“You are riding your precious Appaloosa horse. It is a beautiful spring day and we are riding through the woods. The bluebells are in bloom and the sky is clear blue. These were the last words Paul McCartney said to his wife, Linda, before her hand slipped from his. He pronounced them 25 years ago, on April 17, 1998 at the Arizona ranch where they took refuge when the doctor confirmed to the exbeatle a fateful and imminent fate after three years of fighting breast cancer. The untimely death of Linda, née Eastman, at the age of 56 marked the final chapter in the story of one of recent pop culture’s seminal couples. A passionate and complex romance, full of “ups and downs” despite the historical stability suggested by the media, which was far from living up to the unofficial title of “the most perfect marriage in the United Kingdom”.
During this quarter of a century, the harmonious public facade that they built during their 29 years together has been questioned and detailed by some of the people closest to the couple. “There were times when Linda was deeply unhappy and depressed about her marriage. In her lowest moments, the idea of leaving Paul did cross her mind, but she immediately rejected it because her family was the most important thing to her and she was not going to abandon them ”, he claimed Peter Cox, editor of the New Yorker’s vegetarian cookbook and owner of some recordings in which the photographer shared her most private thoughts as a diary. Between 1987 and 1989, while they were preparing the recipes that would make up the publication to establish Linda as a pioneer and guru of vegetarianism, Cox was a regular witness to the couple’s disagreements, motivated by the authority of the musician, whom he describes as “very controlling and with a dark side.
The photographer received him on many occasions in tears. “Linda would quote me to work on the book when Paul wasn’t there. If he showed up, he was so in control of things that we couldn’t get anything done, he was the alpha male. He had an opinion on everything. If he was present, only his judgment mattered. So we would suspend work until McCartney left the building,” adds Cox. The use of those same tapes was blocked by the exbeatle in 2006 during the divorce process from his second wife, Heather Mills, who accused him of mistreatment. McCartney ended up paying 200,000 pounds (about 299,000 euros at the exchange rate at the time) to get hold of them. Despite the criticism leveled, Cox also maintains that Linda was devoted to her husband and that she was “like a mother to him.”
That same affirmation, which places the composer of hits as let it be as a figure in need not only of sentimental affection but of an almost maternal guardianship, has been corroborated from the very beginning of their relationship. When they met, in 1967, Linda was divorced with a daughter—Heather, whom Paul would later adopt as his own—and was one of the most recognized photographers on the rock and pop scene, photographing bands like The Rolling Stones, The Doors or The Who. While her closest friends assure her that she was allergic to the media spotlight, other voices maintain that she always had an inclination to get closer to the stars and that it was she herself who invented the false rumor that she belonged to the powerful family Kodak.
After meeting Paul in a concert hall and at the launch of the iconic album by The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Linda returned to the United States and it was not until a new meeting the following year that their love relationship finished forging. Journalist Howard Sounes, author of the biography FAB: An Intimate Life Of Paul McCartneywrites that the pop star begged Eastman to move with him to London to stop a self-destructive spiral that threatened, at 26, to irreparably halt his regal career.
Linda ended up moving to the British capital and became the target of the tabloid press and a large part of the fans. beatles, that he painted “wild things” on her on the facade of his residence. They gave themselves the yes I want a few months later, in 1969, at a ceremony packed with mourners in mourning mourning “losing the last one” beatles still single. Linda did it by betting on a trench coat to match her daughter’s, which hid Mary’s pregnancy, the first of her three offspring in common (later Stella and James would arrive). The ceremony almost did not take place: “We had a very big fight the night before the wedding and we almost canceled it. We had a lot of ups and downs, they were very hectic compared to that image of ’25 years of marital bliss’. alleged the singer and author himself. He also boasts of having spent only a handful of nights separated from her -due to an arrest at a Tokyo airport for drug possession- in 29 years of living together.
Obstacles were not long in coming. A few months after going down the aisle, the Beatles decide to part ways and McCartney falls into an abysmal depression. He drowns in drink a deep anger “for himself and for the world”, he does not shave and does not get out of bed except to waste his money with “vultures and parasites”. His physical condition worsened every day, and only cannabis—both he and Linda were regular users—served as sedation. “I remember Paul saying, ‘help me take some of this weight off my shoulders,’ and I’d say, ‘weight? What weight? You are the princes of the world, you are the Beatles.” evokes Beautiful. Once again, Paul credits his wife with pulling him out of the hole and reminding him of the power of music as therapy.
Her way of reinventing herself personally and professionally was Wings, a musical group formed in 1971 and in which Linda was keyboardist and co-author of many of the songs in the repertoire. McCartney himself would later admit that her wife was incapable of playing the keyboard and was about to do without her on more than one occasion, but her company and her protection on the international tour were essential for him. Parallel to this project, and before turning 30, the McCartneys left London and opted for a life in the purest style cottagecore on a farm in Scotland, surrounded by all kinds of animals that were a vital passion for Linda. “People have the image that everything is wonderful and that it is the perfect marriage, but it is not idyllic, we have our fights. I would classify our relationship as quite volatile. We are not bored, we have wonderful children and a lovely relationship. I hope it lasts forever.” explained Paul in an interview in 1985.
It was there that they channeled their vegetable revolution and became benchmarks for vegetarian life, denying the prejudices linked to this movement and starting up a food company that would bill millions of dollars. Those years were the happiest for the couple, according to writer and personal friend Barry Miles: “I have never met a more loving family. They were always telling each other how much they loved each other.” Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995 and, despite undergoing all possible treatments, she died three years later surrounded by her husband and her four children.
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