yeah, quite a lot. Paul never seems to have occupied the position in Johns life that people like Stuart or Yoko did. This is why I'm doubtful that John and paul had that brother-type relationship so beloved of Beatle mythologists.
It seems that at the beginning it was a relationship based more on competition than lurve. The moment they were released from Beatlemania they seem to have pretty much gone their own ways. And maybe at the time the job was taken by Brian. But this could have been as much to do with Paul as John, the former seems to be quite notoriously a cold, distant guy. In fact, whereas John seems to have sought dominant partners, Paul seems exactly the opposite, surrounding himself with people who were compliant. No offence to Linda, but she seems to have lived her life in Paul's shadow. Look what happened when he did hook up with someone who was dominant and independant ie Heather: a disaster.
And don't forget the twisted relationships of some of rocks other great partnerships - Gilmour and Waters, Jagger and Richards, The Everley Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel, Tears for Fears, Young and Stills...all barely on speaking terms when they made some of their best music.
This is totally untrue about John and Paul not having a very close relationship and really loving each other! Dave Sholin from RKO Radio who with Laurie Kay etc interviewed John on his very last radio (or any interview) that was done just hours before he was tragically,insanely,cruelly shot and killed,and Dave Sholin says that he gave John and Yoko a ride over to the recording studio after this long interview,and unfortunately John said this when he wasn't being taped,but Dave talked with John a little bit about his relationship with Paul and he told him that,"Well he's like a brother,I love him." "Families-we certainly have our ups and downs and our quarrels." "But at the end of the day,when it's all said and done,I would do anything for him,I think he would do anything for me."
And in the interview and another one done days before( he said something like this either in The Rolling Stone interview 3 days before or 2 days before with Andy Peebles) he said,I have had 2 partners in my life,Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono and he said that's a pretty da*n good record and he said he did pretty well as a talent scout.
I also still have a 1986 hour long interview with Paul by a great intelligent interviewer Barbara Hower from Entertainment This Week.She asked him a lot of great questions including about his mother Mary's death when Paul was only 14 from breast cancer who was a beloved nurse and a midwife,Paul's drug arrests and how he feels about legalizing only soft drugs like pot,she mentioned to him how he often doesn't get enough credit for caring about causes,she said you were one of the first music artists to speak out against racism,and he said I don't think anyone who knows me thinks I'm apathetic.
She asked him about John's tragic murder,(and Paul said,you know it was like Kennedy's death,it affected *everyone* not just Beatle lovers)and his relationship with him,and his relationship with Linda and his kids,and asked questions about his music.She really brought the best out of him.And he says in this interview that shortly after John died,Yoko called him up and said that John really loved him.May Pang also told Paul the same thing.
He comes across very likeable in this interview,as intelligent,funny,sweet,charming and serious.
Also,Paul told Q Magazine in 2005 and said it through the years since John died,that John was a great guy and he will always love him. In this same interview he was asked about his loving tribute song for John,Here Today and the interviewer said that the song is quite specific and that it's about him and John and that it's pretty emotional.They asked him what he was remembering with his lines,"What about the night we cried because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside.
Paul said,"The Beatles were under a lot of pressure,touring all the time,and we didn't have any release.Paul then said,that night we were flying to Jacksonville,Florida (Sptember 9,1964)but to avoid a hurricane we had to put down in Key West,which at that time was the end of nowhere ,like in the Humphrey Bogart movie Key Largo."We stayed up all night drinking,all of us together,chatting about *everything* and there came a moment where we um,cried." "Which we'd never done ." "I'm not sure,but the likely explanation is that John and I had both lost our mothers-mine died of breast cancer,John's in a road accident-and it had always been a sort of unspoken bond between us." "Knowing we had both been through that grief and horror."That night we finally got round to talking about it."
I'm sure that John was actually *closer* to Paul than he was with Stuart,even if Stuart hadAC lived this still would have been the case because number 1 both John and Paul shared the rare tragedy of both losing their beloved mothers as only teenagers,and number 2 it was *Paul* who John shared the most critically acclaimed,popular,successful song writing partnership with,and they shared all of this and the experience of being and creating in The Beatles together.On one of The Mike Douglas shows that John and Yoko hosted for a week taped in January-early February 1972,audience members asked John and Yoko questions.
And one guy stood up and asked him about How Do You Sleep and said didn't he think it was vindictive,and John said it was his answer to messages that Paul said about him on his Ram album,he said the difference is,he publishes his lyrics,he(Paul) doesn't so you have to listen really hard and John said Paul doesn't feel like I insulted him or anything because,he recently saw him and had dinner with him and he's happy(of course this wasn't really true and Paul has spoken about how hurt he was since John died,and Paul answered John back on Wings Wild Life with the the touching pretty song,Dear Friend),and he said if I can't have a fight with my best friend then I don't know who I can have a fight with.Mike Douglas asked John if Paul is his best friend,and he said I suppose he was in the male sex,and he said I don't see him that much anymore.
By 1974 John wasn't bitter about The Beatles anymore and almost went to the first Beatles Fest(Now The Fest For The Fans) in 1974 and was collecting Beatles memorabilia including Beatles dolls that Elton John got him,and John said Christ what's this a Beatles collecting Beatles dolls? And he said why not I'm a Beatles fan too.He also was wearing a lot of buttons in 1974 and once he had on a button that said,I Love Paul and someone asked him why he was wearing it,and he said because I love Paul.He also said in the June 1975 Rolling Stone interview,that is on their site in the John Lennon section,that he thought the Band On The Run album is a great album and he said it's Paul's music and it's good stuff.May Pang has said that shortly before John went back to Yoko in early 1975,he was going to go to New Orleans and work with Paul on his great 1975 Wings rock album,Venus and Mars but went back to Yoko instead.
And Paul's beautiful heart felt tribute song to John,Here Today speaks volumes about their close relationship and love for each other.Paul has been playing this song as a tribute to John in concerts for some years now.And if you read the great authorized biography of Paul,Many Years From Now you will get a better understanding of their great loving relationship too and as Paul said and George Martin said,he and Paul were very similar in a lot of ways. George Martin also said that John and Paul did love each other a lot throughout the time he knew and worked with them in the recording studio.Paul cried all day when he got back home with Linda and his kids watching the news reports of John's tragic murder on TV.Paul also told Barbara Hower and others,that he's not a public grief kind of person,and that it's very difficult for him.