Why didn't Paul write and record with George after 1970?

It is interesting indeed. I've read now of two people apparently close to Paul (Barry Miles and I think Alistair Taylor?) who seemed to claim Linda somehow getting Paul to distance himself from them (I love Linda btw, she's an inspiration).

Someone posted a quote by Barry Miles up in the thread, about him saying how he hadn't seen Paul in more than 10 years before they began work on Many Years From Now. Guess if many of Paul's friends at the time were common friends with Jane Asher, that complicated things.

 

George's book isn't really an autobiography. The first part (less than 100 pages) consists of a few random anecdotes from different parts of his life. John is mentioned in passing a few times in this section.

The second part contains transcriptions of the lyrics of all of the songs he'd written to date, along with reproductions of his original handwritten lyrics. In this section George also writes a bit about each song. The amount he writes about each song varies... sometimes it's a few paragraphs, sometimes it's just two or three sentences. Sometimes he talks about what inspired the song, sometimes he talks about the process of writing it or recording it. In this section George occasionally credits people for random small contributions to his songs. For example, he notes that his mother came up with the final line of "Piggies" ("What they need's a damn good whacking") and that Ringo came up with the "I told you 'bout the swans that they live in the park" line in "Badge." John is not mentioned at all in this songwriting section of the book, and that appears to be what angered him. In the 1980 Playboy interview he talked about how he helped George with songwriting on more than one occasion, and mentioned the specific example of contributing a lot of lyrics to "Taxman." He apparently felt that George should have recognized his contributions and mentioned them as he did in some other cases with other people. And in typical self-centered Lennon fashion, he felt that George did this deliberately to slight him.

 

I think Linda had the type of personality that allowed her to adapt easily to many types of situations and people (Ringo was similar), but also left the door open for people to project onto her. For instance, for years the exact same accusations made about Yoko were leveled at her, but really their personalities and situations seem so different that those comparisons don’t seem reasonable. There is significant evidence that Yoko was and is a person who likes to have control over situations and even people, but most accounts of Linda by people who actually knew her suggest that was not the case for her, especially in her relationship with Paul. I think most of us that follow Paul know that he has a reputation for liking a significant degree of control over his work (he even admits it!) and that appears to be true in his relationships as well. His failed marriages and engagements occurred with women who were quite strong-willed, but his marriage to Linda seemed to work better in part because she was more willing to adjust her life to suit his goals.

The comment by @Fivebyfive noting that Paul’s friends blamed Linda for separating him from them, while vice versa for her friends, is astute -- the claims that Linda separated Paul from his friends have been discussed here, while Danny Field describes how he and Linda’s other friends felt the McCartney “machine” took over when they married and kept her from them. This has had me thinking about situations I’ve observed in my own life when someone enters a new romantic relationship. I think in almost any such situation there will be some changes to the individuals’ prior relationships. At the most basic level, they now -- hopefully -- spend a lot of time with the new person. At least some of that time will -- hopefully -- be alone as a couple. The rest of the time, if the new partner likes the other’s friends, they might still spend a lot of time with them, but if not they naturally will spend less time together. It doesn’t have to be intentional, and, in my experience, often the people in the new relationship have no idea some distancing has occurred until it’s pointed out to them.

However, I’ve noticed that, rather than accepting the situation as expected and not a deliberate slight, the existing friends/relatives often conjure up blame on at least one of the partners. I’ve seen both the friend and the new partner get blamed, but I think the perception of each is slightly different. There tend to be some hurt feelings toward the existing friend, but more resentment or disparaging of the new partner. Think even about how lots of us fans feel about what happened between the Beatles post-breakup, assuming we regret their animosity during that time -- we often feel some resentment towards one or more of their partners for what we perceive as a “negative” influence. Yet I think we all recognize to varying extents that the buck stopped with the former Beatles themselves, and we may feel a general anger or sadness that they couldn’t work things out better.

Sometimes there are of course additional complications that can strain a relationship. It’s easy to see how there might have been some distancing between Paul and people who were close to Jane, who naturally might have had some hard feelings toward Paul, even if not fully conscious. Paul might, consciously or not, have wanted to avoid any such tension. This sort of thing occurs all the time with friends and family of exes, especially when the breakup is not amicable. I’ve always been surprised by how Peter Asher continued working with Paul for a bit after the Jane breakup, which must have caused some discomfort for all parties involved. Eventually Peter left Apple, and I’ve assumed the awkwardness might have played at least some role. As for Barry Miles, he was close to Peter and so it seems like any awkwardness between Peter and Paul relating to Jane might have extended to him, but again not necessarily because P or L were intentionally keeping away anyone who associated with the Ashers, even if he perceived it that way.

