Thoughts on Ethan Hawke's letter about the Beatles breakup

In the movie 'Boyhood', there is a scene where in the main protagonist's 15th birthday, his father (Ethan Hawke) gifts him an album where he has painstakingly compiled the best solo hits of each of the 4 Beatles - John, Paul, George and Ringo in such a way that even though this a a post-beatles break up album, it still sounds like as if the Beatles are playing together.

Though it isn't shown in the film, the dad writes a long elaborate mail to his son, Mason about the why he made the album, his thoughts and feelings behind it and even about the Beatles as a band. Best part if that this is not some fictional letter written as a part of a movie script. This is a letter apparently written by Ethan Hawke in real life to his daughter after divorcing her Mom. 

When I came across this letter, I was touched...it's just simple, beautiful and from the heart from a person who is in pain and is using the nasty Beatles breakup as a reference to try and understand and deal with his pain of separating from his wife . Of course, it really does help if you are a Beatles fan. Even as a person who (falsely) thinks she is a phD where the Beatles are concerned, the letter is really an eye opener. If you don't have the patience to go through the whole letter, do read the parts in bold :p)  The following is the letter:

Mason,

I wanted to give you something for your birthday that money couldn’t buy, something that only a father could give a son, like a family heirloom. This is the best I could do. Apologies in advance.

I present to you: THE BEATLES’ BLACK ALBUM.

The only work I’ve ever been a part of that I feel any sense of pride for involves something born in a spirit of collaboration — not my idea or his or her idea, but some unforeseeable magic that happens in creativity when energies collide.

This is the best of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s solo work, post-BEATLES. Basically I’ve put the band back together for you. There’s this thing that happens when you listen to too much of the solo stuff separately — too much Lennon: suddenly there’s a little too much self-involvement in the room; too much Paul and it can become sentimental — let’s face it, borderline goofy; too much George: I mean, we all have our spiritual side but it’s only interesting for about six minutes, ya know? Ringo: He’s funny, irreverent, and cool, but he can’t sing — he had a bunch of hits in the ’70s (even more than Lennon) but you aren’t gonna go home and crank up a Ringo Starr album start to finish, you’re just not gonna do that. When you mix up their work, though, when you put them side by side and let them flow — they elevate each other, and you start to hear it: T H E B E A T L E S.

Just listen to the whole CD, OK?

I guess it was the fact that Lennon was shot and killed at 40 (one of Lennon’s last fully composed songs was “Life Begins at 40,” which he wrote for Ringo — I couldn’t bring myself to include it on the mix as the irony still does not make me laugh) and that I just turned 40 myself that conjured this BLACK ALBUM. I listen to this music and for some reason (maybe the ongoing, metamorphosing pain of my divorce from your mother) I am filled with sadness that John & Paul’s friendship turned so bitter. I know, I know, I know, it has nothing to do with me, but damn it, tell me again why love can’t last. Why do we give in to pettiness? Why did they? Why do we so often see gifts as threats? Differences as shortcomings? Why can we not see that our friction could be used to polish one another?

I read a little anecdote about when John’s mother died:

He was an angry teenager — a switchblade in his pocket, a cigarette in his lips, sex on his mind. At a memorial service for his “unstable” and suddenly dead mom (whom he’d just recently been getting close to), he — pissed off and drunk — punched a bandmate in the face and stormed out of the memorial reception. Paul, several years his junior — a young boy, really, who didn’t yet care about girls, who was clearly UNCOOL, and who was let into the band despite his lack of badass-ness and sexual prowess due to the fact that even at 14 he could play the shit out of the guitar — chased John out onto the street saying, “John, why are you being such a jerk?”

John said, “My mum’s fuckin’ dead!”
Paul said, “You never even once asked me about my mum.”
“What about her?”
“…My mum’s dead too.”
They hugged in the middle of the suburban street. John apparently said, “Can we please start a fucking rock ‘n’ roll band?”

This story answered a question that had lingered in my brain my whole music-listening life: If The Beatles were only together 10 years and the members of the band were so young that entire time, how did they manage to write “Help,” “Fool on the Hill,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Yesterday,” “A Day in the Life”? They were just 25-year-old boys with a gaggle of babes outside their hotel room door and as much champagne as a young lad could stand. How did they set their minds to such substantive artistic goals?

They did it because they were in pain. They knew that love does not last. They knew it as extremely young men.

With the BLACK ALBUM, we get to hear the boys write on adult life: marriage, fatherhood, sobriety, spiritual yearning, the emptiness of material success — “Starting Over,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Beautiful Boy,” “The No No Song,” “God” — and still they are keenly aware of this fact: Love does not last.

I don’t want it to be true. I want Lennon/McCartney to write beautifully together forever, but is that really the point? I mean if the point of a rose was to last forever, it would be made of stone, right? So how do we handle this idea with grace and maturity? If you’re a romantic like me, it’s hard not to long for some indication of healing between the two of them. All signs point that way.

When Paul went on SNL recently, he played almost all LENNON. And he did it with obvious joy.

Listen to McCartney’s “Here Today.”

Can you listen to “Two of Us” (the last song they wrote side by side) and not hurt a little? What were those two motherless boys who hugged in the middle of the road so long ago thinking as they wrote “The two of us have memories longer then the road that stretches out ahead”?

The dynamic of their breakup, like any divorce, is mysterious. Some say that Paul, the pupil, had surpassed John, the mentor, and they couldn’t reach a new balance. Some say Paul was a little snot who bought the publishing rights out from underneath the other three. Others say without Brian Epstein there was no mediator between their egos. Who knows.

