The Big Picture
- The movie Two of Us imagines a meeting between John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1976, where they nearly reunite as musical partners.
- While the movie is mostly fictional, the portrayals of John and Paul are fairly accurate, and the conversation reflects their lives at that time.
- Though the event itself is largely dramatized in Two of Us, John and Paul really did briefly consider taking Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels up on his offer for The Beatles to reunite.
One night, back in 1976, the world came very close to seeing The Beatles get back together. This is one of rock's most celebrated legends — the night when John Lennon and Paul McCartney were hanging out and watching Saturday Night Live in New York when Lorne Michaels challenged the Fab Four to show up and play together for the first time in years. In the year 2000, cable network VH1 got creative with this iconic moment and released Two of Us, a movie that fantasizes about this meeting of Lennon and McCartney and their near comeback as musical partners. There's a lot of fact and fiction to it, but it remains one of the most beautiful stories about the greatest band ever.
What's the Story of 'Two of Us'?
The universe sure works in mysterious ways, because no one could ever dream up the circumstances of April 24, 1976. Except Mark Stanfield and Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the writer and director of Two of Us, actually kind of did. In their story, Paul McCartney (Aidan Quinn) shows up at the Dakota building in New York that day for a surprise visit to John Lennon (Jared Harris), one of the few times they talked since the gnarly business of the Beatles' breakup in 1970. So McCartney was prepared for some awkwardness and maybe even tension at the beginning.
The day was filled with ups and downs. Lennon and McCartney go from the initial strangeness of the unexpected encounter to their usual playful selves, with a lot of teasing disguising the jabs they throw at each other. John makes a point of inserting Wings lyrics whenever he can in a mocking tone, and Paul nags at him for having stopped making music. They also mention the fact that both of them are constantly asked about the Beatles reuniting, and the countless offers they get to do so. Eventually, though, they do open up to each other in a way that only childhood friends can, firing up the big questions they had kept for years, leading to some emotional moments that would make any Beatlemaniac tear up.
After a whole day of just the two of them, which included adventures in Central Park and trying to avoid fans at a restaurant, the duo crashes on the couch in Lennon's living room. Paul is watching Saturday Night Live while John's sleeping when Lorne Michaels comes on screen to offer them the hefty sum of $3,000 for the Beatles to get back together. John laughs a lot at the sketch but turns to Paul and says they should do it. Paul is skeptical at first but eventually agrees with John. He goes down to his car to grab his guitar so they can practice for a few minutes first. While he's gone, Yoko, who's in California with her and John's son Sean, calls John on the telephone. Talking to his wife, John pretty much forgets the whole SNL thing, and when Paul returns with his guitar, he quickly understands that they're not going anymore. He just nods to John saying he needs to go, and John nods back. That would be their last encounter before John's death, but at least it was as friends again.
The Beatles Almost Made the First 'Lord of the Rings' Movie
Paul, John, George, and Ringo wanted to take Beatlemania to Middle Earth.How Much of 'Two of Us' Is True?
Of course, as much as we wish the story of Two of Us were true, it's mostly a fictional dramatization. The characterizations are still fairly accurate, though, as Michael Lindsay-Hogg was also the director behind the Let It Be documentary and got to know both John Lennon and Paul McCartney pretty well. Not only are Jared Harris and Aidan Quinn's portrayals of John and Paul spot on (both of them incorporating the characters without ever falling into the trap of imitating them), but their conversation also aligns perfectly with that moment in their lives. Paul was dominating the charts with his new band Wings, while John hadn't released new music in a while, focusing instead on his family.
The very title of the movie comes from a Beatles song that was written by Paul about his wife, Linda Eastman, but is usually taken as being about his friendship with John. The premise of the story played out a little differently in real life. In 1976, Paul and Linda would often show up at the Dakota unannounced to visit John and his family, until, one day, John told them to call before turning up because he was taking care of his infant son. He recalled it in his famous 1980 Playboy interview, stating that he didn't mean it badly, but that the McCartneys apparently didn't like it and didn't visit anymore.
The inciting event of Two of Us also did really happen, just not quite the way it's depicted in the film. Rumors of a Beatles comeback had been circulating pretty much since they disbanded, but, in 1976, they reached an all-time high. When the Saturday Night Live bit took place, Paul and Linda were both visiting John and Yoko at the Dakota, so it wasn't just the two former Beatles by themselves. In his Playboy interview, John recalled: "[Paul] and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, 'Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?' but we didn't. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired." Paul also talked about it once: "[John] said, 'We should go down there. We should go down now and just do it.' It was one of those moments where we said, 'Let's not and say we did.'"
Another interesting aspect of Two of Us is how packed it is with Easter eggs and references to Beatles lore. First, the visual callback of John's apartment to the "Imagine" video, with all white walls and a white piano. John also makes constant references to Wings songs, especially "Silly Love Songs" and "Jet," as a way of criticizing Paul's post-Beatles career, weaving the lyrics in his lines. Later, when he and Paul are at Luigi's, Paul introduces himself as "Ramone," the name he used when checking in hotels during the Beatles' touring years. When a couple of fans ask John to sing "Yesterday," he gets mad because "that's a Paul song." Although their songs were all credited to "Lennon-McCartney," each of them used to write some songs themselves, and legend has it that John was obsessed with "Yesterday" — although he said he didn't care about it in 1980. Finally, shortly before the rooftop scene, John and Paul pretend to be fighting in the elevator, and Paul asks "Is my name Brian?" That's a callback to rumors that John used to have an affair with the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein (one of the many to have earned the title of "fifth beatle").
Would the Beatles Ever Reunite After 1976?
Unfortunately, Two of Us depicts the last time John Lennon and Paul McCartney ever saw each other. Four years later, John would be murdered at the entrance of the Dakota building, and a chance of having the Beatles reunite was then lost for good. "Think about me every now and then, old friend," John said to Paul as they parted way for the last time. In 1979, Paul signed a contract with CBS Records that seemingly allowed him to work with "John Lennon, Richard Starkey and George Harrison recording together as The Beatles," but John's death would ensure that reunion never came to pass.
Years later, in 1995, the surviving Beatles got together to release two new songs as part of the Anthology compilation albums. "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" were built on vocals previously recorded by John, with instruments and remaining voices later added by Paul, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In November 2023, a third song, "Now and Then," was released as "the last Beatles song." It was originally considered as a third song for the Anthology compilation but was only finally reworked by Paul and Ringo recently. Thinking about John's last words to Paul, it's poetic that The Beatles' final release has a part of them in its title.