Drifting apart also happens naturally in a sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing, and at least one person involved might not even notice any distancing has occurred. Paul hung out with people like Miles while he was a bachelor in London, while later on he was a family man living in the countryside. How many friends from school have you visited in the last 10 years? Some people are great at staying in close touch with friends from their past, but I think most of us tend to spend most of our time with the people whose paths we still often cross.

That leads me to state that I very much agree there were significant differences in how George and Paul maintained friendships. I’ve long noticed this, have spent an unhealthy amount of time pondering it, and my main conclusion is that It’s Complicated and definitely can’t be pinned down to one or two factors. Paul’s relationships with Jane and Linda absolutely were closely related to the nature of his social life during those times, but I don’t think it was strictly causal, with the women exerting direct influence on him. Paul chose these women to be in relationships with, and his choices reflect aspects of himself. Paul also seems to make more adjustments than the average person to his behavior depending on who his romantic partner is, but I think those changes come from within him, rather than through direct action by the partner. Ultimately I think the nature of the differences between Paul and George in how they approached friendships had more to do with differences in their personalities than the direct influence of their partners.

George seems to have been one of those people who naturally do maintain close friendships for life, and he even kept picking up new ones along the way. He had a handful of stable, long-lasting friendships that by most accounts were extremely close and intense. Paul has a lot of good friends, but they generally appear to be more what you might consider social companions, though none of us can really say for sure because we’re not them! It does seem that George had more of a tendency to maintain close friendships throughout changing life circumstances and issues that could easily destroy most friendships (affairs with wives, lawsuits), and even stayed close to his ex-wife, including after she divorced his best friend. To some extent these lasting friendships also reflect the personalities of the friends themselves, especially since George did have some friends (like J+P!) that he did fall out with, but I do think there’s an overall trend.

Paul’s social life seems to be characterized by a lot of long-lasting social acquaintances with various closer friendships sprinkled throughout, but more of a tendency for the closer relationships to wax and wane in intensity and often fizzle out altogether. He also seems less comfortable with maintaining several close relationships at once, which seemed to come more naturally to George. I agree that Paul’s friendships have been distributed across a diverse set of professional spheres, but as noted by @gkmacca , George did maintain friendships with a diverse cast of characters himself -- I’m always impressed by how George’s friends sat at the very top of their fields no matter what their field was! I think what mainly differed relating to the topic of this thread is how close George was to particular fellow musicians.

A tendency toward a smaller number of very close relationships versus a larger number of more casual friendships is correlated with known personality traits, especially introversion and extroversion. I’m sure we all see these differences in people in our own lives all the time. One style isn’t objectively better or worse than the other, they’re just different, but the styles can have a big impact on many aspects of people’s lives.

 

I don't know. Townsend's story about Linda calling him to get Paul to talk to him surely didn't make Paul seem like much of an extrovert.

 

I knew someone would pick up on the usage of those words, which don't relate to the overall point, so I probably shouldn't have included them. This topic is way too complicated to adequately get into in this thread and remain on topic, so I'll just say that the scientific definitions of extrovert and introvert are very different than our colloquial usage, and absolutely do not imply that someone is the most sociable life of the party 100% of the time or 100% a hermit.

 

I don't understand please explain ???

 

What I always found amusing about that Lennon quote is he's basically calling guys like Tom Scott and Jim Horn "two bit sax players" like they're complete nobodies or something...did Lennon have any idea how many albums Tom Scott and/or the L.A. Express actually played on? It'd be like calling Jim Keltner a "two bit drummer"

But, no, The Beatles don't get much mention in I Me Mine. I believe funnily enough though that Lennon is mentioned the most- about six times or something, so not quite the "non-existent" Lennon was claiming in that interview.

 

But he's not thanked, nor given credit for anything. He's just mentioned in passing. Even Paul gets credited (negatively) for inspiring "Wah Wah." But John... nothing but a few offhand mentions.

I don't think Tom Scott gets mentioned in the book at all though... so he should be even more pissed off than John.

