Paul McCartney has revisited the heartbreaking day he found out about John Lennon’s death.
As reported by PEOPLE Magazine, McCartney reflected on the tragedy in his new oral history book, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run.
Lennon was fatally shot by Mark David Chapman in New York City on December 8, 1980, a moment McCartney described as being “the same horrific moment” as President John F. Kennedy Jr.’s assassination in 1963.
“You couldn’t take it in. I still haven’t taken it in. I don’t want to,” McCartney wrote, recalling how everything around him “blurred” after hearing the news.
Following the devastating loss, McCartney remembered returning to the studio with Beatles bandmates Ringo Starr and George Harrison, explaining that none of them wanted to be alone.
“We all had to go to work and be with people we knew,” he wrote, adding that they “just had to keep going.”
He admitted that his “shock” ultimately fueled him to complete a day’s work despite the grief.
McCartney also reflected on how he and Lennon had managed to reconcile before the tragedy, years after The Beatles’ public split in 1970.
While he expressed regret over not being able to “sit down” with Lennon and fully reconnect, McCartney shared gratitude that their final phone call was warm and free of conflict.
He called making amends with Lennon “one of the great blessings in my life.”
