"Can't Buy Me Love"

Sir Paul McCartney, the now-63-year-old ex-Beatle, and his wife Heather announced on May 17th that they had formally decided to separate after four years of marriage.

Dave from Sussex, United Kingdom marked the event with a Photoshop project (On his blog), which I know all you sick puppies will love. I should link him to all your one-legged jokes. His blog is a bit of this, a bit of that. His caption: “McCartney gets his share of the divorce settlement!”

The statement to the press made no mention of them trying to get back together. Nor did it mention divorce, an issue potentially complicated by the fact that Sir Paul has a massive fortune — 825 million pounds. That’s over 1.5 billion US dollars kids.

Although the British news media reported at the time of the wedding that Sir Paul's children had insisted that he sign such an agreement, Paul later said he had not, considering it "unromantic." Besides, a publicist for Heather Mills McCartney said on her web site, "he knew it was completely unnecessary." I guess we will now see if that is truly the case.

I think the split happened because Paul finally came to his senses. The couple was said to argue all the time; she reportedly flung her enormous sapphire engagement ring into the bushes outside their hotel room in a pre-wedding tiff. It was also reported that she had feelings of resentment at his superior fame. I say "good riddance."

He was a famously devoted man who was said to have spent less than one total week away from his first wife, Linda, in 30 years of marriage. I think that is really extreme, but they were said to one of the greatest couples of all time. Paul set the tone for their coupledom on the very first track of his very first solo album. The song was simply titled "The Lovely Linda." Linda was an acomplished photographer, but because he never wanted to be far from her, he asked her to join his band “Wings”. Some rumors went as far as to claim that her vocals often had to be electronically corrected. He even shared songwriting credits with her on such post-Beatle classics as "Live and Let Die."




Linda died of cancer in 1998. One of Paul’s closest friends, Carla Lane, told the British press "Paul is absolutely shipwrecked”. Common friends have often said that Paul never recovered after her death. When Linda died, Paul asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to cancer-research and animal-welfare charities.

I’m quite sure that Heather’s common passion for charity and animal rights groups reminded Paul of Linda. The problem is that there is no way to substitute one person for another. No one can ever truly take the place of the love of your life.

Unfortunately for some people, they will never, ever find that “one” special person. I would guess that the only thing worse, is truly finding that person and then having them suddenly taken away from you.