I played Samantha “Hey Jude” the other day, and of course she listened to it over and over. I told her the song had been written by McCartney for Lennon’s son after Lennon’s divorce and she listened even more intently. George once said that “Hey Jude” was the beginning of the end for the Beatles. Brian Epstein had just died and John & Paul were left alone to run the brand-new Apple label. They recorded “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” as a single. Normally, Brian would decide which song was the A-side and which was the B-side, but now it was up to the boys. John thought “Revolution” was an important political rock song and that they needed to establish themselves as an adult band. Paul thought “Revolution” was brilliant but that The Beatles were primarily a pop band and so they should lead with “Hey Jude.” He knew it would be a monster hit and that the politics should come on a subversive B-side. They had a vote. “Hey Jude” won 3-1. George said that John felt Paul had pulled off a kind of coup d’etat. He wasn’t visibly upset but he began to withdraw. It was no longer his band.

The irony/punch line of this story is another story I once heard: When the “Hey Jude”/”Revolution” single was hot off the press, the boys had the mischievous idea of bringing their own new single to a Rolling Stones record-release listening party. Mick Jagger says that once the Fab Four arrived and let word of their new single slip — just as Side 1 of the Stones’ big new album was finishing — everyone clamored to hear it. Once The Beatles were on, they just kept flipping the single over and over. Side 2 of BEGGARS BANQUET never even found the needle.

So no matter how mad John was, he wasn’t that mad…

Once when John was asked whether he would ever play with Paul again, he answered: “It would always be about, ‘Play what?’ It’s about the music. We play well together — if he had an idea and needed me, I’d be interested.”

I love that.

Maybe the lesson is: Love doesn’t last, but the music love creates just might.

Your mom and I couldn’t make love last, but you are the music, my man.

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love…”

I love you. Happy birthday.

Your Dad

If you are emotionally invested in the Beatles like I am these are the top 3 questions which will always be in you head:

1) Why did John Lennon die the way he did (some deranged asshole shooting him pointblank at the age of 40)? What if he were alive today?

I guess this is something that only God would be able to answer

2) How the hell did the bunch of fellows who were so so sooo young (ages 21-27 on an average during the entire tenure of the Beatles) manage to make such deep music reflecting maturity beyond their years?

I must say I think this letter satisfactorily answers this question

3) Why why WHY??? did John and Paul - who created magic together and who were once so close have to fall out in such a bitterly dramatic manner? 

As asked in the letter, I too have always pondered and wondered the same damn thing. Like Ethan Hawke, I too have kept on trying to find out signs that maybe just maybe they reconciled their differences or at least Paul managed to let go of all the bitterness after John's death.

I have watched this video where in 1988 or so, the Beatles got inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To receive the award, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono (John's wife) and Lennon's 2 sons were present, came up and gave individual speeches. Paul McCartney was conspicuous in his absence. The reason he didn't attend as given by him was - "I was keen to go to (the dinner) and pick up my award, but after 20 years the Beatles still have some business and personal differences which I had hoped would have been settled by now. Unfortunately, they haven't been (settled), so I would feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with (Harrison and Starr) at a fake reunion."

I must say that I was AGHAST reading this. I just couldn't believe that my favourite Beatle (whose songs and lyrics have touched my soul for life and gave me a glimpse of what deepest of deep emotions feel like) placing 'business differences' over and above friendship that too 8 years after Lennon murdered, could act like such a shallow jerk. Was it so difficult for Macca to put aside his inflated ego for 1 night and collect a prestigious award with his remaining bandmates and surviving family members of his fellow writing partner?

Yoko Ono (believed to be one of the major causes of friction between John and Paul) in her acceptance speech in the same night said "I wish John was here....he would have been here you know....he would have come." in an obvious barb directed at Paul. 

Despite the above, as pointed out in the letter, definitely there have been signs of healing. But addressing the philosophical side of this letter, asking the same question that Ethan Hawke asks in a different way - what exactly is it that causes irreparable disintegration of meaningful relationships (I include any type of relationship here including friendships etc). C'mon, there has be better reasons than "All Good things come to an end" or "Love does not last".

Really, why are human beings so petty? We so many times make such a complicate mess up of good relationships in our lives. Our inflated egos render it impossible (even if we have good hearts) to even make an attempt to heal broken relationships. Of course there are those relationships that run its course of time and its better they end when they do. Its really sad when good things do come to an end but why hold on to the feeling of choking bitterness towards someone who once upon a time gave you such joy?

But to think about it, if there is one thing that I don't agree with this letter is that sweeping statement that the the author makes about how "Love doesn't last" (its understandable that the author is in pain over separation and  would write this). Of course I am not naive to believe that love WILL always last (like every person, I have had my share of fall outs with people) but I think "Love CAN last". Am sure that every person can point out examples (even if it’s a few) where love has lasted. Maybe its the 100% willingness from BOTH parties involved to be able to want to make it work no matter what is the difference between successful and failed relationships.  Ironically, it’s the Beatles music (and other music as well) that makes me believe this. Even if you look at the Beatle's personal lives, the love between Paul and Linda McCartney clearly lasted. I saw an interview with 2 of the surviving members of the Beatles (Paul and Ringo) on Larry King in 2007 or so. It was such a treat to watch. The same Paul McCartney who couldn't share a stage with Starr in 1988 because of 'business and personal' differences was interacting with Ringo with such beautiful warmth, closeness and playful camaraderie (they were even together mischievously pulling the host's leg) which is only possible between insanely close pals. So, to end on an optimistic note, I'd like to believe that good things...the really good worth it things...never die.