Paul McCartney shares the ‘purely selfish’ thing he would ask John Lennon if he could bring him back

Legendary songwriter and touring musician Paul McCartney has shared the one thing he would ask his former bandmate, John Lennon, if he had the chance.

McCartney and Lennon met in the early 1960s and went on to form The Beatles, with the pair writing a collection of critically acclaimed songs during their time working together. Lennon would eventually leave the group and release a series of solo albums, while McCartney released solo records and fronted Wings for a decade. Shortly after the death of his songwriting partner, McCartney shared what he wanted to ask Lennon had he been given the chance to do so. In an interview published in early 1982, a few months before the release of Tug of War, McCartney explained what he would have asked the Don’t Let Me Down songwriter.

He said: “From a purely selfish point of view, if I could get John Lennon back, I’d ask him to undo this legacy he’s left me. I’d ask him to tell everybody what he told Yoko in the privacy of his own room. Yoko and I talk on the telephone a lot nowadays, since his death, and what she says tells me something very important: John still liked me, after all.”

McCartney has, more recently, named a Lennon song as one that soundtracked his life. McCartney’s ten song choices included Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan and Maybelline by Chuck Berry. A full list of the ten tracks can be found below.

• Gene Vincent – Be-bop-a-Lula
• Chuck Berry – Maybelline
• Buddy Holly – That’ll Be the Day
• Elvis Presley – All Shook Up
• The Kinks – You Really Got Me
• The Human League – Don’t You Want Me
• Prince – Kiss
• Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man
• The Beach Boys – God Only Knows
• John Lennon – Imagine

Lennon would issue an interview shortly before his death about his recollection of meeting McCartney. Lennon said: “I was the singer and I was the leader, I made the decision to have him in the group. Was it better to have a guy who was better than the people I had? Obviously. Or not? That decision was to let Paul in to make the group stronger. I turned round to him right then on first meeting him and said, ‘Do you wanna join the group?’. I think he said yes the next day.”

Julia Bird, Lennon’s sister, would say the pair met at the church fete, which was confirmed by both men during The Beatles‘ Anthology documentary. Writing in her book, Imagine, Bird offered some further details on the meeting.

Bird wrote: “The entertainment began at 2pm with the opening procession, which entailed one or two wonderfully festooned lorries crawling at a snail’s pace through the village on their ceremonious way to the Church field.

“The first lorry carried the Rose Queen, seated on her throne, surrounded by her retinue, all dressed in pink and white satin, sporting long ribbons and hand-made roses in their hair. These girls had been chosen from the Sunday school groups, on the basis of age and good behaviour.

“The following lorry carried various entertainers, including The Quarrymen. The boys were up there on the back of the moving lorry trying to stay upright and play their instruments at the same time.”