 

Elton John on George:


George always spoke his mind. He could be a little intimidating when he wasn't in a good mood, like we all can. The last time I saw him, he was a bit grumpy toward me, and I felt, "Oooh." But who knows what he was having to deal with? He had a pretty rough ride the last four or five years. George was happiest with his close friends, who were mostly British musicians like Joe Brown and Alvin Lee. He didn't like celebrity. I think he'd had enough by 1970 to last three lifetimes. George just relished his gardening and his motor racing, and he loved his privacy. As a result of that reclusiveness, there was a little bit of curmudgeonly commentary about bands - saying he hated Oasis and U2, bands today aren't as good. And they probably aren't.

But, again, he was very forthright. There was no holding back. You know, at a time when Oasis were kissing the Beatles' feet, George Harrison said, "Well, they're rubbish."

Of course, George's other passion was his movies, HandMade Films. I invested in a couple of them myself. And he had the guts to make Monty Python's Life of Brian, which we should all thank him for. He had a very wicked sense of humor, a bit like Lennon - very, very cutting.

He was a bit like an earth mother, in a way. He loved his gardening, he loved his wife, he loved his kid, he loved his house, Friar Park, and he restored that house as much as he could.

 

Still, what was Lennon expecting? For George to say something like "I owe my entire career to John Lennon"? Hell, given how shabbily Lennon treated George at times he shoulda counted himself lucky he got even a few offhand mentions.

Not one mention, eh (I haven't read I Me Mine in years so I don't remember)? So who are these "two bit sax players" Lennon is referring to, that is, of course, assuming he actually read the damned book at all, and wasn't just talking out his asss there...

 

Well, he only has one failed marriage, and the cause of that does not seem to be that Heather Mills was "strong willed" but that she suffered from pathological lying and/or narcissism. I would argue actually that, unlike Linda or Nancy, Mills didn't have a career or any seeming ambition beyond being famous. Before meeting Paul, she'd done some cheesy/skeevy modeling and had been trying to cultivate tabloid fame without ever held down a steady career. During their marriage, her sole interest seemed to be in trying to leverage Paul's fame into her own fame (using his name and connections to make unsuccessful attempts at legit modeling and TV presenting). Post their divorce, she tried to become a reality TV star. Otherwise, she seems to invest her energy and time into skiing.

In his book, I think Danny Fields seemed to understand why Linda had to distance herself from her old friends. I thought it was astute that he recognized that most of Linda's New York friends worked in rock journalism, and here she married one of the most famous rock musicians on the planet, so naturally she wanted to pull away to protect her and Paul's privacy. She had to wonder if people like Lillian Roxon wanted to check up on her or was just fishing for a great scoop. To be honest, some of her friends (as quoted by Fields) seemed a bit tone deaf in not recognizing that not only did Linda get married and move to another country, but she also had a six year old and a newborn at the time. Many of the friends mentioned were childless and remained in New York City and just didn't seem to recognize how getting married and having kids changes things. It's something I saw amongst my (decidedly non-famous) friends and acquaintances. In their mid-to-late twenties especially (which is what Paul and Linda were) people naturally start long-term relationships, start having kids, moving, getting steadier jobs, etc. and drift away from their college and single friends. But there always seems to be at least one person in a friend group who cannot accept that and wants to be forever 25 and rails against the new partners, etc.

I think Paul tends to get a lot of his personal satisfaction and fulfillment from his family rather than outsiders. He's close to his adult children and in several ways, they seem like his best friends. He has a wife who's he described as his best friend. He also has a bunch of grandchildren and nieces and nephews who he spends a lot of time with, and he's also close with his brother (who is only two years younger). Brother-in-law John Eastman remains probably his closest advisor and John's son/Paul's nephew Lee Eastman also works for MPL. There's also Paul's stepson, who he seems very close to, and he even seems to be good friends with his sons-in-law (like Mary's husband, a film director, asking Paul to read his scripts and give him feedback).

What is quite frustrating is how little Beatles biographers in general seem to be with examining George's relationship to Paul OR John. When they consider George's relationship with the others at all, it seems to go like this, "George resented Paul for being bossy. After the breakup, George took John's side against Paul, so he must've liked John best. George's opinion of Paul in 1971 was then set in stone in forever, then John died and much later, George died. The end." This completely ignores the friendship George and Paul, especially towards the end of George's life. It ignores the falling out George had with John in the '70's.

