Paul McCartney has revealed the surprisingly ordinary path to repairing his fractured relationship with John Lennon, a reconciliation he credits as “the only consolation” following Lennon’s murder in 1980. The details emerged in a modern installment of Audible’s “Words + Music” series, titled “The Man on the Run,” featuring extended interviews with filmmaker Morgan Neville.
McCartney recounted how a shared experience of fatherhood, after Lennon welcomed his son Sean, became a crucial point of connection between the two former bandmates in the years following the Beatles’ breakup. He described a moment where a simple shared hobby – bread baking – unexpectedly bridged the gap. “I told him I’d started baking bread and was starting to get solid at it, and he enthusiastically replied: ‘Oh, yeah, I’m making bread!’” McCartney said in the audiobook. “The things that we had in common were just ordinary, little domestic things. Somehow that was peaceful. It was nice that we had that in common. And we weren’t fighting anymore. I would go and visit him and we had quite a bit of interaction, and the same with George and Ringo. It was all getting much nicer.”
The rekindled friendship, McCartney emphasized, provided significant solace after Lennon’s death in December 1980. “I thought, ‘Thank God we got it back together’,” he stated. “I don’t know what I would have thought if we hadn’t and we were still warring.” He acknowledged the enduring incomprehensibility of the tragedy, noting that the perpetrator, Mark Chapman, remains incarcerated in New York. “The guy who did it is still in New York and he’s in jail and he’s still knocking around — you can’t make sense of it. The world is a remarkably sort of bizarre place, as we all know.”
“The Man on the Run” builds upon Neville’s 2023 documentary of the same name, offering expanded interviews and musical performances. Neville intentionally fostered an informal conversational atmosphere during their three years of discussions, aiming to elicit candid reflections from McCartney. The audiobook delves into McCartney’s post-Beatles career, particularly his work with Wings, and his relationship with his late wife, Linda McCartney.
McCartney recently reflected on revisiting this period of his life, describing the experience as “like a period of my life flashing before my eyes” after joining the film review platform Letterboxd. He initially hesitated about including certain vulnerable or humorous moments from the documentary, such as a clip of him performing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” with a red nose, or images of Wings in unconventional attire. However, he ultimately deferred to Neville’s judgment, acknowledging that these moments contributed to a more authentic and compelling narrative. “He said, no, that it works, and that the ups and downs make the ending feel more earned. I believe he’s right,” McCartney wrote.
The documentary features contributions from a range of figures, including Mick Jagger, Chrissie Hynde, Sean Ono Lennon, and McCartney’s daughters, Mary and Stella McCartney. A review in NME praised the film’s portrayal of the weight of expectation placed on McCartney following the Beatles’ dissolution, and the circumstances surrounding John Lennon’s initial desire for a “divorce” from the group seven months before the public announcement.
McCartney also recently paid tribute to Len Garry, a bandmate from his early days with the Quarrymen, following Garry’s death earlier this month at the age of 84.
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