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’?

Towards the end of 1969, John had quite gleefully told us it was over. There were a few of us in the Apple boardroom at the time. I think George was away visiting family, but Ringo and I were at the meeting, and John was saying no to every suggestion. I thought we should go back to playing smaller gigs again, but the answer came back: ‘No’. Eventually John said, ‘Oh, I’ve been wanting to tell you this, but I’m leaving The Beatles.’ We were all shocked. Relations had been strained, but we sat there saying, ‘What? Why? Why? Why?’ It was like a divorce, and he had just had a divorce from Cynthia the year before. I can remember him saying, ‘Oh, this is quite exciting.’ That was very John, and I had admired this kind of contrarian behaviour about him since we were kids, when I first met him. He really was a bit loony, in the nicest possible way. But whilst all of us could see what he meant, it was not quite so exciting for those left on the other side.

I’d been keeping largely quiet about John and The Beatles split-up in the press. I didn’t really have many accusations to fling, but being John, he was flinging quite a few in interviews. He had accused me of announcing the Beatles breakup to promote the McCartney album, but I was just answering Apple’s press questions honestly. I didn’t want to do interviews to promote it, and Peter Brown at Apple had asked questions like, ‘Are you planning a new album or single with The Beatles?’ My answer was ‘No.’ I saw no point in lying.

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.

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.

Did the three of us – George, Ringo, and I – think of carrying on without John? No, I don’t think so. No. We were such a unit, such a foursome. We joked about forming a group called ‘The Threetles’, but we didn’t seriously consider it. It was never anything more than a joke.

We did do a few little bits and pieces together before we all went our separate ways. John and I and Yoko did ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’. He enlisted me for that because he knew it was a great way to make a record. ‘We’ll go round to Abbey Road Studios. Who lives near there? Paul. Who’s going to drum on this record? Paul. Who can play bass? Paul. And who’ll do it if I ask him nicely? Paul.’ He wasn’t at all sheepish about asking. He probably said something like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this song I want to record. Would you come round?’ And I probably said, ‘Yeah, why not?’

There were still a lot of loose ends to tie up. We still had all the business things to surmount. You have to remember, I sued him in court. I sued my friends from Liverpool, my lifelong friends, in court. But in the end, I think playing on that session with him and Yoko contributed to our having quite a few friendly meetings and conversations later.

John Lennon photographed by Linda. Santa Monica, 1974

I think this song, ‘Dear Friend’, also helped. I would imagine he heard it. I think he listened to my records when they came out, but he never responded directly to me. That was not his way. We were guys; it wasn’t like a boy and girl. In those days you didn’t release much emotion with each other.

I was very glad of how we got along in those last few years, that I had some really good times with him before he was murdered. Without question, it would have been the worst thing in the world for me, had he been killed when we still had a bad relationship. I would’ve thought, ‘Oh, I should’ve, I should’ve, I should’ve . . .’ It would have been a big guilt trip for me. But luckily, our last meeting was very friendly. We talked about how to bake bread.