Paul McCartney On The Breakup With John Lennon: “It Was Like Stabbing Him With Little Knifes”

The business disagreements that split the Beatles, and the reconciliation that came later.

Paul McCartney has spoken about one of the most difficult periods of his relationship with John Lennon, describing how much he was hurt by his public outbursts in the Beatles’ final years.

In a new interview with NME, on the occasion of the album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, the 83-year-old musician was asked how he speaks today about Lennon, who was murdered in 1980.

McCartney said he doesn’t think of their relationship in terms of “responsibility” to Lennon’s memory. For him, he explained, Lennon was first and foremost a friend. “He was just a guy I met and we wrote songs together,” he said.

Their relationship, however, went through a rough patch in the Beatles’ final years, when disagreements over the band’s management widened the rift. McCartney wanted his father-in-law, lawyer Lee Eastman, to get involved, while the rest of the Beatles supported businessman Allen Klein. McCartney ultimately refused to sign Klein’s contracts, considering them unfair.

Looking back on that period, McCartney said Lennon’s attacks were “very painful.” “It was like he was stabbing me with little knives,” he said. At first, he felt the need to respond, until he remembered who the man was.

“I thought: wait, this is John. He’s the man I’ve known since I was 16. This is what he does,” he said, explaining that from that moment on the spikes started to hurt him less.

McCartney also spoke about the significance for him of the fact that the two reconnected later, around 1975, after the birth of Lennon’s youngest son, Sean Ono Lennon. Their relationship, he said, was not restored through grand statements, but through everyday conversations about family, children and even baking bread.

Also significant to McCartney was the fact that Lennon later acknowledged that he might have been right about Klein. “It was good to hear John say, even if reluctantly, ‘I think Paul might have been right,’” he said.

Looking back, McCartney called that period painful, but perhaps necessary. “We had to get through it somehow, or someone would have robbed us,” he said.

Paul McCartney’s new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, was released on May 29. On June 10, the musician will participate in a special live discussion at the Roundhouse in London, where he will talk about the creation of the album, his collaboration with producer Andrew Watt and his duet with Ringo Starr.