Beautiful Possibility (episodes in sequence)
Were John and Paul lovers? Why the question matters far more than you might realize.
NOTE: Beautiful Possibility is not a traditional podcast in which the episodes are standalone, separate episodes. This is a serialised book, in which each episode (but really chapter) builds on the one before, with the accompanying Rabbit Holes providing additional perspective In the context of each episode/chapter.
You’ll get the most out of this series if you listen/read in sequence.
The possibility of John and Paul as lovers is introduced in episode 1:3 (Hope of Deliverance). Episodes 1:1 and 1:2 lay the groundwork for why that possibility matters. Episodes 1:4, 1:5 and 1:6 explore the credibility of John and Paul as a romantic couple. Episodes 1:7, 1:8 and 1:9 gather all of the pieces laid out in the prior episodes and put them together into the fuller answer for why the possibility that John and Paul were lovers might be the single most important unanswered question when it comes to understanding the story and music of The Beatles, and its seismic influence on our world.
Preface
“The prophet follows the idea wherever it goes, and ideas, by their very nature, like to travel to dangerous places.”
1:1 Kairos
To get where we need to go with all of this, we need to start a little further back in the story than Beatles biographies usually do. Not too far back, though —just, y’know, back before the beginning of recorded history.
Rabbit Hole: The Kennedy Assassination Did Not Cause Beatlemania
Americans tend to believe that everything that really matters starts in America, and if it didn’t start in America, it must not really matter. But important, world-changing events do actually originate in places other than the US, and Beatlemania is one of them.
1:2 Love Lies Bleeding
Whether we lived through the actual breakup or not, John’s breakup interviews made all of us into the abandoned and betrayed children of the twentieth century’s most brutal and consequential divorce, sat down and told by our parents not only that they didn't love each other anymore and were going to live apart, but that they’d never loved each other, or for that matter, us. That it was all an act, a lie, and we're on our own from here on out, good luck, fuck off and goodbye.
Rabbit Hole: "Magical Misery Tour"
When we laugh at something and when that laughter is genuine, we undercut its power. If raging at the gods gets us up off of our knees, then laughing at their hubris and occasional cruelty is how we make it a relationship of, if not equals, then at least free citizens of a democratic universe.
1:3 Hope of Deliverance
We had a lot of ground to cover before we arrived here, so I hope you’ll forgive me for holding this back as the plot twist until now — that what set my soul on fire that cold winter’s night is the beautiful possibility that—
Well, that’s what we’ll talk about in this episode.
Rabbit Hole: Beatlemania (second half of episode 1:3)
In which the hot melty pizza of lifeforce erotic love between John and Paul, subliminal advertising techniques and Brian Epstein’s respectability makeover combine to spark the Love Revolution and change the course of human history.
Rabbit Hole: Notes on Research Methodology
Now that I have your attention, 😎 a few notes on how I research Beautiful Possibility.
1:4 Are You Afraid Or Is It True?
For fifty years, mainstream Beatles writing, constrained largely by the customs and bigotries of a wounded culture, has failed to pay attention to the possibility that John and Paul were lovers. For fifty years, the Fisher King wound that could begin to be healed in earnest by that possibility bleeds steadily out onto the castle floor, as the kingdom sinks further and further into the Wasteland.
Rabbit Hole: The Nerk Twins
“Sharing a bed is culturally weighted — there is no neutral. It’s innocent or it’s... not. And that means there’s no way to describe it without planting a flag on one side or the other of the lovers possibility.
1:5 He Said He Said (part 1)
if John and Paul were lovers, it seems without question that love affair will reveal itself in their songs — but only if we look with the right gaze and hear with the right ears.
Rabbit Hole: The 'entangled form' of Lennon/McCartney
In this Rabbit Hole, I want to share with you a less obvious, but more important, way in which the notion of ‘Paul songs’ and ‘John songs’ is a fiction. And that even that handful of songs they supposedly wrote entirely separately, in a very real way were not written entirely separately. And yes, including "Yesterday.”
1:6 He Said He Said (part 2)
May Pang tells a story about John playing “Bless You” for her and telling her that he wrote it for Yoko. That seems like a plausible claim. Let’s find out if it holds up. Also, a note about Ian Leslie’s... book.
Rabbit Hole: Playlist Commentary
For all its iconic status, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" is often commented on as being a little silly — a whole song about wanting to hold hands, as if that was some kind of a big deal. That’s a luxurious opinion to have, if you’re fortunate enough to be allowed to hold hands in public with the person you love.
Day trip: ...to the night 'Beautiful Possibility' was born
Like all of us, I’ve heard “Yesterday” so often that I tend to take it for granted. But that night, enfolded as I was in the beauty of the lovers possibility, I found myself somehow hearing “Yesterday” for the very first time, this song that was so familiar that I could have sung it in my sleep. And in what felt like a small and quiet miracle, “Yesterday” gave up some of its secrets, as it unfurled itself — in the context of the lovers possibility — into its richer, deeper, more complex form.
Rabbit Hole: "Immovable Heterosexuality"
On those rare occasions when the lovers possibility is acknowledged in the Beatles mainstream, it’s virtually always dismissed as accidental, transactional or situational — usually with some variation of, “it was the Sixties and there were a lot of drugs.” This insistence on characterizing the lovers possibility as basically anything other than a genuine love affair isn’t surprising, in a fear of softness culture that allows men to acknowledge sex, but not love.