McCartney, Paul

McCartney's introduction to In His Own Write, recalling his first meeting with Lennon ("...At Woolton village fete I met him. I was a fat schoolboy and, as he leaned an arm on my shoulder, I realised he was drunk. We were twelve then, in spite of his sideboards...") and their early days of friendship ("...Aunt Mimi, who had looked after him since he was so high, used to tell me he was cleverer than he pretended..."), as well as informing readers that "He left school to join a group, called the Beatles", with a two line autograph note at the head of the page in black ink ("Dear Mr Cape, there are only 234 words, but I don't care"), 50 words cancelled and two words inserted in blue ink in an unknown hand, also with extensively revised fragments of an alternative introductory text in the same unknown hand ("...He wrote in the overcrowded dressing rooms of PROVINCIAL CINEMAS - leaning on a pile of autograph albums and the sound of screaming in his ears..."), with "John Lennon" written sideways down the page in red ink, 2 pages, large post 4to (10 x 8 in.; 254 x 203 mm., unwatermarked), formerly folded

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"None of it has to make sense and if it seems funny then that's enough."

Paul McCartney recalls the origin of the most important partnership in the modern history of pop music in his introduction, published on p.11 of In His Own Write. Although this is evidently the draft supplied by McCartney to Cape, not only does it include substantial editorial changes but the drafts on the verso suggest that Cape considered replacing it with an entirely different text. The self-consciously literary nature of the abandoned draft on the verso (which even quotes from the title of John Knox's 1558 work, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women) strongly suggests that it was written by an employee at Cape. In the event, however, the editorial changes were reversed and it was decided to retain McCartney's draft.