Paul McCartney Recalls Struggling to Grieve John Lennon’s Death Before Writing ‘Here Today’: ‘It Was Just Too Deep’ - Rolling Stone

When John Lennon was killed successful December 1980, tributes poured successful from each astir the satellite successful remembrance of the beloved Beatle. “It was hard for everyone successful the satellite origin helium was specified a loved quality and specified a brainsick guy, you know, that helium was truthful special,” Paul McCartney recalled during a caller interrogation with SiriusXM’s The Beatles Channel. “And truthful it had deed maine truthful overmuch truthful that I couldn’t truly speech astir it.”

More than 4 decades later, helium remembers feeling arsenic though helium couldn’t enactment successful the benignant of forward-facing grieving different radical expressed due to the fact that it simply didn’t consciousness close to him.

“I retrieve getting location from the workplace connected the time that we’d heard the quality helium died and turning the TV connected and seeing radical say, ‘Well, John Lennon was this,’ and ‘What helium was, was this,’ and ‘I retrieve gathering him,’” the instrumentalist shared. “And it was like, I don’t know, I can’t beryllium 1 of those people. I can’t conscionable spell connected TV and accidental what John meant to me. It was conscionable excessively deep. It’s conscionable excessively much. I couldn’t enactment it into words.”

Instead, McCartney fto his emotions settee earlier sitting down to process Lennon’s decease done songwriting. “I was successful a gathering that would go my signaling studio, and determination were conscionable a mates of small bare rooms upstairs,” helium explained. “So I recovered a country and conscionable sat connected the woody level successful a country with my guitar and conscionable started to play the opening chords to ‘Here Today.’”

The song, which appeared connected his 3rd solo workplace album, Tug of War, successful 1982, recovered McCartney posing questions to Lennon and imagining what his effect would be. “And if I said I truly knew you well/What would your reply be/If you were present today?” helium asks successful the opening verse, continuing: “Well, knowing you/You’d astir apt laughter and accidental that we were worlds apart.”

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Later successful the song, helium asks astir the clip helium and Lennon met and different clip that they cried together. “The nighttime we cried, that was to bash with a clip erstwhile we were successful Key West down successful Florida,” McCartney explained. “And for immoderate reason, I deliberation it was similar a hurricane, thing had been delayed, and we couldn’t play for a mates of days. So we held up successful a small motel. So what would we do? Well, we’d person a drink, and we would get drunk. We didn’t person to play. So we did that night.”

He continued: “We got drunk and started to get benignant of emotional, you know, ‘Oh, you were large erstwhile you, I emotion that.’ You know, we started, it each came out, you know, but connected the mode to that, determination was a batch of psyche searching. You know, we told each different a fewer truths, you know, ‘Well, I emotion you. I emotion you, man. I emotion that you said that. I emotion you. And we opened up. So, that was benignant of peculiar to me. I deliberation that was truly 1 of the lone times that ever happened.”