Paul McCartney Said It Was Characteristic of Him to Show Little Emotion When Loved Ones Died
Paul McCartney said it was normal for him to show little emotion when loved ones died. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about them. It was only his way of dealing.
Paul McCartney couldn’t deal when John Lennon died
During an interview with Playboy, Paul said he couldn’t deal when John Lennon died.
He said, “It’s… it’s just too difficult… I feel that if I said anything about John, I would have to sit here for five days and say it all. Or I don’t want to say anything. I know George and Ringo can’t really talk about it.”
Playboy asked, “How did you hear of John’s death? What was your first reaction?” Paul replied, “My manager rang me early in the morning. Linda was taking the kids to school.” Linda added, “I had driven the kids to school and I’d just come back in. Paul’s face, ugh, it was horrible. Even now, when I think of it…”
Paul interjected, “A bit grotty. It was just too crazy. We just said what everyone said; it was all blurred. It was the same as the Kennedy thing. The same horrific moment, you know. You couldn’t take it in. I can’t, I still haven’t taken it in. I don’t want to.”
Playboy added, “Yet the only thing you were quoted as saying after John’s assassination was, ‘Well, it’s a drag.'”
Paul explained, “What happened was we heard the news that morning and, strangely enough, all of us… the three Beatles, friends of John’s… all of us reacted in the same way. Separately. Everyone just went to work that day. All of us. Nobody could stay home with that news. We all had to go to work and be with people we knew. Couldn’t bear it. We just had to keep going.
“So I went in and did a day’s work in a kind of shock. And as I was coming out of the studio later, there was a reporter, and as we were driving away, he just stuck the microphone in the window and shouted, ‘What do you think about John’s death?’
“I had just finished a whole day in shock and I said, ‘It’s a drag.’ I meant drag in the heaviest sense of the word, you know: ‘It’s a–DRAG.’ But, you know, when you look at that in print, it says, ‘Yes, it’s a drag.’ Matter of fact.”
Paul didn’t like showing his emotion when loved ones died
Playboy asked Paul if it was characteristic of him to show little emotion on the outside when his loved ones died since he had a “flipness” over John’s death,
Linda answered for her husband, “You’re right. That’s true.” Paul added, “True. My mum died when I was 14. That is a kind of strange age to lose a mother… cuz you know, you’re dealing with puberty. Yes, and for a boy to lose a mother…
“It’s not easy. You’re starting to be a man, to be macho. Actually, that was one of the things that brought John and me very close together: He lost his mum when he was 17. Our way of facing it at that age was to laugh at it… not in our hearts but on the surface. It was sort of a wink thing between us.
“When someone would say, ‘And how’s your mother?’ John would say, ‘She died.’ We’d know that that person would become incredibly embarrassed and we’d almost have a joke with it. After a few years, the pain subsided a bit. It was a bond between us, actually; quite a big one, as I recall. We came together professionally afterward.
“And as we became a writing team, I think it helped our intimacy and our trust in each other. Eventually, we were pretty good mates–until the Beatles started to split up and Yoko came into it.”
The former Beatle hates how he reacted to his mother’s death
Paul added that he was very practical when his mother died and hates that he reacted that way. He explained, “I know what you mean. When my mum died, I said, ‘What are we going to do for money?’
“And I’ve never forgiven myself for that. Really, deep down, you know, I never have quite forgiven myself for that. But that’s all I could say then. It’s like a lot of kids; when you tell them someone’s died, they laugh.”
Linda added, “The pain is beyond words. You can never describe it, I don’t care how articulate you are.”
Touching on John’s death again, Paul explained, “We just went home. We just looked at all the news on the telly, and we sat there with all the kids, just crying all evening. Just couldn’t handle it, really.”
Linda interjected, “To this day, we just cry on hearing John’s songs; you can’t help it. You just cry. There aren’t words… I’m going to cry now.”
Paul had a stiff upper lip when his loved ones died. There’s nothing wrong with it. That’s just how he dealt with death.
