“The End” was the last song recorded by all four Beatles for their iconic album “Abbey Road” in October 1969. In turn, Lennon who – in a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine – acknowledged McCartney’s words for “The End,” by saying, “That’s Paul again. He had a line in it, ‘And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” At the same time, Lennon noted his long friendship with McCartney “since we were boys.” What was unique about the Lennon and McCartney songwriting partnership, say music experts, is they both were lyricist and composer, while working “eyeball to eyeball,” and agreeing to share equal writing credit on songs that either of one of them wrote. The Lennon-McCartney partnership and friendship is viewed as the most unique and famous in music history, according to Guinness World Records.

McCartney has “always been there for John,” said Cynthia

John Lennon was born on Oct. 9, 1940, and would have turned 71 this fall if not for his assassination some 31 years ago on Dec. 8, 1980. The recent re-issue in paperback of “John” – a 2005 book by Lennon’s first wife Cynthia -- in time for these forthcoming Lennon anniversaries has sparked new interest with Beatles fans who are also celebrating the 50 anniversary of when “John and Paul first teamed up in 1961.”

Cynthia Lennon writes that when John Lennon met Yoko Ono, and then divorced her, none of the other Beatles and Beatle wives contacted Cynthia, except Paul McCartney.

After going with Yoko, Cynthia writes in her book "that John had cut me off not just from him but from the whole Beatles family. The only person who came to see me was Paul. He arrived on sunny afternoon, bearing a red rose, and said, ‘I’m so sorry, Cyn, I don’t know what’s come over him. This isn’t right. Paul stayed for a while. He told me that John was bringing Yoko to the (1969) recording sessions, which he, George and Ringo hated. Paul had broken up with Jane Asher a couple of weeks after John had left me.”

In turn, Cynthia wrote that “Paul joked about us getting married – ‘How about it, Cyn?’ – and I was grateful to him for cheering me up and caring enough for me. He (Paul) was the only member of the Beatles family who’d had the courage to defy John.”

Paul helps save John’s letter to son Julian and Cynthia from 1965

Throughout Cynthia Lennon’s book, “John,” she reveals the close relationship between John and Paul who she viewed as not only “best mates” but “brothers” and two artists with a “special bond.”

Cynthia relates in her book that John had written a letter to their son Julian during the August 1965 Beatles concert at Shea Stadium. The letter ends with John also telling Cynthia that “I’m going now so that this letter doesn’t get too draggy. I love you very much.”

Because Cynthia said she was desperately in need of money after her divorce from John, she writes in the book that “I sold this letter, along with several others John wrote.”

But, after John’s death, Cynthia recalls hearing that the owner of the letter put it up for sale, and “Paul McCartney bought it.”

“He (Paul) had it framed and presented it to me and Julian as a gift. An immensely thoughtful gesture that we appreciated deeply,” writes Cynthia in her book “John.”

John Lennon’s death noted by psychics and remembered by first wife Cynthia

In other letters, psychics’ warned Lennon that he would be shot, writes Cynthia at the end of her book “John.”

“We received dire predictions of plane crashes and other horrendous happenings” that Cynthia Lennon said were related to an influx of psychic warnings that began in 1965 and continued into December 1980 when he was shot and killed.

After more reports that “John would be shot while he was in the States,” Cynthia Lennon goes on to state that “when he left on tour he was frightened and downcast.”

“I was just before eleven, on that terrible December 9 (in England) night, when a supposed fan, Mark Chapman, who had asked John for his autograph earlier that day and exchanged friendly words with him, shot him four times,” Cynthia Lennon writes in her book “John.”

In turn, she writes that “John was hit twice in the back and twice in the shoulder. A fifth bullet missed him. Yoko had been a couple of steps behind him and it must have been appalling for her to witness. John staggered up the six steps outside the Dakota building before he fell. As Yoko screamed for an ambulance, the porter, who knew John well, covered him with his jacket, and then pressed a button that connected him straight to the police. They arrived within a couple of minutes, decided there was no time to wait for an ambulance, carried John to their car and sped him to hospital. John died from massive blood loss shortly after they arrived.”

Paul stays true to John in The End

After John’s death, Cynthia writes that “I was touched when Paul wrote his own tribute to John, a lovely song called ‘Here Today,’ which showed his affection for his old friend. The two had never been close after the Beatles’ split, but I know they’d met and talked a number of times. John’s style was to walk away and stay away – as he did with me: once his mind was made up he didn’t go back. But he and Paul had had a deep and enduring affection for each other since they were teenagers and it had never disappeared.”

Image source of John Lennon and Paul McCartney "as best mates" in 1964. Photo courtesy Wikipedia