“And, in the same respect, the creativity of songwriting had left Paul and me… well, by the mid-Sixties it had become a craft. And yet…a different kind of thing comes in. It’s like a love affair. When you first meet, you can have the hots for twenty-four hours a day for each other. But after fifteen or twenty years, a different kind of sexual and intellectual relationship develops, right? It’s still love, but it’s different. So there’s that kind of difference in creativity, too. As in a love affair, two creative people can destroy themselves trying to recapture that youthful spirit, at twenty-one or twenty-four, of creating without even being aware of how it’s happening.”
“Lennon changes the subject by bizarrely asking Paul, “Hey, did you dream about me last night?” Paul doesn’t remember his dreams. Lennon had a “very strong dream–we were both terrified! Different dreams but you must have been there. I was touching you.”
“But I always heard it as a song to me. If you think about it, Yoko’s just come into the picture. He’s saying: ‘Hey, Jude - hey, John.’ I know I’m sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me. The words ‘go out and get her’ - subconsciously he was saying, ‘Go ahead, leave me.’ But on a conscious level, he didn’t want me to go ahead. The angel inside him was saying, ‘Bless you.’ The devil in him didn’t like it at all, because he didn’t want to lose his partner.”
— John Lennon, Anthology
“John: I was trying to put it ‘round that I was gay, you know— I thought that would throw them off… dancing at all the gay clubs in Los Angeles, flirting with the boys… but it never got off the ground.
Q: I think I’ve only heard that lately about Paul.
John: Oh, I’ve had him, he’s no good.”
— Hit Parader, 1975
“Nobody ever said anything about Paul’s having a spell on me or my having one on Paul! They never thought that was abnormal in those days, two guys together, or four guys together! Why didn’t they ever say, “How come those guys don’t split up? I mean, what’s going on backstage? What is this Paul and John business? How can they be together so long?” We spent more time together in the early days than John and Yoko: the four of us sleeping in the same room, practically in the same bed, in the same truck, living together night and day, eating, shitting and pissing together! All right? Doing everything together! Nobody said a damn thing about being under a spell.”
— John Lennon, Playboy (1980)
“Q: Have there been any recent records that Paul has written that you’ve been surprised by?
John: No. Not surprised. Can you be surprised by your brother? Age 15 on?”
— John Lennon, Double Fantasy Sessions (1980)
“In the beginning it was a constant fight between Brian and Paul on one side and me and George on the other. Brian put us in neat suits and shirts and Paul was right behind him.
I didn’t dig that and I used to try and get George to rebel with me. My little rebellion was to have my tie loose, with the top button of my shirt undone, but Paul’d always come up and put it straight.”
— John Lennon
“We wrote alot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in ’I Want To Hold Your Hand’, I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing
on the piano at the same time. And we had, ’Oh you-u-u/got that something…’ And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, ’That’s it!’ I said, ’Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that both
playing into each other’s noses.”
- John Lennon
“If I am on my own for three days, doing nothing, I almost completely leave myself. I’m at the back of my head. I can see my hands and realize they’re moving, but it’s like a robot who’s doing it. I have to see the others to see myself.
Then I realize there is someone like me so it’s reassuring. We were recording the other night, and I just wasn’t there. Neither was Paul. We were like two robots going through the motions. We do need each other alot.
When we used to get together after a month off, we used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances.
Then we got to hugging each other. Now we do the Buddhist bit… arms around. It’s just saying hello, that’s all.”
— John Lennon
“I had thought to myself, ‘He’s as good as me.’ Now, I thought, if I take him on, what will happen? It went through my head that I’d have to keep him in line if I let him join [the band]. But he was good, so he was worth having. He also looked like Elvis. I dug him.”
— John Lennon
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