Grief has a strange way of hiding. Sometimes it’s loud, crashing in waves of sobs. Other times, it slips quietly into the corners of the heart, waiting for the right moment to surface. For Paul McCartney, the loss of his bandmate and brother-in-arms, John Lennon, was one such grief. The world mourned openly when John was taken in 1980, but Paul, carrying both the weight of history and the pain of their complicated friendship, seemed unable to truly let his sorrow show.
In early 1981, just weeks after Lennon’s death, Carl Perkins—rockabilly legend and one of the Beatles’ early idols—came to visit Paul and Linda McCartney in Montserrat. The air in the Caribbean retreat was heavy, not only with the loss of John but also with the pressure of unfinished goodbyes. Paul had not been able to say the words he wanted to say, nor had he been able to face the finality of death.
On his last night before leaving, Carl Perkins sat down with his guitar and decided to give Paul and Linda a gift. Out of pure instinct, he began writing a song titled “My Old Friend.” The lyrics poured out of him—a simple, heartfelt tune about love, loss, and gratitude. It was not meant to be anything more than a gesture of friendship, a way to thank the McCartneys for their hospitality.
The next morning, before his departure, Carl sang the song privately to Paul. When he reached the line, “Think about me now and then, old friend,” something inside Paul broke. He stood abruptly, unable to hold back the flood of tears, and left the room in silence. For Linda, who embraced Carl afterward, it was clear why: those had been John Lennon’s exact last words to Paul.
Until that moment, Paul had not fully allowed himself to grieve. The pain of John’s murder, the unresolved arguments, the years of brotherhood—it all crashed over him in that instant. Carl’s song had unwittingly touched the deepest wound. It was as though Lennon himself had spoken through the music.
Linda thanked Carl with tears of her own, telling him he had given Paul a gift he hadn’t even known he needed. It wasn’t closure—it never truly is—but it was a release. Through those words, Paul could finally cry for his friend.
In later interviews, Paul admitted the uncanny coincidence. “Those were John’s last words to me,” he said. “When Carl sang them, it was like hearing them again.” The mystery of music—the way it connects, heals, and bridges impossible distances—was alive in that Montserrat villa.
Carl Perkins had only wanted to write a song for his friends, but what he gave Paul was permission: permission to grieve, to remember, and to love without regret.
Years later, when Paul would perform tributes to John, fans would recall the way his voice cracked, the way his eyes glistened. He carried the grief of a world, but he also carried that private memory—a song that spoke words he could never hear again in life.
Grief never leaves; it simply changes its form. For Paul, it lived in Carl’s song, in the memory of John’s voice, and in the fragile beauty of those last words between old friends.