Paul McCartney spoke about crafting “Here Today,” a popular 1982 song, as a way to process his raw feelings after losing John Lennon in 1980. At 82, McCartney reflected on the barriers men faced when showing emotion.
“Why can’t men say ‘I love you’ to each other? I don’t think it’s as true now as it was in the 1950s and 60s, but certainly when we were growing up … If you were talking of anything soppy, someone would have to make a joke of it.” he said to the BBC in a YouTube video. The song took shape in a stark upstairs room of his Sussex studio. “I was just sitting there in this little bare room thinking of John and realizing I’d lost him.”
His mind drifted to their early days before fame struck: “I was remembering things about our relationship and about the million things we’d done together, from just being in each other’s front parlors or bedrooms to walking on the street together or hitchhiking long journeys together. … There’s one line in the lyric I don’t really mean, ‘You’d probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart.’” McCartney said.
A gunman assassinated John Lennon on December 8, 1980. The shooting happened right outside his New York home at The Dakota apartment building in New York City when he was 40 years old. Paul McCartney called “Here Today” a love song to Lennon, and he said that composing the tribute to his friend helped him process his grief and pain after his passing.
