Grow Old With Me - a TLIAW

Well I figure its either George or Ringo since they mention Paul.
I'm going to say its Ringo, I find that amusing. :)

Keep in mind it doesn't have to be one person talking.

Is Granny Song a term that John actually used in OTL?

If we check the wiki page for Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da;
"According to studio engineer Geoff Emerick, John Lennon "openly and vocally detested" the song, calling it Paul's "granny music shit"
I'm pretty sure he also mentioned it elsewhere during the early 70s when he was dissing Paul through the tabloids, but I can't remember exactly where.
 
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They kept on keeping on – Hard Day’s Night, Help, Revolver, the White Album, Imagine, Flaming Pie, The Daily Howl – even Some Time in NY gets a gold star for effort. That album was the runt and everyone knows it. But tonight he’s getting special treatment because he’s one of the inductees. Everyone joins in to coddle the fukin’ snowflake who couldn’t beat Nixon. Who’s he kidding, they’re not here ‘cos of his solo stuff. They couldn’t give two plops about the Plastic Ono Band. It’s always been Beatles this, Beatles that. Beatles ‘til he dies.

He remembers he used to love the attention, back when they were sprouts. He’d run off of it. But then there was just more and more, so much more, a muchness of more, a too muchness of more. None of them could take it, but, he figures, it what drove him to go in. Too much armouring up needed undoing so he could see them as individuals and not a big wall of wailing faces.

It wasn’t the lumped praise that made him go out on to the fire escape. It was that godly fella, he reckons. He took to the stage and clutched one hand over his ever-beating heart and went on and on about how if it wasn’t for the lawd he wouldn’t have kicked the devil’s hooch and made that one album and be standing on that stage with trophy in hand. Yes, you would’ve, he thinks, they nominated you, not the baby jeezus. He can’t stand people rabbiting on about their precious concepts. The Good Book is what made American’s burn their records, it’s what got Reagan shot, it’s what got George stabbed.

He takes another long drag, then

John!

He looks down. There’s people with phones on the street. At least they’re not screaming anymore, he thinks.
 
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—and John? Do you want to weigh in on this? Who’s your pick for President?

“Ralph Nader.”

The audience laughs like they’re obliged to.

“All right, well, it’s got to be Bernie Sanders, isn’t it?”

The Host raises an eyebrow. Oh?

“Yes, yes of course. He’s the only man who’s shown he’s capable of running the joint.”

Then what are your thoughts on Hillary Clinton, then? First woman president?

“Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she can run the country.”

He notices a sharp intake of breath from the audience. He adjusts –

“I mean, we had Thatcher, and she pretty much divided us. Having a woman in power would be a great thing, but I think the American’s just need to think it over before they start, err, funding them.”

The ginger comedian to his left interjects, Do you like Bernie Sanders ‘cos his glasses are like yours, then?

The audience laughs again, this time without obligation. A picture appears on the host’s screen. One is of an aged democratic socialist from Vermont, the other is of an aged ego-driven musician from Liverpool. They do, admittedly, sport similar eyewear. He bites his tongue – usually he’d use a choice swear, one of many from his arsenal, but ‘they’ don’t like naughty words anymore. He doesn’t let it pent and forces a ha.

“No, well, I—I said it a lot when I was younger—"

So much older than today?

Steady John, steady.

“— back in the late 60’s, early 70s, around that time, I started weighing in on the way the world was run. Of course, some particular people didn’t much like what I was saying and had me booted out –"

Another breath from the audience. He can’t speak his mind around this lot, not unless he talks about selfies or Pokémon Go or that godforsaken Mannequin Challenge or

"—but people voted those people back in, despite what they did to people like me. There’s just this bunch of maniacal people in the system that say what the people want to hear, just to get where they want. But now there’s others, people who say what the people need to hear. It’s why I voted for Corbyn in our elections, same reason. They’re real, grounded people, people who tell us about solutions instead of problems. I mean, it’s like that compared to Hillary or Trump, these great big demagogues they’ve propped up.”

He can see people having a think here. Some even clap. Hell, he might have reached one or two of them. He makes the mistake of grinning.

And the ginger comedian says I bet Trump’s hair doesn’t need to be propped up.

And the audience chuckles in its obligated way, and the Host asks a question about his upcoming play, and he realises that his two cents aren’t as treasured as they might’ve been years ago.
 
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For all those long years he was an old dog, couldn’t get Winston O’Boogie riled up if you tried. He told the news vultures it was because he had kids now, and that’s what being a dad does to you, but he really, well and truly, wanted to keep his head down. He didn’t want to cause any more trouble, start any more fights. The last time he didn't back down a president abused his power (the first of many to do so). But then this great big orange gobshite kept pushing and prodding. Anything for attention, added gravitas where it was already shooting out his pores like shit. Oh no, when you talk about America's enemies, don't stop at your fellow maniacal leaders, and the rabble and the freaks, no, work your way down the list to that one musician who sang songs and cried on occasion. When he announced he would be keeping ‘particular’ people from stepping up to his precious land, he made an effort to cite one John Winston "you say you want a Revolution" Lennon. In the President’s own words, he was a ‘pathetic freak who should’ve kept his trap shut’. Oh that fucking tears it. Like that, he was back in the states. War was on, and they’d wanted it.

He was right there with them, marching in the lines and shouting at anyone who’d listen. He chanted slogans, he got out his guitar and made his own. And the fuckers beat him up, on the news nonetheless. That got their attention, oh yes it did. They knowingly assaulted an elderly man participating in a peaceful protest, the newspeople said. Not just any old man, oh no, you assaulted John Winston “Give Peace a Chance, Power to the People, Come Together, right now, get your maniacal heads out of your collective asses” Lennon, ya bleedin’ fascists. You put your tiny hands on the martyred pacifist. Another boundary crossed.

