According to Sir Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono did NOT Break Up the Beatles....

[Bluebonnet]

Lennon had mommy issues and she filled that void. That's what the pic always said to me. He's all naked and fetal. She's...well it's either serene or indifferent, but definitely the one in control.

I forgot about his mommy issues. Yeah, Yoko totally wore the pants in that relationship. I saw the "E True Hollywood Story" on them and when they were getting ready to record Double Fantasy, every musician, producer, sound technician, door man, etc. had to be "approved" by Yoko's numerlogist/astrologist.

[Charmed Hour]

I've read number of biographies about Lennon and it seems to me that he loved Yoko far more than Yoko loved him. In fact a few biographers, including one that was a childhood friend of Harrison's and worked many years for the Beatles outright said Yoko and her first husband basically set out to extort/use Lennon.

[rollo]

John's mother was struck and killed by a car when he was only 17. Although she was not raising him at the time, he said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

HowStuffWorks "The Death of John Lennon\'s Mother, Julia Lennon"

[Charmed Hour]

John's mother was struck and killed by a car when he was only 17. Although she was not raising him at the time, he said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

HowStuffWorks "The Death of John Lennon\'s Mother, Julia Lennon"

His relationship with his mother was very complicated. He was raised by her sister while Julia went on to have other children and raise them herself while John was left with Mimi.

[dougie]

Paul McCartney Talks Reconciling With Yoko Ono, Writing With John Lennon in New Rolling Stone Cover Story | Music News | Rolling Stone






Paul McCartney Can't Slow Down: Inside Rolling Stone's New Cover Story

Beatle opens up about writing with John (still!), reconciling with Yoko and his latest LP in candid new interview

by rolling stone

OCTOBER 23, 2013



Paul McCartney has never dwelled in yesterday, even if he remembers it quite well. At 71, he's just released his 24th post-Beatles album, New, and is generating music at a pace that puts artists a quarter of his age to shame. And in a remarkably candid cover story by Rolling Stone contributing editor Jonah Weiner (on newsstands Friday) McCartney discusses the drive keeps him creating fresh music — as well as the memories of his Beatles bandmates that continue to shape his life today.


Look back at Paul McCartney's remarkable career in photos


Perhaps most shockingly, McCartney reveals that although he's always teaming up with fresh talent — New features production by Adele collaborator Paul Epworth, Amy Winehouse producer Mark Ronson, Giles Martin (son of legendary Beatles producer George) and frequent Kings of Leon partner Ethan Johns — he also consulted with another source, someone who knows his music intimately: John Lennon.


"If I'm at a point where I go, 'I'm not sure about this,' I'll throw it across the room to John," McCartney tells RS. "He'll say, 'You can't go there, man.' And I'll say, 'You're quite right. How about this?' 'Yeah, that's better.' We'll have a conversation. I don't want to lose that."


See where your favorite tracks rank on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Beatles Songs

McCartney also reveals that his long-bitter relationship with Lennon's widow Yoko Ono has turned a corner. Describing Ono as a "badass," he says he's moved on. "I thought, 'If John loved her, there's got to be something. He's not stupid,'" McCartney says. "It's like, what are you going to do? Are you going to hold a grudge you never really had?" In fact, another voice from the past — that of George Harrison — had encouraged him to forgive and forget. "George would say to me, 'You don't want stuff like that hanging around in your life.'"


But despite his spirit of reconciliation, McCartney maintains there's one person he will never forgive: John Lennon's murderer, Mark David Chapman. "I think I could pretty much forgive anyone else," he explains. "But I don't see why I'd want to forgive him. This is a guy who did something so crazy and terminal. Why should I bless him with forgiveness?"

Though he's willing to reflect on the past, McCartney remains firmly focused on the future. Part of his motivation to continue recording and playing marathon live shows comes from a fear of becoming complacent. "I've always got the critic in my mind," he tells Rolling Stone. "He keeps me on my toes — 'Don't get too blasé about it.' I don't want to become too smug, to think I'm great."


Look for the issue on stands and in the iTunes App Store this Friday, October 25th.



Paul McCartney Talks Reconciling With Yoko Ono, Writing With John Lennon in New Rolling Stone Cover Story | Music News | Rolling Stone

[Novice]

Yoko Ono sang like a flock of macaws on meth getting sucked into a jet engine.

