Love,

Paul's lyrics from Here Today reminds me of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 in a way that it immortalizes a loved one and the constancy of affection:

"And if I say I really loved you and was glad you came along When you were here today For you were in my song"

Sonnet 18 in modern English: "And you will never die, as you will live on in my enduring poetry. As long as there are people still alive to read poems this sonnet will live, and you will live in it."

YES! I love the way Here Today uses the immortalising theme - and does it in such an unusual way.

In sonnets, it’s often boastful: as Shakespeare’s sonnet 55 says, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme”. My work is so awesome it will live forever, and you’ll live forever too because you’re in it.

Here Today is so much more fragile: he isn’t promising eternity. He’s saying John is here now, present as Paul is singing about him.

And that fragility suits the song, which has so much uncertainty in it:

“And if I say,

I really knew you well what would your answer be…

Well, knowing you

You’d probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart”

He can’t be sure if John saw their relationship the way he does, if he’d agree now in the present, whether they understood each other.

But then he shifts focus:

“But as for me

I still remember how it was before

And I am holding back the tears no more

I love you”

He’s holding on to what he can be sure of. Not eternity, not whatever he thinks John might have thought or felt: just that Paul loves him, and loving him is a way to keep him here today, in this moment. (I love the play of tenses: you were in my song, and I love you now.)

In a 1980 interview, John said, “Paul is quite a capable lyricist who doesn’t think he’s a capable lyricist, therefore he doesn’t go for it.” In Here Today, I think he really does go for it. These lyrics are very carefully crafted.

But he also pushes himself to an unusual degree of emotional bareness, both about the doubt and about the love. And that feels like another way of paying tribute, remembering John in the kind of art he valued (deft, personal, autobiographical words).

It’s devoted, and touchingly modest. He won’t overpromise, offer immortality, or claim anything he can’t be sure of. He just says: You were in my song. I love you.

Paul & John, recording The Fool on the Hill.

25 September 1967, EMI Studio Abbey Road.

Koh Hasebe

PAUL McCARTNEY in THE BEATLES: GET BACK (2021) dir. Peter Jackson

Just adding this heart-wrenching information from the People Magazine article ...

“Now and then, I miss you / Now and then, I want you to be there for me / Always to return to me,” (...) It’s a passage where Lennon’s yearning for McCartney intertwines with Paul’s mourning for John, a shared grieving for the partnership that defined both their lives. link

"Now and Then" is 81-year-old Paul McCartney finishing a song of John Lennon, who has been gone for almost 43 years.

But it is also 15-year-old Paul finishing a song of the boy who wandered around Liverpool with him, talking about their future and love of music.

It is 18-year-old Paul finishing a song of the guy who picked him as his partner and took him to play nightclubs in Hamburg.

It is 20-year-old Paul finishing a song of the lad who wanted to write song after song with him.

It is 23-year-old Paul finishing a song of the man he made history with.

It is 24-year-old Paul finishing a song of the soulmate who shared his visions.

It is 26-year-old Paul finishing a song of the person who serenaded him eating a cupcake.

It is 31-year-old Paul finishing a song of John, who loved him in his own way.

And it is 39-year-old Paul finishing a song of the friend he just lost.

gif source

paul in 2021 saying that he's happy that in 'get back' he's be able to study everything about john him saying that he recently bought a lot of john's drawings and hung them on his wall so he can look at them all the time him talking about the love songs he wrote for john and him just reminding people over and over again that john was his best friend and that he's first and foremost a john lennon fan and saying yeah, i love him i love him i love him over and over again — all of this makes me so fucking emotional man imagine loving someone so stupidly much that even when you're basically 80 and they've been gone for half of your life, they've been gone for 40 years, even then you still love them the same way you've always done because that's the kind of love that never goes away that's the kind of love that lives inside you and that's the kind of love paul feels for john and it's just so damn beautiful

paul in 2023 singing with john on every stadium concert he does all around the world, turning around to look at him on the big screen, hearing his voice on the earpiece and singing along, getting emotional every night even though he knows it’s coming. making sure the crowd sees john, hears him. paul wanting john to be a part of his music even now, to have john with him in all the ways possible, and making sure to say to fifty thousand people every night that he loves john and wishes he said it more. loving john so openly. paul in 2022 lovingly working in a john song again, finishing off something john started, pouring the same amount of love into it that he did sixty years prior when they’d sit across from each other with guitars across their laps. their love enduring. a love that lasts forever. a love that changed everything, keeps changing it. what would the world be if paul didn’t love john, if john didn’t love paul? a love so strong it transformed the very fabric of humanity, forever. i truly think it’s one of the most beautiful love stories in history. how privileged are we to be able to witness it still unravel, so many years later?

I love how ridiculously warm John would feel about the fact that Paul still loves him so much and sings with him at concerts and wanted to finish another song with him after all this time, and I love how John would kind of just feel it all behind his beautiful face, looking down, trying to be nonchalant about it.

The way that Paul loves John, so absolute and steady. The way that John didn't feel loveable like that, but craved it, but didn't recognise or trust it, and the way it was there and real anyway despite him. I don't know. I like that Paul is so relentless in loving him.

Bugs at work

john lennon's lyrics for now and then (2023) // andy peebles for daily mail uk (2015) // john lennon, i'm losing you (1980) // now and then doc (2023) // wings, dear friend (1971)

John and Paul’s hands

now and then - kind of reeling over the aching sense of time and space incorporated in the song. the sound of john's voice stopped in time blended to the soft background timbre of paul's voice that now holds so much age in it. talking to each other across impossible distances. digital ghosts and haunted emotions.

Now and Then

NOW AND THEN handwritten lyrics

more NOW AND THEN handwritten lyrics from the vinyl sheet

NOW AND THEN handwritten lyrics

The world’s greatest musical love story 🥹

x

Im back and more neurotic than ever, not clickbait

PAULS WEARING THE ID BRACELET THAT JOHN LIKELY GOT FOR HIM WHEN THE BAND MET UP TOGETHER AGAIN CHRISTT IM SO NORMAL IM SO NORMAL

in my mind i think this was pauls way of having John there with them physically in some sense. He’s wearing a part of him, a part of THEM while working on this song so it really is like it’s all 4 beatles present and together again.

Another part about the documentary that had me FEELING THINGS was hearing johns isolated vocals and having it hit you that wowza thats john lennon and then Paul closing out the documentary by saying “let me just hear john again” god he loves him so much