Paul McCartney Opens Up About John Lennon’s “Little Daggers” — And the Moment Their Painful Feud Finally Began to Heal
More than 50 years after The Beatles broke apart, Paul McCartney still remembers the complicated relationship he shared with John Lennon. But rather than describing Lennon as a distant musical legend he feels obligated to honor, McCartney says he remembers him more simply — as an old friend and the person he had known since he was 16.
The 83-year-old musician reflected on their friendship, falling-out and eventual reconciliation during an interview with NME published on May 30, while discussing his new album, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane.
“I don’t feel like I have to be respectful”
The conversation turned to whether McCartney feels a responsibility to honor Lennon and George Harrison, the two late members of The Beatles.
His answer was unexpectedly personal.
McCartney pointed to the new song “Days We Left Behind,” which contains the line, “We wrote a secret code to never be spoken.” He explained that the lyric refers to Lennon and the unique understanding the two musicians developed while building The Beatles together.
But McCartney doesn’t see his relationship with Lennon through the lens of having to preserve a carefully polished legacy.
“I don’t feel like I have to be respectful. He’s just a mate.”
For McCartney, Lennon was first and foremost someone he knew personally — a friend with whom he wrote songs and shared an extraordinary chapter of his life.
Lennon’s criticism once hurt deeply
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Their friendship, however, was far from uncomplicated.
McCartney recalled that although he has many happy memories of Lennon and Harrison, the final years of The Beatles were difficult. Lennon frequently criticized him, something McCartney admitted was painful at the time.
He compared those comments to being hit by “little daggers,” leaving him wondering whether he needed to respond and defend himself.
Eventually, though, McCartney found a way to see the situation differently.
He realized that this was simply Lennon — the same person he had known since he was 16.
Once McCartney stopped taking every remark as a personal attack and instead understood it as part of Lennon’s personality, the criticism no longer had quite the same power over him.
The Beatles’ business dispute drove them apart
Behind much of the tension was also a bitter disagreement over how The Beatles should be managed following their rise to unprecedented success.
McCartney wanted his father-in-law, entertainment lawyer Lee Eastman, to represent the band. Lennon, Harrison and Ringo Starr instead favored businessman Allen Klein.
The group ultimately chose Klein, a decision that McCartney strongly opposed.
The disagreement contributed to the growing tensions surrounding the band before The Beatles officially broke up in 1970.
But according to McCartney, the story did not end there.
Lennon eventually admitted McCartney had been right
Before Lennon died, he reportedly came to share McCartney’s view of Klein.
That realization helped create an opening for the two former bandmates to repair their relationship after years of conflict.
McCartney recalled that Lennon eventually acknowledged that he had been right about Klein — although, as McCartney remembered it, Lennon made the admission somewhat reluctantly.
For McCartney, hearing Lennon say that he might have been right mattered enormously.
The reconciliation did not erase the difficult years between them, but it changed how McCartney could look back on their relationship.
Ultimately, his memories of Lennon remain a mixture of affection, frustration, humor and pain. Rather than placing his former bandmate on a pedestal, McCartney continues to remember him as the complicated friend he knew long before either of them could have imagined where their music would take them.