Paul McCartney says he couldn’t face speaking publicly about John Lennon in aftermath of his death
‘I can’t just go on TV and say what John meant to me. It was just too deep,’ the singer explained while recalling his thoughts at the time
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Your support makes all the difference.Paul McCartney has revealed that he “couldn’t really talk” about John Lennon’s death after it happened.
McCartney’s fellow Beatle was shot dead in New York in 1980, leaving behind wife Yoko Ono and sons Sean and Julian.
Now, forty years later, McCartney has opened up about the time immediately after the musician’s death and what led him to writing his song “Here Today”.
While being interviewed on the The Beatles Channel on SirusXM, the 80-year-old songwriter told of his grief and shock in the immediate aftermath of the news.
“When John died it was so difficult,” said McCartney. “It had hit me so much so, that I couldn’t really talk about it. I remember getting home from the studio on the day that we’d heard the news he died.
“Turning the TV on and seeing people say, ‘Well, John Lennon was this,’ and ‘What he was, was this,’ and ‘I remember meeting him’ and it was like, ‘I don’t know, I can’t be one of those people’,” he recalled.
“I can’t just go on TV and say what John meant to me. It was just too deep. It’s just too much. I couldn’t put it into words,” he added.
However, McCartney did find a way to put it into song. He eventually wrote “Here Today” about the death of Lennon, which appeared on his 1982 album Tug of War.
“I was in a building that would become my recording studio, and there were just a couple of little empty rooms upstairs” he said of writing the song.
“So I found a room and just sat on the wooden floor in a corner with my guitar and just started to play the opening chords to ‘Here Today.’”
The singer also revealed the meaning behind the song’s lyric alluding to “the night we cried”. McCartney explained that it referred to a time the pair had got drunk together after a gig was cancelled in Florida.
“We told each other a few truths, you know, ‘Well, I love you. I love you, man. I love that you said that. I love you.’ And we opened up. So, that was kind of special to me. I think that was really one of the only times that ever happened,” he recalled.
Remembering the public’s reaction to the shock news of the shooting, McCartney said: “It was difficult for everyone in the world cause he was such a loved character and such a crazy guy, you know, that he was so special.”
Lennon was murdered by American Beatles fan Mark David Chapman. Lennon had spoken to Chapman and signed his record hours earlier.
Chapman shot Lennon in the archway of his home at The Dakota. He was shot in the back with five bullets and was pronounced dead upon his arrival into hospital at 11.15pm.
Chapman stayed at the scene of the incident until police arrested him. He remains in prison today after being denied parole 12 times.
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