As their early material suggests, The Beatles were fans of the opposite sex. Except for a few flings and indiscretions, the band was mostly made up of committed romantics who preferred long-term relationships and marriage from a young age. Paul McCartney was perhaps the most unfitting of the rampant rock and roll homewrecker stereotype.
Paul McCartney had a long-term relationship with British actor Jane Asher before meeting his life’s love, Linda Eastman, in 1967. The couple first met in 1963, during The Beatles’ early success in the United Kingdom. Asher witnessed McCartney’s meteoric rise to global fame firsthand, as the star spent many nights at her family’s London home.
In the Asher household, McCartney wrote many of his hit songs. Most notably waking up from a dream with not just a melody or line, but the entire song ‘Yesterday’ formed in his head. The Beatle would go on to write ‘Let It Be’ in his sleep a few years later. McCartney certainly knows all about ‘Golden Slumbers’.
‘Let It Be’ was an emotional ballad written by McCartney about his mother, Mary. She died tragically when he was 14 in 1956. With “Mother Mary” in the lyrics, this was one of the more obvious references in McCartney’s catalog of songs written for the women in his life. But there had been many before, and many more were on the way.
Many of McCartney’s early and mid-1960s love songs were undoubtedly inspired by his concurrent relationship. But the most obvious, directed credits are ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ ‘And I Love Her,’ ‘We Can Work It Out,’ ‘You Won’t See Me,’ and ‘I’m Looking Through You.
The four songs listed above perfectly reflect the tragic course of McCartney and Asher’s relationship in the mid-60s. The former two arrived in 1964. It was during the couple’s early period of relative contentment. But by the time McCartney wrote material for Rubber Soul, the late 1965 follow-up to Help!, he and Asher had begun to drift apart.
With Asher’s busy acting career and McCartney’s commitment to both the road and the studio, they had little time to spend together. It resulted in several heated arguments. It doesn’t take a forensic scientist to figure out where lines like “Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight” came from.
“As is one’s wont in relationships, you will from time to time argue or not see eye to eye on things. And a couple of the songs around this period were that kind of thing.” McCartney said ‘I’m Looking Through You’ in his book Many Years From Now. “This one I remember particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment.”
“She frequented the Bristol Old Vic around this time.” “Suffice it to say, this one was most likely related to that romantic episode. And I was seeing through her facade,” he continued. “And realizing it wasn’t all that it seemed.” I’d write it down in a song, and then I’d be free of the emotion. I let go of that little bit of emotional baggage because I don’t hold grudges. And I recall this one in particular being about getting rid of some emotional baggage. ‘I went through you, and you’re not there!'”
In a separate interview with Hunter Davies, McCartney admitted to being somewhat selfish in wanting Asher to stay with him all the time. “I knew it was selfish. It caused a few rows,” McCartney noted. “Jane left me once and went off to Bristol to act. I said, ‘OK then, leave, I’ll find someone else.’ It was shattering to be without her.”
The couple’s disputes continued for another two years. Amid ups and downs, McCartney proposed to Asher in 1967. He invited his fiancee to India the following year to meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Unfortunately, shortly after The Beatles returned from India, Asher discovered McCartney in bed with a young New Yorker named Francie Schwartz. Despite a futile, fleeting attempt to mend the rift, they eventually split up during the recording of The White Album.
Songs Paul McCartney wrote about Jane Asher:
- ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’
- ‘And I Love Her’
- ‘We Can Work It Out’
- ‘You Won’t See Me’
- ‘I’m Looking Through You’
