The 1980 John Lennon song Paul McCartney couldn’t live without: “Very moving”
There are a million tragedies that surround the cruel murder of John Lennon, most notably the loss of a father to his two children and his wife, Yoko Ono, losing her husband.
While it’s impossible to quantify the impact that he had on his army of fans all around the globe, the loss to those who knew him personally was on a whole different scale. Nevertheless, it was still a heartbreaking fact that he would never make another album, and his life was over at just 40, when he had so much more to give.
The early to mid 1970s were a strange chapter for Lennon, containing his debauched ‘Lost Weekend‘, a brief separation from Yoko Ono. Thankfully, in 1975, he was back living in bliss with his loved ones around home, and leaving his music career behind. After losing sight of himself, Lennon was back at the races, and then, a month before his death, he returned to doing what he did best with Double Fantasy.
He had finally found the right balance that allowed him to live peacefully with his family, while also making music. With this in mind, the 1980s looked set to be his decade, until that fateful night on December 9th, 1980.
For Paul McCartney, as much as they had their fair share of brotherly fallouts during The Beatles and beyond, it’s a loss that he continues to live with today.
One small consolitations, however, are the memories they made together, whether this be their early days in Hamburg or at Abbey Road Studios, as well as the music.
Their rift was thankfully water under the bridge at the time of Lennon’s death, but even when they were not speaking, McCartney still followed his old bandmate’s musical exploits in meticulous detail. Lennon’s songwriting, even though they were no longer side-by-side, continued to touch him deeply, especially ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’ from Double Fantasy.
Through their time as accomplices, he had a canny ability to understand Lennon’s work on a deeper level than anybody else, and truly get below the surface, knowing where every last note came from.
“You know if you know someone that long,” McCartney once said while in conversation with Sean Lennon, the subject of affections on ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’, on BBC Radio 2 in 2020.
He continued to reflect, “From your early teenage years to your late twenties, that’s an awful long time to be collaborating with someone, and you grow to know each other, and even when you’re apart, you’re still thinking about each other, you’re still referencing each other.”
Naturally, Sean was eager to discover which song from Lennon’s solo career held the biggest place in McCartney’s heart, to which he reeled off a trio of favourites, sharing, “Obviously ‘Imagine and ‘Instant Karma’ is great, and the nice thing was when I listen to the records, I can imagine him in the studio and go, ‘Oh ok, I know what he’s done’. I’m often asked for my favourite tunes kind of thing, and I always include ‘Beautiful Boy’.”
The Double Fantasy track, written by Lennon for his son Sean, is full of vital lyrics for a better, more fulfilled life: “Every day and in every way, I am getting better and better”, which summed up where Lennon was before his death.
Lennon himself explained the song to David Sheff in 1980, sharing, “The joy is still there when I see Sean. He didn’t come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish. That’s because I took him to the ‘Y’. I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of those things. He is my biggest pride, you see.”
McCartney wasn’t just being polite by including ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’ because he was in Sean’s company; he’s been flying the flag for it since it was released.
During an appearance on Desert Island Discs back in 1982, just two years after John’s death, a grief-stricken McCartney picked it as one of his choices, “I haven’t chosen any Beatles records, but if we had more than eight, I probably would have. I haven’t chosen any of my records so, to sum up the whole thing, I have chosen one of John Lennon’s from Double Fantasy, which I think is a beautiful song very moving to me. So, I’d like to sum up the whole thing by playing ‘Beautiful Boy’.”
Heartbreakingly, those comments by McCartney are now older than an age Lennon ever reached, but every last word still rings true. It also says everything about their relationship that he picked ‘Beautiful Boy’ ahead of anything from his own career, which remains close to his heart and acts as a poignant reminder of his late friend.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.