Often overshadowed among the subjects of The Beatles’ most celebrated love songs, but Paul McCartney’s old flame Jane Asher inspired some of the Fab Four’s finest romantic offerings.
George Harrison and John Lennon’s Pattie Boyd and Yoko Ono loom large amid The Beatles songbook, but across Asher and McCartney’s five-year relationship, absolute gems were plucked from that glittering Lennon-McCartney ether, ‘And I Love Her’, ‘We Can Work It Out’, ‘Things We Said Today’, and ‘For No One’ all shine among some of McCartney’s finest compositions.
She met the Beatle young. First crossing paths at the Royal Albert Hall after a show in 1963 as part of her Juke Box Jury duties for the BBC, the 17-year-old Asher was already a seasoned actor when they moved into her family home, before living together as a couple in McCartney’s St John’s Wood home in London. Riding out the dizzying highs of Beatlemania together, Asher maintained a commitment to her TV and stage career, a remarkable feat considering the global hysteria that followed her partner’s mammoth day job.
She’s also been less than enthusiastic to ever talk about it. Ever since calling it quits with McCartney in 1968, Asher has eschewed the clamouring press attention that typically circles overhead of any character in the Fab Four lore, no matter how remote. One of the few insights she ever gave, however, was in 2024, when a reader submitted a question for The Guardian asking how she made it through that tumultuous period “while staying sane, balanced and with your sense of self still intact?”
“Well, this question assumes I have a sense of self,” Asher quipped. “I became very wary of the press early on, and I decided to keep my private life as private as I possibly could, which was hard because my life was so publicised at that time. I probably became too wary, and reluctant to talk about anything. Back then, journalists seemed to write anything, regardless of whether it was true or not. So whether I’ve kept a sense of self … I don’t quite know what my self is. But it’s reasonably settled, I guess.”
Girlfriends in The Beatles camp didn’t have it easy. Lennon’s abusive treatment of his former wife, Cynthia Powell, has stained the popular impression of a progressive peacenik, and Harrison’s spiritual chase, aided by copious cocaine and infidelity, pushed his and Boyd’s marriage to breaking point. Chemical indulgences too began to take their toll on Asher and McCartney’s relationship, noticing a different dynamic upon her return from a lengthy theatre run in the States with the Bristol Old Vic in the heady days of 1967.
“When I came back after five months, Paul had changed so much,” she revealed in Hunter Davies’ band biography. “He was on LSD, which I hadn’t shared. I was jealous of all the spiritual experiences he’d had with John. There were fifteen people dropping in all day long. The house had changed and was full of stuff I didn’t know about.”
McCartney, too, had allegedly lapsed into womanising across their time together, taking full advantage of the so-called ‘groupies’ throwing themselves at The Beatles during their peak, as well as flings with actors Jill Haworth and Peggy Lipton. Despite this, they became engaged and retreated to the Indian Rishikesh ashram together; however, reportedly, Asher had returned home unannounced to find McCartney in bed with Apple associate Francie Schwartz. By July 1968, the pair were over, Asher confirming as such on her appearance on the talk show Dee Time.
Not long after, McCartney would develop a romance with US photographer Linda Eastman, forming an essential component of his 1970s Wings band and remaining together til her death in 1998. In 1971, Asher would partner with illustrator and political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, responsible for the stylised animations for Pink Floyd’s The Wall, marrying ten years later and raising a family of three children. Throughout, Asher’s never been one to be defined by her time with McCartney all those years ago. “I’ve been happily married for 30-something years,” she told The Daily Telegraph in 2004. “It’s insulting.”
