PAUL MCCARTNEY: “JOHN HAD A VERY TOUGH LIFE”

The Fab Four grew up in Liverpool together but had drastically different family lives. In an interview with The Penguin Podcast last month, Paul McCartney spoke of his comfortable upbringing compared to John Lennon’s. The Beatles star admitted: “I was very lucky. I had a very lovely family in Liverpool.” “And I can’t remember any aggro. I mean how lucky is that?
“I thought everyone had that kind of a family.”

However, it was when he met John Lennon that he discovered his future bandmate had a much harder time.
John had lost his mother, while his father had left at a very early age. Paul said: “Then I met John and his family was a tragedy. Y’know, his father left home when he was three.His mum got knocked over and killed by a car. He had a very tough life.
It put my lovely family life into perspective.”

In the same interview, Paul spoke of how insecure Lennon could be.He said: “John Lennon was not that secure.I remember John saying to me once, ‘What are people going to think of me when I’m dead? I wonder if they’ll like me. And I said, ‘Now just you stop. Listen to me. People are going to go crazy, people love you. And they’re going to love you more’ And obviously that’s turned out to be the case.” “Y’know I had to reassure him and say, ‘you’re great!’
You may not think it, you may worry that you’ve not done enough, but believe me you have.’ It can happen to anyone.”

Asked if he needed similar reassurance throughout his life, Paul agreed.He said: “Yeah sure. You’d think I’d know that I’d done okay. I’d think I’d amassed a little pile over here of success.” He added: “So you’d think I could look at that and go, ‘I’m alright, I’m okay.’ It’s not that easy. Life’s not that easy. You’ll be writing something – I find this all the time, especially with creative artists – they’re all just writing something and they go, ‘this is no good’.And it may turn out to be a really great piece.And during the creative process, they’re self-flagellating.”
express.co.uk