George's relationship with Paul reminds me very much of brothers. They knew each other the longest and from the youngest age, so a lot of their conflicts seem like petty sibling squabbles. I remember one anecdote about how, pre-fame, the band were trying to go to a gig but were late because Paul and George were arguing over who got to drive. One of them grabbed the keys and refused to give it up so they ended up grappling with each other. So yeah, they fought but yet they also had a closeness with each other. On the other hand, George came in to the group idolizing John. It's almost like George felt more comfortable fighting with Paul, like, "Of course I can fight with Paul, he's always going to be there no matter what," whereas John was always a dicier prospect because he was always the older cool kid who might expel you from the gang. George was the one most verbally against Yoko, who (as far as I know) never attempted a friendship with her his whole life, it was George's conflicts with John during Let it Be/Get Back/The White Album that seemed the nastiness. Yet the popular conception is still, "Paul was the one who hated Yoko, Paul is the one who was dismissive of George and fighting with him during '68-'69." Didn't Sulpy discover via the session tapes that it was a fight with John that caused to George to infamously quit during Get Back, not an argument with Paul?

 

I kinda think that's exactly what Lennon was expecting.

 

I feel like Paul's biggest friendship was in his marriage to Linda. They married 9 years before George and Olivia and at a time when the Beatles were breaking up. Paul found solace in his marriage/family. At the time the Beatles were breaking up, George was still married to Pattie and it wasn't going great and he found solace in other friends that turned into long term friends. By the time he married Olivia those friendships were solid. Paul didn't have a period between the Beatles and the marriage to Linda to have a lot of guy pal time.

 

I had trouble buying that "strong-willed" comment, too, as if that word only applied to Jane and HM. Because Linda seemed pretty strong willed to me -- in many ways. She was no pushover. In fact, I always thought she was tougher than Paul. And Nancy Shevall, though we know very little about her (and she seems to like it that way), can't be much of a fragile flower. She's spent her life in the New Jersey trucking business. Nancy kinda reminds me of Olivia Harrison -- not interested in the spotlight but a strong woman.

To be fair about Mills, she bought a UK Vegan frozen foods company after the divorce and that seems to be her career now, in between the skiing. So she's not just skiing. And yes, it's kinda creepy that she seems to want to out-Linda Linda McCartney. ... For the 3,456,599th time: What the **** was he thinking?

 

It was my Tommy Pischedda impersonation.

 

I think I didn't phrase that well. Many of the issues he had with Jane and Heather seemed to involve them being unable to make the kinds of compromises in their priorities that would suit Paul's goals in a romantic relationship, which in the late 60s were mainly to have a stable domestic life revolving around family, and around the time of Heather were probably to recapture the type of hybrid family-professional relationship he had with Linda, along with who knows what else. The "ambitions" of Jane and Heather were quite different, but what I think differentiates them from Linda and Nancy is that both of the latter seem better able to adjust their personal priorities and identities for the sake of the relationship. Linda completely moved to a different country, significantly curtailed her own successful career, and fully merged her life with Paul's. Nancy quit important roles that required more time than she now has (including the MTA), spends almost all her time with Paul wherever he is, and I think we would agree seems to be content remaining more in the background with Paul.

Each one of these women had their own reasons for why they did or didn't balance the priorities of the relationship with their own personal ones in a way that was sustainable. Jane's career was the most important thing to her and it kept her on the road a lot. Linda, probably for a variety of reasons, was happy to shift primarily to being a wife, mother, and primary confidant etc. You could fairly argue that these were all things she very much wanted and sought, but I think those goals underscore her comfort with being defined primarily by her role in the lives of others, and she made many personal adjustments to fit her life into Paul's that wouldn't have been easy for many other people. Heather, regardless of what words are used to describe her, appears to like a lot of the attention to be on her, which seemed to create tension for reasons we can only speculate about. Nancy, again probably for a variety of reasons including where she is at in her life, seems fine with the current balance between the aspects of her life.

Linda and Nancy were and are obviously strong-willed in many ways, especially relating to their careers, family, and causes important to them, but I was referring specifically to the extent to which they were able to make adjustments to merge their lives with Paul's in a way that was what he was looking for at the time of that relationship.

 

He obviously read enough of the book to know he wasn't given any credit for "Taxman" or whatever other songwriting assistance he offered. Taking a look yesterday, as far as I can see there's no sax players (two-bit or otherwise) mentioned in the songwriting section, though Jim Horn gets a "thanks" in the afterword of the book. Several random people are mentioned as helpers or inspirations in the songwriting section, including cowriters (like Ronnie Wood, Gary Wright and Eric Idle), plus Jim Keltner, some race-car drivers, producers, and his mum. "Two-bit sax player" seems to simply be Lennon shorthand for anyone mentioned (musician or otherwise) whom he deems less significant than him. Meaning, probably everybody.

