Paul McCartney reflects on one of the darkest moments of his life — the day he learned John Lennon had been killed. In his new book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, the Beatles legend shares raw emotions, memories, and the power of forgiveness that shaped his bond with Lennon, even decades after his death

Paul McCartney has lived through some of the most defining moments in modern music history, but even at 83, one memory continues to haunt him—the day he learned that John Lennon had been killed. In his new book, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, McCartney opens up about that day with a raw honesty that feels both painful and cathartic. It is not just a recollection of loss, but a reflection on friendship, forgiveness, and the strange, enduring bond between two people who changed the world together.

McCartney writes that he was told the devastating news by his manager early in the morning on December 8, 1980. “It was just so crazy,” he recalls. The entire scene felt unreal, like something out of a nightmare that couldn’t possibly be true. He compares it to the same numb, surreal shock he felt when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. “Everything went blurry. You couldn’t process it. I still haven’t really processed it,” he admits. “And honestly, I don’t want to.”

The murder of John Lennon outside his New York apartment building sent shockwaves through the world, but for McCartney, it tore open something deeply personal. In the book, he describes how he instinctively went to the studio that day with Ringo Starr and George Harrison, unsure what else to do. “We couldn’t just sit at home,” he writes. “We needed to be around people we knew. We needed to make music. It was the only way to cope.”

McCartney’s reaction to the tragedy was quiet, almost restrained—something that fans at the time misunderstood. When a journalist caught him leaving Abbey Road Studios and asked for a comment, he famously muttered, “It’s a drag,” a phrase that would later be criticized as cold and dismissive. But the book reveals the truth behind that moment: it wasn’t indifference, it was shock. “I wasn’t capable of saying anything meaningful,” he explains. “My brain had just shut down. It was too much.”

Over four decades later, the grief still lingers, but what stands out most in McCartney’s recollections is the gratitude. Before Lennon’s death, the two had managed to reconcile after years of creative tension and public feuding following the breakup of The Beatles. “One of the greatest gifts of my life,” he writes, “is that our last conversation wasn’t an argument. It was simple, human, filled with love.”

Their relationship had been famously complex—two creative forces who needed each other as much as they drove each other mad. “We were like brothers,” McCartney says. “We had our moments, the teasing, the fights, the misunderstandings—but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.” He describes Lennon not just as a collaborator, but as a mirror: someone who challenged him, inspired him, and forced him to see the world differently.

Even now, McCartney admits he often finds himself wondering what life would be like if Lennon were still around. “There are times when I think about what it would be like to have one more cup of tea with him, one more chat. But that’s life—it surprises you, it hurts you, and in the end, it teaches you.”

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is more than a memoir of grief. It’s a journey through the years that followed the breakup of The Beatles, told through McCartney’s own voice and through stories from the people who shared that chapter of his life. From the chaos of forming Wings in the early 1970s to the triumphs of songs like “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Band on the Run,” the book is both intimate and expansive. It paints the portrait of a man learning to rediscover purpose after the end of one of the most celebrated partnerships in history.

The narrative includes excerpts from interviews with McCartney’s late wife, Linda, their children Stella and Mary, and collaborators like Denny Seiwell, Henry McCullough, and producer George Martin. Together, they piece together a story of resilience, love, and creative rebirth. McCartney admits that in the years immediately following The Beatles’ breakup, he felt “dead inside.” Music, once a joyful act of creation, became a lifeline—a way to climb out of the shadow cast by Lennon’s absence and the band’s legacy.

Writing the book, he says, became its own kind of therapy. “It’s a healing process,” McCartney shares. “Looking back helps me reconnect with those parts of myself I thought I’d lost. Losing John taught me to love more consciously, to forgive more freely, and to keep moving forward. That’s all any of us can really do.”

What makes the book so affecting is McCartney’s tone. There’s no bitterness, no self-mythologizing—just reflection. He doesn’t shy away from the tension and ego clashes that marked the Beatles’ final years, but he also doesn’t dwell on them. Instead, he focuses on what came after: the rebuilding, the rediscovery of joy, and the lessons learned through pain.

He also touches on the unique creative chemistry he shared with Lennon—a partnership so natural that it often felt telepathic. “We could finish each other’s songs without even talking,” McCartney writes. “Sometimes I’d write a line and think, ‘John would have loved this,’ or ‘He’d have made this better.’ Even now, when I write, I still hear his voice in my head. He’s my inner collaborator, my internal critic, my reminder to stay honest.”

In many ways, that’s what makes McCartney’s reflection on Lennon so powerful. It isn’t nostalgia—it’s connection. Lennon may be gone, but his influence still pulses through McCartney’s every note and lyric. “When I’m on stage and I sing something we wrote together,” he says, “I can feel him there. Not in a ghostly way, but in spirit. It’s comforting.”

The loss of Lennon reshaped McCartney not only as an artist but as a man. The themes of forgiveness and reconciliation that run through his later work—songs like “Here Today” and “Calico Skies”—feel like conversations with a friend who’s still listening somewhere. “John and I were opposites, but we completed each other,” he writes. “I think that’s why his death left such a hole. There was a part of me that went with him.”

Still, there’s no sense of despair in his words. What comes through instead is a quiet peace—a recognition that love, once shared, never truly disappears. McCartney ends the chapter with a line that feels like both a farewell and a benediction: “When I think of John now, I don’t see tragedy. I see laughter. I see music. I see the best parts of who we were.”

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run ultimately reads like a love letter—to Lennon, to music, and to the endurance of memory. For McCartney, the story isn’t about fame or legacy, but about friendship, art, and the fragile beauty of time. He may never fully accept Lennon’s death, as he admits, but perhaps that’s the point. Some bonds are too powerful to end, even in death. And for Paul McCartney, that connection remains the quiet melody that has guided him all these years.