How does someone unravel from being in one of the biggest bands in the world? It’s already enough to have millions of fans hanging on your every word, but now that you’ve separated from being mates with people for years, there’s no road map to what happens when all the hysteria suddenly stops. And with John Lennon and Paul McCartney already joined at the hip musically, their ability to lash out at each other led to Macca penning the ultimate olive branch on the tune ‘Dear Friend’.
Because as soon as the Fab Four announced their split, all bets were off regarding what was said in the press. Most people had considered The Beatles part of their family with their records, but once Lennon cheekily announced that he wanted a “divorce” from the group, the divide between McCartney and new manager Allen Klein got nasty when he started listing problems he had with his mates on ‘Too Many People’.
Since Lennon had begun preaching about love and peace with Yoko Ono, McCartney wrote this tune as a cheapshot at his mate for being too preachy. If this was a dirty fight, though, McCartney probably didn’t know that he got into the ring with a rabid dog when Lennon jabbed right back on ‘How Do You Sleep’.
While McCartney’s was thinly veiled in its attacks, Lennon’s rebuttal is one long slight towards his writing partner for everything syrupy that he had done along the way, including claiming that ‘Yesterday’ was the only noteworthy thing he could do. The boxing gloves were already on, but once the ‘Cute One’ formed Wings, he knew there was no point in arguing anymore.
After starting at ground zero, ‘Dear Friend’ was a way for McCartney to kiss and make up with Lennon, saying, “It was like a letter. It’s like a marriage. One minute, you’re in love, the next minute, you hate each other’s guts. The business people involved were pitting us against each other. It’s very difficult to cut through all that, and what can you do? You can’t write a letter saying ‘Dear pal of mine, I love you…’ it’s all a bit too much. So you do what we all seemed to do, which was write it in songs. I wrote ‘Dear Friend’ as a kind of peace gesture.”
Although this kind of fighting may have seemed hurtful for most Beatles fans, it would have probably been even more hurtful for the band themselves if they didn’t mention it at all. Both Lennon and McCartney had both been a part of each other’s worlds for years, so if they decided not to acknowledge the happy times they spent together, it would have probably torn them apart from the inside.
Still, listening to ‘Dear Friend’ is a haunting listen for anyone even remotely familiar with The Beatles. As much as McCartney is looking to make peace with his old mate and desperately tries to remain friends with him, the plodding tempo paints a much different picture of where everything was heading. For most Beatles fans, this was a death march for the band, and once the tune was over, it was clear that any reunion was probably not in the cards any time soon.
