"On Paul’s 1971's Ram album, he included a jab at John on the opener, "Too Many People," scoffing at John’s exhortations for world peace and chastising John for taking "his lucky break" and breaking it in two.
“That was me saying basically, 'You've made this break, so good luck with it.' But it was pretty mild...It was all a bit weird and a bit nasty, and I was basically saying, 'Let's be sensible. We had a lot going for us in the Beatles, and what actually split us up is the business stuff, and that's pretty pathetic really, so let's try and be peaceful. Let's maybe give peace a chance.'"
But, at least in the short term, peace was not forthcoming. John’s response to Paul’s comparatively soft musical dig was to go nuclear with "How Do You Sleep," an aggressive diss track. Even more hurtful to Paul, the slide guitar on the song was played by Georhe.
“The sound you make is muzak to my ears/You must have learned something in all those years," Lennon sings, before taking aim at McCartney's most famous song: "The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you're gone you're just another day."
“I had to work very hard not to take it too seriously, but at the back of my mind I was thinking: 'Wait a minute, All I ever did was "Yesterday"? I suppose that's a funny pun, but all I ever did was "Yesterday," "Let It Be," "The Long and Winding Road," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lady Madonna"….f— you, John.'"
When Paul did respond publicly, on 1971's Wild Life, it was with an olive branch.
His first venture with new band Wings included the mournful "Dear Friend," an open letter to John that matched "How Do You Sleep" for candor. Built around a haunting solo piano figure, a grief-stricken Paul sounds lost as he wonders if this was "really the borderline" of their friendship.
“I just felt sad about the breakdown in our friendship, and this song kind of came flowing out.
‘Dear friend, what's the time?/ Is this really the borderline?' Are we splitting up. Is this 'you go your way; I'll go mine?"
Half a century later, the line "Are you afraid / or is it true" strikes him as particularly poignant.
“Meaning, 'Why is this argument going on? Is it because you're afraid of something? Are you afraid of the split-up? Are you afraid of my doing something without you? Are you afraid of the consequences of your actions?' And the little rhyme, 'Or is it true?' Are all these hurtful allegations true? This song came out in that kind of mood. It could have been called 'What the F—, Man?' but I'm not sure we could have gotten away with that then."
John kept his response to the song to himself, but the public sparring soon ceased. Relations began to thaw and communication began to open.
“At first, after the breakup of the Beatles, we had no contact, but there were various things we needed to talk about," said Paul.
“Our relationship was a bit fraught sometimes because we were discussing business, and we would sometimes insult each other on the phone. But gradually we got past that, and if I was in New York I would ring up and say, 'Do you fancy a cup of tea?'"
Paul noticed a shift in his friend following the birth of his son Sean in 1975.
“We had even more in common, and we'd often talk about being parents."
John effectively retired from music for the next five years, devoting his life to Sean's care. Fittingly, it was Paul who inspired him to pick up a guitar once again. John heard Paul’s electro-tinged 1980 single "Coming Up," an unconventional track that seemed to predict the impending onslaught of New Wave artists.
“John described 'Coming Up' somewhere as 'a good piece of work.' He'd been lying around not doing much, and it sort of shocked him out of inertia. So it was nice to hear that it had struck a chord with him."
John’s so-called "comeback" album, Double Fantasy, featured some of the same New Wave sensibilities.
He was returning home from a session for a follow-up record on the night of Dec. 8 when an assassin fired four shots into his back.
For Paul the timing was particularly cruel, as he and John had finally started to rekindle the warmth that had been absent between them for so long.
“I was very glad of how we got along in those last few years, that I had some really good times with him before he was murdered," Paul writes.
“Without question, it would have been the worst thing in the world for me, had he been killed, when we still had a bad relationship. I would've thought, 'Oh, I should've, I should've, I should've…' It would have been a big guilt trip for me.”
But luckily, our last meeting was very friendly. We talked about how to bake bread."
It also marked a turning point in his notoriously tempestuous relationship with Yoko who was now thrust into the unenviable role of rock's most famous widow.
“Of course, from then on really, I was very sympathetic to Yoko. I'd lost my friend, but she'd lost her husband and the father of her child."
Paul paid tribute to his friend in the best way he knew how: with a song. Written during sessions for 1982's Tug of War, "Here Today" is a delicate acoustic ballad in which Paul directly addresses his fallen friend by reliving shared memories.
"I was remembering things about our relationship and about the million things we'd done together, from just being in each other's front parlors or bedrooms to walking on the street together or hitchhiking — long journeys together which had nothing to do with the Beatles." He nods to John’s trademark bluff with the opening verse:
If I said I really knew you well
If you were here today?
Well knowing you
What would your answer be
You'd probably laugh and say that we were world's apart
If you were here today
"I'm playing to the more cynical side of John, but I don't think it's true that we were so distant."
As the song continues, he sets aside all pretenses with "What about the night we cried/Because there wasn't any reason left to keep it all inside."
The lines recall the moment that they both let their guard down while on the road in 1964, during the height of the mania that their music had created.
“That was in Key West, on our first major tour of the US, when there was a hurricane coming in and we couldn't play a show in Jacksonville. We had to lie low for a couple of days, and we were in our little Key West motel room, and we got very drunk and cried about how we loved each other."
It was a sentiment that didn't come easy to two guys from Northern England.
“I don't think it's as true now as it was back in the 1950s and '60s, but certainly when we were growing up you'd have to be gay for a man to say that to another man, so that blinkered attitude bred a little bit of cynicism," Paul said.
“If you were talking about anything soppy, someone would have to make a joke of it, just to ease the embarrassment in the room. But there's a longing in the lines, 'If you were here today,' and 'I am holding back the tears no more,' because it was very emotional writing this song.” "
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