Paul McCartney spends time with Linda Eastman in New York

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The last session for the new double album “The Beatles” was on October 18, 1968. The Beatles went their own way till the end of the year and would restart working together on January 2, 1969, for the “Get Back” sessions.

On October 20, 1968, Paul McCartney flew to New York to spend a ten-day holiday with Linda Eastman. They had met in May 1967 in London and fell in love together in June 1968 while in Los Angeles. In September, Linda had travelled to London, leaving his daughter from a previous marriage in New York.

So we wandered round New York, getting tighter and tighter. We’ve always been very close and that was the beginning of it all. It was a great change in my life. I’ve always had quite serious relationships, I didn’t have that many women. I had girlfriends and one-night stands a lot, the swinging sixties, sexual revolution. But this was the start of this new kind of relationship for me. I found it very liberating. I found it very good for me as a person. There was a newspaper headline, ‘Linda and Paul, 9000 Nights of Love’, because apart from when I was busted in Tokyo, we have pretty much spent every night together. Personally I never saw any reason to be somewhere that she wasn’t.

Paul McCartney – from “Many Years From Now”, by Barry Miles, 1997

This was also the opportunity for Paul to meet with Linda’s family, especially her father, Lee Eastman, and brother, John Eastman.

Lee Eastman was a show business attorney and John Eastman was already a partner in the family law and management firm, Eastman & Eastman.

Soon after this meeting, Paul McCartney would come to think that Eastman & Eastman were the solution for both The Beatles’ management and Apple, and would suggest this idea to the other Beatles.

Those two weeks in New York had solidified their relationship, and they took the decision to be together. They came back together in London on October 31, with Heather.

Around this time, Paul was writing the song “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” and needed a final verse. In the yellow cab to the airport, he noticed a mug shot with the driver name written in large black letters (Eugene Quits), with the mention “New York Police Dept” beneath that.

So I got “So I quit the police department”, which are part of the lyrics to that. This was the great thing about the randomness of it all. If I hadn’t been in this guy’s cab, or if it had been someone else driving, the song would have been different. Also I had a guitar there so I could solidify it into something straight away.

Paul McCartney – From “Many Years From Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Nota bene: There is a story about Paul McCartney visiting The Cavern Club in Liverpool, on October 25, which cannot be if we assume he was in New York from October 20 to 31. A comment on the blog “Meet the Beatles for Real” suggests a more complex timeline:

I believe that the Oct 25th date is correct. Paul, Linda, and Neil made a couple back and forth trips to NYC. Paul & Linda were there from the 20th to the 23rd. They came back & then they & Neil flew back to NYC on the 27th. On the 30th they flew to Jamaica and then came back to London on the 1st of November. They spent some after that in Scotland.

From Meet the Beatles for Real: Paul returns to the Cavern 1968

Last updated on January 2, 2022