Together Sir Paul McCartney and John Lennon, who died 43 years ago, are the most successful songwriting partnership in the history of music.
To this day, fans love to listen in to any memories Macca has of his time with the late star.
And now in a new interview, the 81-year-old has made some emotional confessions about John Lennon’s vulnerability from the early days of The Beatles.
The music legend appeared at a special live recording of the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast.
He was promoting his new book of previously unseen Beatles photos called 1964: Eyes of the Storm: Paul McCartney, talking through a selection of them with the host.
One common theme both Conan and McCartney noticed was a mannerism of Lennon’s in which he had his hand by his mouth.
Macca said: “He’s got this little habit, he’s not biting his nails… he does this all time. It’s so long ago, I’d forgotten that that was a John thing. Particularly, because he’s not here, it’s so lovely for me to see these memories and just remind me of where we were, what we did in those days.”
On one photo, the host asked him if he thought this revealed a vulnerable side to the late Beatle. The 81-year-old confessed: “Vulnerability is very true. And at this time, I wouldn’t really know that. Later, when I thought, as an adult, about John’s upbringing, he had a really tragic life really.
“As a kid, his mother was decreed to not be good enough to bring him up. Julia his mum, who we would visit and he loved – he wrote a beautiful song about her – but she had to give him up.”
McCartney continued: “The father, Alf, had left the home when John was three, so that’s not too wonderful. And so John grew up with these minor tragedies throughout his life. He was taken in by his Aunt Mimi and was brought up by her.
“One night, Mum, Julia, was visiting them and had come to see her son, and on the way home she got run over, she got killed, by apparently an off-duty cop who maybe was a bit inebriated… it made me realise why he had that vulnerability.”
Macca admitted: “I always admired the way he dealt with it because I’m not sure I would have dealt with it well with the stuff he went through.”