Lennon had to be REALLY IN LOVE to think that that crap sounded good and that the rest of the world needed to hear it. I'm not saying it broke up the Beatles - just our ear drums.

See below

Lennon had mommy issues and she filled that void. That's what the pic always said to me. He's all naked and fetal. She's...well it's either serene or indifferent, but definitely the one in control.

And didn't she encourage him to sleep with other women/his assistant but she remained "in charge" so to speak?

i don't see Yoko Ono as a demon that split up the Beatles, I don't care enough about the Beatles, however I have heard her interviewed for her own projects & I find her mind-numbingly boring in her own aesthetic.

[GRuser1]

I've read number of biographies about Lennon and it seems to me that he loved Yoko far more than Yoko loved him. In fact a few biographers, including one that was a childhood friend of Harrison's and worked many years for the Beatles outright said Yoko and her first husband basically set out to extort/use Lennon.

Except Lennon was an abusive piece of shit:
Top 10 Unpleasant Facts About John Lennon - Listverse
(Sorry, at work, can't find better sources).

I always loved Lennon even more than the Beatles and learning this was a shock to me. It costs me to admit he was far from perfect, but it's the truth.

[dougie]

Yoko Ono 'Thankful' for Paul McCartney's Comments in Rolling Stone | Music News | Rolling Stone

Yoko Ono 'Thankful' for Paul McCartney's Comments in Rolling Stone
Former Beatle had laid to rest any lingering ill-will


Yoko Ono
Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images




by Kory Grow

OCTOBER 31, 2013
Yoko Ono said that she was "very thankful" to Paul McCartney for telling Rolling Stone that he had moved past his grudge against her. "I never felt too bad about Paul," Ono, the widow of McCartney's Beatles companion John Lennon, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "He was my husband's partner and they did a great job and all that. They seemed to have a lot of fun, and I respected that."

Yoko Ono and 49 More of the Best Rock-Star Instagram Accounts

Her reaction comes following comments McCartney made about her in the cover story of the current issue of Rolling Stone. In addition to comments about his latest record, New, he explained that time had prompted him to let go of his ill will toward Ono. "'If John loved her, there's got to be something,'" he said. "'He's not stupid.'"

McCartney's resentment of Ono dates back to the Beatles' end days, when she started accompanying Lennon to the recording studio. After that, Ono took over Lennon's business affairs following his death in 1980. In the mid Nineties, when the band was putting together its Anthology sets, McCartney expressed his wish to change the songwriting credits on McCartney-sung songs like "Yesterday" from "Lennon-McCartney" to "McCartney-Lennon" and she forbade it. In 2001, he told Rolling Stone it was "difficult" to see her following that.

Earlier this year, McCartney told the BBC that Ono "certainly didn't break the group up." Then, in June, Ono told Rolling Stone she found that comment "very sweet." At the time, though, she was hesitant about describing her relationship with McCartney. "Well, yes, well . . . on good terms, yes, I think we are on good terms," she said. "And also, I have a lot of respect for him."

Now, in the current cover story – in which he revealed other Beatles-related nuggets such as the fact that he still consults a spiritual version of Lennon on songs ideas – he said that he'd received encouragement from another former Beatle to let things go when George Harrison told him, "You don't want stuff like that hanging around in your life."

He also said, "It's like, what are you going to do? Are you going to hold a grudge you never really had?"

When the topic of art came up in the Rolling Stone feature, McCartney said he admires her works. "She's badass," he said.

"Well, he's a rocker," Ono told AP.

Yoko Ono 'Thankful' for Paul McCartney's Comments in Rolling Stone | Music News | Rolling Stone

[Kittylady]

It's like Golum trying to be a 1980's movie heavy for halloween.

[WhateverLolaWants]

Robert Carlyle in his Rumplestilscan makeup?

[Trixie]

And didn't she encourage him to sleep with other women/his assistant but she remained "in charge" so to speak?

Yes, May Pang was the assistant and Yoko pretty much arranged the whole thing, sent them off to L.A., I guess to let John get some partying out of his system. After a year or so, he and Yoko got back together and May Pang got a book deal. Pretty strange to say the least.

[Bluebonnet]

Except Lennon was an abusive piece of shit:
Top 10 Unpleasant Facts About John Lennon - Listverse
(Sorry, at work, can't find better sources).

I always loved Lennon even more than the Beatles and learning this was a shock to me. It costs me to admit he was far from perfect, but it's the truth.

