The NYT review of McCartney's new book "The Lyrics" seems to damn him with faint praise (linked). I don't feel like investing in this weighty tome. The quote below I found on a blog. This guy still seems so tortured about his relationship with Lennon. The fact that he's not writing his autobiography but annotating his song lyrics is so indirect and oddly furtive, like he's still hiding something. What do you guys think?

[quote]Often I would think of John, and what a pity it was that we’d argued so publicly and so viciously at times. At the time of writing this song, in early 1971, he’d called the McCartney album ‘rubbish’ in Rolling Stone magazine. It was a really difficult time. I just felt sad about the breakdown in our friendship, and this song kind of came flowing out. ‘Dear friend, what’s the time? / Is this really the borderline?’ Are we splitting up? Is this ‘you go your way; I’ll go mine’? […]

[quote]John would say things like, ‘It was rubbish. The Beatles were crap.’ Also, ‘I don’t believe in The Beatles, I don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t believe in God.’ Those were quite hurtful barbs to be flinging around, and I was the person they were being flung at, and it hurt. So, I’m having to read all this stuff, and on the one hand I’m thinking, ‘Oh fuck off, you fucking idiot,’ but on the other hand I’m thinking, ‘Why would you say that? Are you annoyed at me or are you jealous or what?’ And thinking back fifty years later, I still wonder how he must have felt. He’d gone through a lot. His dad disappeared, and then he lost his Uncle George, who was a father figure; his mother; Stuart Sutcliffe; Brian Epstein, another father figure; and now his band. But John had all of those emotions wrapped up in a ball of Lennon. That’s who he was. That was the fascination.

[quote]I tried. I was sort of answering him here, asking, ‘Does it need to be this hurtful?’ I think this is a good line: ‘Are you afraid, or is it true?’ – meaning, ‘Why is this argument going on? Is it because you’re afraid of something? Are you afraid of the split-up? Are you afraid of my doing something without you? Are you afraid of the consequences of your actions?’ And the little rhyme, ‘Or is it true?’ Are all these hurtful allegations true? This song came out in that kind of mood. It could have been called ‘What the Fuck, Man?’ but I’m not sure we could have gotten away with that then.

[quote]Paul McCartney, on “Dear Friend”. In The Lyrics (2021)