NEW YORK — Fans at Paul McCartney’s surprise Bowery Ballroom show in February witnessed a Beatles-level jolt. During “Here Today” — the aching 1982 ballad he wrote for John Lennon — McCartney paused mid-chord, transfixed by an elderly man weeping in the front row, holding a faded sketch of two buskers on Liverpool’s Hope Street.
Staff identified the fan as 83-year-old George “Geordie” Harris, Lennon’s art-school classmate. Backstage, Harris offered McCartney a brown envelope. Inside lay a single pencilled sentence: “If I go first, don’t cry — I’ll still play rhythm when you sigh.” According to crew members, McCartney stared at the note, then looked up and murmured, “Still writing, aren’t you, John?”
Because all phones were locked in pouches and just 575 people were admitted to the club, the exchange remained a rumor until guard Carla Ruiz shared it on social media last night, instantly reigniting Beatlemania threads worldwide. McCartney’s team declined comment, but the singer’s official site confirms the three-night Bowery stand in February preceded his newly announced 19-date “Got Back” North-American tour launching 29 September in Palm Desert, California.
“Here Today” has served as McCartney’s on-stage letter to Lennon for more than four decades, its string-quartet fragility often bringing performer and audience to tears. Reviewers of the Bowery show called the two-hour set “a touchingly normal miracle,” compressing arena energy into a room scarcely larger than the Cavern.
Ticket demand for the autumn arena leg is already “red-hot,” promoters say, with the New York Post predicting it could be “McCartney’s final must-see run”. Fans now wonder whether that newly surfaced Lennon lyric will appear onscreen or in song. Whatever McCartney chooses, the note proves that—even 45 years after Lennon’s death—the most famous songwriting partnership in rock can still find fresh ways to finish each other’s sentences today.
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