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In the rush of all that was happening yesterday, I missed a couple of things that I want to circle back to. One is a quote from a 1995 Joey Ramone interview shared by They May Be Parted. Asked how his band got their name, Joey responds:
In the days of the “Silver Beatles,” Paul McCartney would go to check into a hotel room, using the name Paul Ramone [sic]. Dee Dee was a big Paul McCartney fan, so he changed his name to Dee Dee Ramone. When I hooked up with Dee Dee, we decided to call the band The Ramones.
Another is this quote from Paul himself, in a 1991 conversation with Mark Lewisohn:
That was the night [5/9/69] we broke the Beatles. Really, that was the big crack in the liberty bell, it never came back together after that one.
Apparently the disagreement over the Allen Klein situation, with John, George, and Ringo on one side and Paul on the other, was A Big Deal. This explains why, despite being on a creative roll, The Beatles took almost two months off from recording before resuming work on “You Never Give Me Your Money” on July 1. And it points out, yet again, what a miracle it is that they managed to put aside their differences aside long enough to make another album.
In the meantime, though, things were pretty grim. Paul later said,
It was a very strange time in my life and I swear I got my first grey hairs that month. I saw them appearing. I looked in the mirror, I thought, I can see you. You’re all coming now. Welcome.
And yet 50 years later Paul’s hair still looks like this:
This is also something of a miracle.
No way. I am delighted to now know these things.