Sir Paul McCartney shared a touching tribute to John Lennon, who would have turned 84 today, after revealing he was glad they mended their friendship before the musician’s death
Now And Then – The Last Beatles Song official trailer
Sir Paul McCartney has paid tribute to John Lennon by sharing a throwback image on what would have been the late musician’s 84th birthday.
The 82-year-old singer shared a photo on Instagram with a touching message to his former friend and bandmate. The image, taken in 2022, shows Sir Paul performing on stage with footage of John playing the guitar behind him.
The video was part of a Disney+ documentary – The Beatles: Get Back – which aired in November 2021. The film, directed by Peter Jackson, took audiences back to the band’s recording sessions and the making of their album “Let It Be”.
Sir Paul wrote alongside the image: “Happy Birthday John. Thanks for being there.” Fans were moved by the post as one wrote: “I’m going to cry.” Another added: “You and John after many decades are still the best songwriters of the world!”
One more said: “Happy birthday, John! You live in your music and in our hearts.” Someone said: “He’s always here.” A person commented: “I remember the news that sad day in December. Happy birthday John.”
The post comes after Sir Paul admitted he would have been left on a “big guilt trip” if he hadn’t reconciled with John before the rock icon was murdered. Lennon was shot dead by crazed fan Mark Chapman outside his home in New York on December 8, 1980 at the age of just 40. Lennon had quit The Beatles in 1969, and legal battles over the band’s back catalogue created growing tension between the former songwriting partners.
But the pair reconnected in the mid-1970s, spending time with each other at the New York home Lennon shared with second wife Yoko Ono. Sir Paul last year admitted he would have been haunted by his friend’s death if they hadn’t shared those moments. He said: “It was super, super painful, there was a lot of navigation of emotions to be done.
“In the end it was something I was very glad of, when he got murdered, that I’d had some really good times with him before that happened. It would have been the worst thing in the world had he just been killed and we still had a bad relationship. That would have been a big guilt trip for me.
“Luckily, we were friendly, we talked about how to bake bread.” Speaking on the A Life In Lyrics podcast, he said: “You’ve got to remember I sued him in court, I sued his friends from Liverpool, life-long friends, in court. There’s a lot of getting over that has to be done.”
Recently, Sir Paul teased that he will play new Beatles song Now And Then on his upcoming Got Back 24 tour in new footage of him and his band rehearsing. In the video, the singer can be seen performing in front of a screen showing a clip from the song’s music video, which was released in November 2023.
The song was created from a home demo of a ballad that John Lennon had recorded in 1977 but left unfinished, with surviving bandmates Sir Paul and Sir Ringo Starr finishing the track using overdubs and guitar tracks from George Harrison, who died in 2001. The pair also used AI technology to separate the vocals from the home demo on the song which has never been performed live by Sir Paul.
Along with the new song, Sir Paul can also be heard tearing through other classics from the Fab Four including Helter Skelter from 1968’s The Beatles (commonly known as The White Album), I’ve Got A Feeling from 1970’s Let It Be, and Carry That Weight from 1969’s Abbey Road.
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