Despite writing songs like “All You Need Is Love” together, Paul McCartney admitted on Friday that he never told John Lennon that he loved him.
“As 17-year-old Liverpool kids you could never say that,” the former Beatle said during an appearance in London to promote his new book The Lyrics, 1956 to the Present.
“It just wasn’t done. So I never really said, ‘John, love you mate.’ I never got around to it so now it’s great to realize how much I love this man.”
The Irish Times reported that McCartney said of his relationship with Lennon: “It’s like walking up a staircase and we’ve always been side by side on that staircase. I’m like a fan. I just remember how great it was to work with him and how great he was. Because you are not just messing around, you are not singing with [the average Joe] you are singing with John Lennon.”
McCartney reflected on one of the benefits of being left-handed while crafting songs with Lennon.
“Because he was right handed, for me it was like looking in a mirror,” he explained. “It was great, I could kind of see the chords that I was playing in the mirror.”