.” This is also ubiquitous, but it’s always quoted from someone who’s quoting it from someone.

• There's a quote by Denny Laine about how everyone in the music industry knew that Wings was Paul's backup band, it was only the public that thought it was a "band" per se.

• Cynthia Lennon: “John never looked at anyone like he looked at Paul.”

• Yoko Ono: “I thought John was cheating on me with Paul” or “I was always worried that John was cheating on me with Paul.”

• There’s a quote in which Paul says he gave Linda songwriting credit early on because she was being helpful and he thought that was worth a credit.

• Any references at all, no matter how trivial, to any combination of the four of them being in contact — or more specifically, togetherin person — during the '70s (and especially John and Paul)

• Any references at all to any trips John and Paul may have taken to either Scotland or Ireland during the ‘60s (other than the ‘64 tour stop).

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5-19-25

The audio gremlins in episode 1:7 have, I think, finally been fully resolved. More importantly, the last ten minutes have been rewritten. The original ending was both wildly overwritten and also not as clear as it needed to be about the effect of the distorted narrative on our world. I think it’s a lot better now, so if episode 1:7 didn’t land for you the first time, maybe give it another go.

Thank you for your patience while I learn how to do all of this for the first time.

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Liverpool waterfront, photo by Faith Current © 2024.