The Beatles' song Two of Us is more about John Lennon than it is about Linda McCartney

Here we are discussing the Beatles 66 years after their start as Johnny and the Moondogs

The song Two of Us by The Beatles was written by Paul McCartney and is credited to Lennon and McCartney, as their songwriting partnership required. Watching the six-hour movie Get Back, by Peter Jackson, shows just how collaborative the four Beatles were, even during 1969, when they were supposedly on their demise.

History altered

There is a snippet of audio floating around the internet where you can hear John Lennon saying, “If you are listening, Ringo, for our next album, we should have at least two songs for everyone, including you.”

Drummer Ringo Starr was not in the meeting; he was off making a movie. The meeting came after the Abbey Road album was complete. This revelation changes the known history of the end of the band. For decades producer George Martin and the others considered Abbey Road a positive experience, to get everyone together to wrap The Beatles’ catalogue with a tidy bow, considering Let It Be was a mess.

However, according to that snippet of audio, they were not yet ready to break up. Starr and McCartney could have gone on being Beatles for decades. But McCartney made the announcement six months after Lennon told the crew during a private meeting.

Here we are discussing the seminal band 54 years after their breakup and sixty years since the performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in front of the largest US televised audience to this day at a reported seventy-three million people. Apparently, not a single crime was committed in New York City during the airing.

That performance spawned a generation of rock bands. Repeatedly we hear of famous and legendary singers, songwriters and musicians picking up instruments in February 1964. The likes of Billy Joel, Tom Petty, Ann and Nancy Wilson, the members of Aerosmith, Toto and millions of others.

Near the end, McCartney’s song Two of Us, he claims, is about him and his new wife Linda taking off into the countryside driving, with not commitments or cares, probably in his Aston Martin.

This makes sense.

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s hard-earned pay
You and me Sunday driving not arriving
On our way back home

We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re going home

But he also sings…

You and I have memories
Longer than the road that
Stretches out ahead….

How is that possible?

He and Linda were within two years of their relationship, they married weeks after shelving the Let It Be album (released the following year). Their memories are only recent, it was he and Lennon who had memories together that go back to 1957 — and George Harrison before that.

Many of The Beatles’ latter songs are autobiographical

Oh! Darling could have been written as Oh! Johnny. Lennon even remarks during Get Back, to McCartney, “It is as if we were lovers or something.”

He was referring to the songs Oh! Darling and I Dig a Pony.

Lennon writes in I Dig a Pony,

You can imitate anyone you know
Yes, you can imitate anyone you know
I told you so,  
All, I want is you….

This is true as McCartney could imitate just about any other singer, including Little Richard, Elvis and the Everly Brothers, who could not be more distinct and different.

He also writes that McCartney can “penetrate any place you go,” which sounds like he is referring to McCartney’s ability to work a room with his charm.

And “You can radiate everything you are.”  

And repeats, “All I want is you.”

Lennon, I believe is talking about “you” as in McCartney’s ability to write songs during their history-making partnership. In other words, stop showing up with songs 100 percent complete and requiring no input from the rest of us.

But the others would miss McCartney’s brilliance. There is a scene in the movie where McCartney is strumming the bass, working out the melody of the would-be number 1 song Get Back, like he was conjuring it from thin air. The Long and Winding Road and Let It Be were massive hits too.

Collaborating until the end

During Get Back, they all help each other. For example, Something, George Harrison’s legendary song had assistance from both McCartney and Lennon, lyrically and musically.

Even Starr made suggestions, as lyrics were being sorted out.

At one point, Harrison is working with Starr on Octopus’s Garden. And the cousin to Octopus’s Garden, Going to Carolina, which never materialized, but had potential.

McCartney worked out the lyrics to Oh! Darling with little to no contribution from the others. It was essentially a solo song, and it was times like these that the others felt jaded by McCartney’s enormous talent (and bossy ways). McCartney would even show up early in the mornings each day to practice the vocal to Oh! Darling by himself. Or he would slip back into the studio (especially during the making of Sgt. Peppers), to re-do bass lines literally until his fingers bled, according to engineer Geoff Emerick.

But, here, McCartney privately, if you will, acknowledges the value of the partnership.

When you told me you didn't need me anymore
Well, you know I nearly broke down and cried
When you told me you didn't need me anymore
Well, you know I nearly fell down and died

Oh darling, if you leave me
I'll never make it alone
Believe me when I tell you
I'll never do you no harm
Believe me, darlin'

Certainly, the vocal performance was emotional enough.

But the stanza below suggests that McCartney is not at all talking about his relationship with Linda McCartney in Two of Us:

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere on our way back home

There are other references to the paperwork they were chasing in the new era of their careers under American agent Allen Klien. On Abbey Road is the song, You Never Give Me Your Money.

”You only give me your funny papers.”

Chasing paper, and getting nowhere, was ruining the relationship.

But, Lennon writes in I Dig A Pony,

“I pick a Moondog.”

Meaning, he chose McCartney and McCartney was a rocker at that time during the era of Johnny and the Moondogs. And he was a collaborator.

Much has been said about the demise of the band and the co-called love-hate relationship, but there was no hate, just some latter sensitivity being aired.

It was only a year later in 1971 as well as into 1973 that Lennon on the Dick Cavett Show expressed the possibility of getting back together. And they nearly did in 1974.

McCartney’s scorcher to Linda, Maybe I’m Amazed, would have been a terrific Beatles song, but so could have been Lennon’s Instant Karma or Give Peace a Chance.

The two of them were brilliant and together they made history.

Read the very last word in the lyric below

Two of Us

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone's hard-earned pay
You and me Sunday driving
Not arriving on our way back home

We're on our way home
We're on our way home
We're going home

Two of us sending postcards
Writing letters on my wall
You and me burning matches
Lifting latches on our way back home

We're on our way home
We're on our way home
We're going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road that stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere on our way back home

We're on our way home
We're on our way home
We're going home

You and I have memories
Longer than the road that stretches out ahead

Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo in the sun
You and me chasing paper
Getting nowhere on our way back home

We're on our way home
We're on our way home
We're going home

We're going home

Better believe it
Goodbye

If he was getting lost driving in the countryside with Linda, who is he saying goodbye to?