That list is true. I never was a big Lennon fan. In fact, do not own even one of his albums. Loved the Beatles, love Paul, and Ringo and loved George, but not Lennon. The way he treated Julian was enough to disgust me. He was also abusive to the people he worked with. I saw some recording session with him on VH-1 Classic and he was a total dick in the studio.

[Kathie_Moffett]

I agree Lennon was fucked in the head, a serious addict, and not at all the saint he is sometimes made out to be. He doesn't deserve a pedestal, not at all, and he does deserve a ton of criticism for his treatment of women generally and especially Julian (who ironically seems to have turned out to be a lovely person...after LIVING LONG ENOUGH to work through his own anger and problems.)

But a lot of that list is malicious bullshit, though. Untalented? Oh give me a fucking break. Not even going to address that one. Picking on someone for wearing the hairstyles and fashions of the time, or for wanting to be wealthy and successful, is grasping at straws. Authoritatively denigrating someone for struggling with addiction and for being (presumably) ashamed and lying about it as addicts often do, is really kinda shitty to say the least.

And the hypocritical thing--find me a preachy rock star or actor/actress who isn't just like that too and I'll be very impressed. Thinkin' about that carbon footprint of yours, Brangelina.

Also, I loathe a lot of Paul's solo stuff, like or love most of John's, and have to point out that Paul and George (though absolutely mellower and sweeter guys than John most of the time) were never perfect angels either.

I've always liked John precisely because he was so crazy, damaged and struggling, but still capable of recognizing that he could, and should, be so much better and aim so much higher. Even if he never did achieve that in his short life, I think he tried. And it's a tragedy that he didn't get more time to keep on trying.

[MohandasKGanja]

One of Lennon's last extensive interviews was with Playboy Magazine. I think it was published in January 1980, but maybe later. Anyway, what was cool about it is that the interviewer walked John through a bunch of Beatles songs and asked who contributed what on it. It was illuminating because there was a written agreement early on that Lennon and McCartney would share writing credits on songs no matter how little one of them contributed. In the interview, though, Lennon would say, "Yeah, that was mostly Paul. I just created this little phrase ------" Or, "That was mostly me, but it was Paul's idea to do ------" The other thing that was great was that by then it appeared that Lennon was far less cruel and more circumspect than he had been just a few years earlier. No anger toward Paul that I could remember.

I could have sworn, though, that he might have been a little miffed that Ringo wasn't more appreciative of how he and McCartney had helped him with his songs. The interview made me kind of sad because I thought he had gotten rid of most of his personal demons -- and then he gets shot.

[GRuser1]

I agree Lennon was fucked in the head, a serious addict, and not at all the saint he is sometimes made out to be. He doesn't deserve a pedestal, not at all, and he does deserve a ton of criticism for his treatment of women generally and especially Julian (who ironically seems to have turned out to be a lovely person...after LIVING LONG ENOUGH to work through his own anger and problems.)

But a lot of that list is malicious bullshit, though. Untalented? Oh give me a fucking break. Not even going to address that one. Picking on someone for wearing the hairstyles and fashions of the time, or for wanting to be wealthy and successful, is grasping at straws. Authoritatively denigrating someone for struggling with addiction and for being (presumably) ashamed and lying about it as addicts often do, is really kinda shitty to say the least.

And the hypocritical thing--find me a preachy rock star or actor/actress who isn't just like that too and I'll be very impressed. Thinkin' about that carbon footprint of yours, Brangelina.

Also, I loathe a lot of Paul's solo stuff, like or love most of John's, and have to point out that Paul and George (though absolutely mellower and sweeter guys than John most of the time) were never perfect angels either.

I've always liked John precisely because he was so crazy, damaged and struggling, but still capable of recognizing that he could, and should, be so much better and aim so much higher. Even if he never did achieve that in his short life, I think he tried. And it's a tragedy that he didn't get more time to keep on trying.

I can agree with that, to an extent (I am NOT going to admire an abusive person in any way), yet saying Yoko Ono was the one in power in their relationship and that he loved her more than she loved him seems a little unfair.
He was abusive to her and to their son, so he clearly was in power.

One of the reasons I don't like the source I quoted is that they put together valid arguments and silly arguments, like the ones you quoted about him having no talent, or being a hypocrite, and it makes very easy to ignore the valid arguments just to criticize the silly ones.