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Two Of Us - Blog Posts
Aidan Quinn as Paul McCartney and Jared Harris as John Lennon in Two of Us (2000) "I’m sorry.” “For what?” "Being such a tosser.” “Me too, John. Me too.” +
Two Of Us: Blue Night Shadow Maxi Single in blauem Vinyl auf transparentem Plattenteller. Man achte auf die Bierdeckel der Bundesgartenschau in Bonn 1979 zum Niveauaugleich!
Crying sobbing shitting on the floor
“As I continue to write my own songs, I’m still very conscious that I don’t have him around, but I still have him whispering in my ear after all these years. I’m often second-guessing what John would’ve thought - ‘this is too soppy’ - or what he would’ve said differently, so I sometimes change it. But that’s what being a songwriter is about; you have to be able to look over your own shoulder”
“ I have to do this by myself these days. And if anyone asks me what I was like to work with John, the truth was it was easier - much easier, because there were two minds at work. Mine would be doing this, his would be doing that, and the interplay was just miraculous. And that’s why people are still listening to the songs we wrote. They didn’t just go away like your average pop song. The climate that the two of us created in writing wasn’t a soppy pop song climate. We created an environment in which we might grow, try new things, maybe even learn a thing or two.”
“John is gone I can’t sit around sighing for the old days. I can’t sit around wishing he was still here. Not only can I not replace him, but I don’t need to, in some profound sense.”
- Paul McCartney in his new book ‘The Lyrics’ 2021
Speaking of Two Of Us, remember how Paul has said he wishes the events of the movie had actually happened?? Yeah
Can we also talk about this really quick???
“Two Of Us is about Linda” my ASS
i get a little bit genghis johnghis (audio from this post. inspired by paulisdead)
Can I take my friend to bed?
Paul McCartney and John Lennon in Get Back
Lennon-McCartney in (some of) the Beatles dramas
I don’t even recognize myself sometimes until I’m aware of that bloody pain; whether it’s me father walking out, or me mother not caring enough and passing me off to me auntie to raise. Then when I do finally get to know her, she goes and gets run over. It just doesn’t go away. I’m 35 years old and I still feel like I’ve done something wrong. Jared Harris as John Lennon in Two of Us (2000)
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Martin: How did the idea for “Two Of Us” come to you? Did you first of all have an idea to write a film about an aspect of the Beatles - and then arrive at this particular story? Did you start out by wanting to write about the dynamic of John and Paul - and then arrive at this place? Or was this specific story your very first thought?
Mark: I wanted to do something creative with all this ‘useless knowledge’ that I had accumulated over the years, as a sort of purging and also as a kind of tribute, a way of saying thanks. Initially, I thought about writing a biography, but there have been so many. I think it was the conceit that I had some kind of unique insight into the dynamic between John and Paul that really got me started. And I would see these interviews with Paul where, whenever they asked him about John, everything would shift -- his face, his tone of voice. I would watch him and think, "My God, he really loved John, and he hasn't gotten over losing him."
Martin: Did you have an idea of what ground you wanted to cover? i.e. what factual topics you wanted each person to cover. And what emotional terrain you would want each of them to cover?
Mark: I knew that John's painful childhood would play an enormous role in the way I portrayed him, that he would be seen as never having completely come to terms with being unwanted. And I knew that I wanted to get across how much Paul really loved and understood John, which, I believe, is what frightened John.
Martin: Your original script ended with “Here Today” (Paul McCartney’s 1982 tribute song to John) being played - though you were subsequently unable to obtain permission for its use. If there had been total access from the Beatles for their recordings and their publishers for their music - would you have wanted to feature other music by them - and by John and Paul individually? If so - what specifically would you have wanted to use? And to underscore which points in the film?
Mark: It would have been nice to have "Silly Love Songs" in there, since that kind of summed up where Paul was at back then. The song that I kept coming back to, though, as I was writing, was "Jealous Guy". I'm practically convinced that John actually wrote that song for Paul. Whether he knew it or not.
Martin: Were you ever thinking that this might be regarded as a heresy to postulate history? Not just Beatles history - but postulating history with any real-life characters. Did you actively think about any of the precedents in the literary and dramatic tradition where real-life persons have been portrayed? And more particularly about works which have not just depicted known events - but have speculated about things that MIGHT have happened?
Mark: I didn't give it a lot of thought. Certainly it's been done before, from Shakespeare through something like "Melvin and Howard." And, more recently, in films like "Gods and Monsters". "Shakespeare in Love", for that matter.
Beatles historian Martin Lewis interviews Mark Stanfield, screenwriter of Two of Us (2000)
me too man me too
Lennon/McCartney (part 3/?)
(part 1) (part 2) (part 4)