May 13th, 1989: Paul talks to DJ Mike Reed about second-guessing his relationship with John in the wake of John’s death.
PAUL: We’d been slagging each other off a lot, over the years coming up to it, and in fact we’d–we’d got on quite well personally, what turned out to be towards the end. But there had been a lot of slagging off and business stuff. John would’ve been sort of saying, “Oh, he just does all that,” “Oh, bloody hell,” “Oh, he’s like this…” and this sort of attitude, you know. [And] me sort of feeling like I had to, “No, well, uh, I’m not that bad! I mean, uh, I’ve done that, and I’ve done that…” Feeling like I had to justify myself to him. It was just not very pleasant, because you kind of thought, he’s bluffing. He’s–he’s just doing that sort of very… bluffy thing he does. He’s just being very upfront, and he’s sort of— I always got the impression that he was trying to clear the decks for Yoko, and get rid of us lot. ‘Cause he had to devote all his attention to her. Which is fair enough, you know. I always sort of cherished the hope that I’d be able to kind of say to him, “Oh, come off it. You didn’t mean that, really, did you? I know you went a bit overboard, but–you don’t think it’s like that, do you, really?”
And I heard, in fact, little bits from Yoko, who was kind of nice enough after he’d died to sort of clue me in on that. Realizing, perhaps, that those w- would be the kind of things that would hang me up, forever. “Did he, or didn’t he… hate what I did?” And she said some very nice things. She told me once that he’d sat her down with one of my albums, and they’d sort of be sat down, and he’d be having a bit of a sort of cry about it, and he’d sort of be saying, “Ah… you know, I– I like him, really.” Because John was like that, you know. He could come at you, but really–he’d just lower his glasses a bit and sort of say, “It’s only me.” It was very two-sided like that. I like that about him. It’s a very interesting part of his personality, really. But as I say, it was nearly gonna hang me up. This whole idea.