 

I just wanted to thank you both for your fantastic and extremely interesting contributions to the thread; you have made me examine the topic at hand in a way that I never have done before, and I feel like I have learned a great deal about Paul, George and their various partners and friends and the relationships between them.

It is fair to say that this forum often lacks female perspectives, so it is great that you have both contributed so much to this thread, which has evolved into one of the most interesting on the forum IMO, and I feel that your insights have shed light onto this topic in a way that is rarely ever done.

Regarding the different ways that Paul and George socialised, your comments have helped me realise that one major difference between the two was that (since Linda) Paul seems to prefer spending the majority of his time socialising with his female partner, including whilst on tour (Linda was in Wings after all, and Nancy often attends his concerts), whereas George made sure to make time for his other friends, who seem to have visited Friar Park often.

Obviously these are both generalisations, and obviously George deeply loved Olivia and Paul has many long term friends beyond his wives, but I do think that in marriage, Paul and George were both quite different in how they approached socialising, and that difference is a key reason why George had more musician friends (not that Paul doesn't also have musician friends also).

Anyway, thanks again to both of you!

 

I want to add one follow-up to what I said because I worry it might seem like I’m implying Paul is the notorious type who seeks out submissive women he can control. I think the evidence is unequivocal that that is not the case, and Paul is most attracted to women who have rich lives and personas they bring to the table.

I think the key thing about Paul’s “control” issues in all aspects of his life isn’t so much that he feels compelled to control things, it’s that he has a knee-jerk reaction to feeling like others are controlling him. In fact, Lewisohn persists on this theme.

He might have been able to make the relationship with Jane work by adjusting his life more to fit into her schedule, but I suspect that might have made him feel like his own freedom was being limited by an outside force. As for Heather, I try to avoid reading all that gossip that came out, but from the bits I've heard, it sounds like one issue was that Heather was trying to exert significant influence on aspects of Paul’s life, which surely would have riled him.

This ties back to the main point that I doubt the claims that Linda was exerting significant and direct control over his social life. I think if that were the case, Paul would have been out of there in a heartbeat.

 

I take your points but I also think Paul has made some sacrifices/adjustments as well for both Linda and Nancy.

For Linda: (1) He sacrificed his band. He chose Linda over the Beatles. And if he hadn't committed to her, he wouldn't have committed to the Eastmans, and who knows what would have happened then. (2) He stopped cheating. Which is kind of hilarious to think of as "a sacrifice" but none of the other Beatles stopped cheating on their wives, so from that point of view, that was huge for Paul to be faithful. I can barely type it without laughing, though. It's ridiculous. But this was a guy who had spent his Beatles years sleeping with anything that moved and he could have spent the 1970s, 1980s, and on doing the exact same thing (much like John, George, and Ringo did). (3) He gave up meat. That was Linda's idea and initiative but Paul went all in and still does 19 years after her death.

For Nancy: (1) He spends far more time in NYC than he used to because her job & family are there. He even plopped down $15 million for a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue -- something one of his bios said HM wanted but he refused to do (and of course she called him cheap and had a meltdown). But he did it for Nancy. (2) He's become an exercise fiend because she's an exercise fiend. (3) He's not religious. Never has been. But Nancy is. And friends of mine in NYC say he's attended synagogue with her and regularly celebrates Jewish holidays with her. (Linda was Jewish but not really religious.) No one can see him converting but he has adapted to and/or been respectful of Nancy's religious beliefs -- to some degree. (4) He seems to have finally gotten a bit more independent and/or less needy. Because Nancy is in NY sometimes without him (for her job) and he is sometimes in London (for his custody of his youngest child) or LA without her -- something that didn't happen with Linda. And he's adjusted to that.

 

I think that's a fair assessment. However, I also have to wonder if it was not a matter of Jane being unwilling to adapt her life around family, and just not wanting to with Paul because he wasn't the right person. It wasn't that long after her breakup with Paul that Jane got together with her soulmate Gerald Scarfe and she did adjust her personal priorities to put aside her career to have a family. Jane was also young when she was with Paul, so it may not have been the right time in addition to not being with the right person. Linda was a year older than Paul and had already been through marriage, parenthood and divorce. Obviously both Paul and Nancy had a ton of water under the bridge at their respective ages.

