On Loving Paul [McLennon]

Maybe I'm Amazed By Your Love

Once Ringo knew John and Paul's secret, all that was left was for Brian to find out. John and Paul decided it would be best to just tell him instead of letting him find out on his own because of someone slipping up or John getting drunk.

Telling him went smoothly enough. He was kind of shocked, but he was fine with it of course.

And so, the secret was out (among the Beatles family, at least) and their lives continued normally. They released another album in '65 called Help! which had a movie to go with it and then in '66 they started recording an album called Rubber Soul.

"Hey, Paul," John said one day when he was going through the list of songs Paul had written for the album. "What's this Michelle song? How'd you come up with it?"

Paul shrugged his shoulders. "I learned a bit of French back in primary school and I thought it might be nice to have a song, you know, in French?. But I don't know very much of the French language so I worked with what I had. Do you like it?"

"Yeah," John nodded and cracked a grin. "It's bloody fantastic."

"I'm glad you think so," Paul smiled and went back to working on another song called Drive My Car.

Meanwhile John was in his room trying to write a song that was a jumbled up mess scrambled up inside his head. But he was slowly getting it out...

"Love is real , real is love

Love is feeling , feeling love

Love is wanting to be loved,"

John was struggling, there was no doubt about that, but everything was slowly coming out.

"Love is touch, touch is love

Love is reaching, reaching love

Love is asking to be loved,"

But after the second verse, he sat there for three solid hours trying to write another one and all he came up with was rubbish...absolute rubbish...and a song for Paul had to be perfect.

John laid his guitar down on his bed and set his notepad and pencil down on his pillow, got to his feet, and left the room. He strode to the sitting room where George was sitting on the couch reading the paper from that morning and drinking a cup of tea. "Hey, Georgie?"

Geogre looked up, setting down his newspaper and his tea and getting to his feet. "Yeah, John? What's up?"

John drew a deep breath. "I need help,"

George tilted his head slightly to the side.

John took a very deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and balled his fists at his side. "I'm trying to write a song for Paul, and I need help."

A smile of gratitude spread acorns George's face. He was obviously touched that John had chosen him for the task.

~~~

"Think, John, think." Geogre said to him from where he was sitting at the end of the older man's bed whilst John paced back and forth. "How does Paul make you feel? When you're with him, how do you feel?"

"Happy," John said. "Just..so happy."

"And the struggles that the two of you face?" George raised his eyebrows.

"What struggles?" John looked at him. "We never fight, not really. You know that."

George smiled. "There you go,"

"What do you mean?"

"I asked you about the struggles that you and Paul face and you told me that the two of you don't fight, not that you overcome what society thinks. What you two have, it's beautiful and perfect and..illegal. But you didn't even think of that, it didn't even cross your mind when I asked you about struggles."