It’s been almost 44 years since The Beatles star John Lennon was killed at just 40. A couple of years later after processing his grief, Paul McCartney wrote a tribute song to his late friend called Here Today.
Reflecting on the track in the podcast McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, the 81-year-old recalled comforting Lennon in his moments of anxiety.
Macca confessed: “I remember him saying to me, ‘Paul, I worry about how people are going to remember me when I die’ and it kind of shocked me, I said ‘Okay hold on, just hold it right there.
“People are going to think you were great, you’ve already done enough work to demonstrate that.’ I was like his priest. Often I’d have to say ‘My son, you’re great, don’t worry about it,’ and he would take it. It would make him feel better.”
McCartney also spoke of bonding with Lennon over the loss of their mothers at an early age.
He said: “John’s persona was very guarded. Hopelessly guarded, that was where all his wit came from. Like so many comedians, it’s to shield themselves against the world. And John having had this very difficult upbringing, where his father leaves home, then his uncle dies, then his mother gets killed, by the time I knew him he could be very sarcastic. But we all could. It was my way of dealing with my mother’s death, and his too.”
McCartney also shared the real-life event between him and Lennon which inspired the Here Today lyric “What about the night we cried”.
He added: “That was a specific incident in Key West. There was a hurricane coming in and we had to lay low for a couple of days. So we were in our little motel room, so we got very drunk and cried about how we loved each other.”
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics is co-produced by iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin and can be listened to here