I just personally cringe when I see the portrayal of Jane and Paul's breakup being put down to "caveman Paul wanted Jane to immediately give up acting and be barefoot and pregnant" when I've never seen any evidence of that (NOT that you're arguing that, BTW). For one thing, it excuses Paul's actual bad behavior of constantly cheating on Jane. It also pits Jane and Linda against each other as women needlessly and removes their agency. Not many people stay with the partner they first met at age 17, then there are all the other conflicts Paul and Jane had: an apparent lack of communication, competing schedules, disagreeing about friends, about drug use, where to live, etc. And finally the straw that apparently broke the camel's back: Paul's sexual relationships with other women.

Yet Paul also made adjustments: by most accounts, he was not as into the rural life as Linda was and it was at Linda's behest that he gave up touring for most of the 1980's, among other things. For Nancy, he now spends half his time living in New York City (and bought a posh new apartment there). I'm not privy to any details to judge if Nancy has truly given up any important work role - she works half the time in England but reportedly still checks in at her company's New Jersey headquarters once a month. It's true she quit the MTA after marrying Paul, but that was due. She's been on the board for eleven years and technically her term had expired. The governor was not in a rush to appoint her replacement yet so she stayed, but she conceivably would have been required to leave at any day. Having an eight year old daughter and other things requiring her husband spend at least half his time England probably is what finally spurred her on to leave.

Edit: Damn, posted at the same time as Fivebyfive! Go read his/her post, it's much better!

Wow, this is a terrific point. I'm not as familiar with George's biography as Paul's, so I admit to the timeline of his marriages not even occurring to me.

Aw, shucks! But seriously, thank you. It's such an interesting conversation and I'm loving everyone's replies. Everything in Beatles fandom tends to be so mired in John and Paul's relationship, I'm having a good time. I blather on about Paul but know way, way less about George and am always frustrated at the reductive, "Paul got on George's nerves" stance most biographers take. It completely ignores how bonded the two were to focus only on the downs of their relationship rather than the ups. In the Living in the Material World doc, Paul clearly loved and felt loved by George, not some cold stranger who got kicked to the curb 40 years ago because he told George how to play a solo.

 

Agreed, and I think Paul and Jane simply weren't well matched across the board. Both were attracted to each other for superficial reasons at a young age, but the mismatches became apparent as they spent more time together and matured as individuals. I think if their connection was deeper, both would have naturally made sacrifices for the relationship without feeling like it was a burden.

Again, agree with you and @Fivebyfive that Paul has made many adjustments too, as I would hope anyone in a healthy relationship would. In fact, as I said in my original post, I'm actually struck by the extent to which Paul alters his lifestyle and behavior depending on whom he's with. I think I overcomplicated my point -- my interpretation of his behavior is that he wants to feel like he has freedom and choice in what adjustments he makes, rather than having them directly dictated to him by the situation or other person. That behavior is not a given -- I can think of plenty of people who seem most comfortable leaving decisions about their lives to outside forces.

 

This is an interesting point, and I agree that, like with Paul and Jane, there wasn't really a strong, deep, intense personal connection between George and Pattie, and George and Paul each sought out that depth and support with other people; however, I still hypothesize that while timing and romantic relationships played a role in the nature of G+Ps' friendships, more fundamental differences between them as people played a bigger role. Paul's relationship with Jane was on the rocks for years, but I would argue the only intense, close 1:1 friendship Paul had during that time was with John -- possibly with G+R too, but I don't think those were quite the same. George formed multiple such 1:1 friendships while married to Pattie, maintained most of those friendships for the rest of his life, and picked up new ones throughout his life (e.g., Jeff Lynne). This underscores my point that George naturally maintained these multiple intense 1:1 bonds simultaneously, while Paul seems to prefer to have many social contacts while generally reserving true 1:1 closeness for one or at most a few relationships at a time (kids notwithstanding).

 

Bottom line, they were both adults, who got married, happened to move on with their lives after The Beatles, and any situation that those 2 were together, they were friends, actually, more than that, they were brothers. Its pretty clear that in the end of George's life, they were good friends. Actually, I saw a footage from those 2 together at a Cirque Du Soleil concert in 2001!

 

I personally find it a bit creepy to be talking about a person's private lives regardless of who they are, should we not just be talking about his music and work ??