Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

1981-1991 (epilogue i)

That year, they had a splendid Christmas. Since they had still been recovering from their whole ordeal the Christmas previous, they hadn't done very much to celebrate. So they went to New York City to spend Christmas and New Year's with Yoko, George, and his family. (George's first solo album, "I've Got a Lot To Say", was breaking records internationally. And, in fact, Yoko had released her own album. While Paul had not been particularly surprised, John had been floored by this news. To Paul's amusement, John had not particularly enjoyed Yoko's album.)

One day, in the week between the two holidays, Olivia was out with Dhani and Paul and John took George and Yoko out for lunch so that they could finally tell them about their album.

"That's a great idea!" George cried.

"Hm," said Yoko thoughtfully. "I do have to say, as a Council member, that it will have to pass Council inspection before it can be released. For public and private safety."

"No one's going to figure out any secrets from the album," John said, rolling his eyes. "We've made sure it's vague enough, and anyway who would understand this shit?"

"All the same," Yoko said.

John huffed.

"It's not even finished being written yet," Paul said. "And it can go through Council inspection. I don't care."

"I don't want it to go through Council inspection," John grumbled.

"What does it matter?" Paul questioned.

John gave him a look.

"Oh," Paul laughed, then turned to George and Yoko. "John wrote a song about how mean Marbella is."

"Hey, you wrote it, too!" John exclaimed.

George and Yoko both laughed.

Back at home, in the New Year, they really got to work on solidifying the album; which songs they should keep, and which they should throw away. They wound up with a longer album than they had intended to make, but they could do what they wanted with it!

They spent the latter half of 1982 in a recording studio, perfecting their masterpiece. At the end of it, when they were handing the recordings over to the Council for inspection, they still didn't have a name for it. They agonized over what to call it, but kept on coming up blank. Yoko and George had several suggestions, as did all four members of Queen, and Ringo, but none of them seemed to stick.

A couple weeks after the Council had deemed their album acceptable for public release (Marbella was not amused by John's song about her), they were talking in bed about their time spent at the Unknowable's headquarters in between Paul getting shot and them heading off to battle. Something seemed to occur to John, and he jumped out of bed to hurry from the room.

"John?" Paul called, puzzled.

John didn't answer, but returned soon with a pen and a pad of paper that he was frantically scribbling on. "It's just something you said to me in the field, when we first reunited, but..." he said slowly, then held out the paper. "It's got a nice ring to it."

Paul took the pad of paper from him. The set list for the album was scrawled down the page underneath bold, underlined writing. Paul smiled.

***

George's album had broken a couple of records, but when Paul and John's duet album, "Break Me One More Time", dropped, it topped the charts for months. It was funny to hear the rumors flying, about all the things people thought that the songs must be about, but of course they never came close. The album did so well, in fact, that Paul and John decided to do a string of live shows. Not a tour, exactly, but they travelled around America for a few weeks a few different times over the next couple of years.