From there it was a straight-forward process and Orange Julius was out, but they still had to fight for it. Gonna take years to teach these kids to stop putting their hands on the stove. They had a good replacement, though. John admitted it – he liked this new one. This one always had the wit on his side and gave the people what the needed, not what they wanted. If you must ask, yes, he played Imagine, of bloody course he played bloody Imagine, what else would the want played? Certainly not Cold Turkey. They’d just unseated a tyrant, the last thing they’d want their wickle ears exposed to is the process of cocaine withdrawal. So he sat at the big white piano and he crooned in front of the Americans for the first time in years and they loved it, oh they loved it, oh, why did we kick him out?

Time wounds all heels, but he’s still bitter.

Still a bitter, old, brooding Beatle.
 
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“You know where I figured out I went wrong?”

Dad, I

“I got a phone call and”

Dad you don’t

“Let me finish. I got this phone call late one night. I thought it was the lawyers, or the landlady or even a bloody journalist. Do you know who it was?”

…I don’t know, who was it?

“There was a voice that said “Hi Dad, I just brought a motorbike.”

He hates the smell. They’ve put a woman on mars but they still can’t get rid of that fucking ammonia stench. There’s not a single person who has happy memories from taking a whiff. Gods bless the NHS.

Claire came in on Wednesday to see him, and somehow managed to bring the entire extended family with her. He still doesn’t like the guy she’s had her litter with, but he’s learned to live with it, and for someone like him that’s a fucking leap and stride. Yesterday it was Sean, and John was beginning to see so much of himself in little Max, so much brooding, so much angst. Max says the kids are teasing him at school, calling him a ‘hipster’ because of his glasses. John recommends he belt the ringleader across the face. Sean laughs and says Grandad was only joking, then with a stern look, weren’t you, granddad? He wasn’t. Sometimes he forgets he was a pacifist. It goes with age.

Now, it was his eldest – Julian. Poor, poor Julian.

Yeah, but I brought it with that check you sent me

“Come off it, Jules. It takes a lot for a geezer like me to admit he fucked it.”

You did fuck it, actually

“I’m sorry.”

Uh huh

“No, I"

There is a bump at the window. Looking over, they see a lens, supported by hunk of metal and wire, with little wiring propellers. The prick with the controls must’ve pushed too hard on the forward toggle. Julian swears and shuts the blinds.

Bloody vultures

“They never change. Didn’t give you much trouble, did they?”

They almost swallowed me. I felt like a bug

“At least they didn’t try tearing your hair out.”

Heh

“How did we end up here, Jules?”

Oh, er, the smokes, definitely. Or the coke. Or the

“Julian.”

I was kidding

“I thought I was so right. I thought everything was going good, you know?”

We all do

He’s finally softened, he thinks. Dethroning a mad king gives one time to think, and much thinking he did. Eventually he looked the big green lady up and down, took a deep breath, and invited her in. No harm, no foul. If Yoko was still around she would’ve been bloody ecstatic, and she would’ve taken his arm and dragged him around. It’s still hard to walk the streets and look at all the little details without getting mobbed, granted, but they’d find a way. It’s not like a scouser to not learn to evolve.

The fabs petered out too, of course. He’s put out the occasional LP, but all they did was humour him, always put former Beatle right before his Sir. The rest of the world couldn’t really accept it, kept nagging for another album. Just one more, the critics boomed, like it was a push to shit out a nostalgic baby. Weren’t that simple, ‘specially since he was the last one left. First to be mentioned, last one to leave. Not only that, but the ‘Threetles’, as he told ‘they’ (as ‘they’ so love to be called), is one of the dumbest names he’s ever heard. And he was around for Gerry and the Fuckin Pacemakers.

“Yeah, but your old man was a special case. I blame my dad.”

And I blame mine

“Jules.”

Kidding

“No, Julian.”

I really was kidding, dad

“No, I mean, you should.”

It’s okay

“No it—“

Shut up a sec, okay? It happened. Ashes ashes, dust dust. I got over it, mum got over it, eventually the history teaches will too

“...not mine, Jules. He was a right git.”

They both laugh.

He feels a kick.

“Oh.”

Dad, are you

“Nothin, just a”

John

He feels another kick

Oh shit – nurse! Nurse! He’s

John Lennon

He sees things, very suddenly and very clearly.

He sees a truck driver, stout of tum and slack of jaw, sifting through his pockets. There is a jangle, several coins hit the floor and a precious few slide down the grating, never to be seen again by living eyes. The driver curses. He sees the driver go along his route, stop at all the lights he’s supposed to.

He sees a man with a hook nose and a cold heart swim through a crowd of baying press like a fish. This man is a free man, say the man, and he’ll stay in the country. He has a wedded fish by his side, and they look inseparable. Pisces hoping for a new age of Aquarius.

He sees this man make an embarrassment of himself behind a closed door when one of his many nemeses succeed on national television.
He sees the man spend a weekend lost in a place that is very sunny.
He sees the man laugh and sing and scream at a storm while he grapples the wheel of a sinking ship.
He sees the man cradle an impossible child high above a city that never sleeps.
He sees the man phone another, and inform them that he’s started making bread.
He sees the man fall on a hotel desk then stop moving.

He sees this and so much more.

...

And then nothing.

...

And then?

*
 
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