In the pantheon of “iconic duos”, it doesn’t get much better than John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Objectively the most successful songwriting pair in history by many metrics, the two Beatles fed off and learned from one another while creating hits such as “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” However, when the Fab Four announced their split in 1970, it looked like not only the end of a brilliant partnership, but a close friendship as well. Each pursuing their own solo careers, Lennon and McCartney often went out of their way to take lyrical swipes at one another.
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Fortunately, the two musicians managed to patch things up before Lennon’s tragic death on Dec. 9, 1980. During McCartney’s recent installment of the Audible series Words + Music, titled “The Man on the Run,” the “Band on the Run” singer, 83, opened up about music’s most famous pair rekindled their friendship.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney Broke Bread Together—Literally
After a highly publicized, emotionally charged fallout, it was the ordinary, everyday aspects of fatherhood and domesticity that eventually reunited John Lennon and Paul McCartney. No longer was their relationship centered around the pressures of public life. Now, they could bond over smaller pleasures.
“I had started making bread and was getting pretty good, and I started talking to him, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m making bread!’” McCartney recalled. “So things that we had in common were just ordinary little domestic things. So somehow that was peaceful, and it was nice that we had that in common.”
A decade later, John Lennon was just 40 years old when he was gunned down in front of his home in New York City. Devastated by the loss of his friend, Paul McCartney said he took solace in those quiet interactions.
“I thought, ‘Thank God we got it back together,’” McCartney told filmmaker Morgan Neville. “I don’t know what I would have thought if we hadn’t and we were still warring.”
At that point, Neville informed McCartney that their conversation was taking place on the anniversary of Lennon’s death. Astounded, the 19-time Grammy Award winner lamented that the “Imagine” singer’s killer “just robbed the world of this crazy genius.”
Featured image by Tony Sellers/Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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