Break Me One More Time [McLennon]

2001-2015 (epilogue iii)

Paul spent the next several months thinking of little else aside from George's benefit concert. George had a long list of people who he wanted there and Paul was determined to get all of them to perform, which meant he had to schedule the concert on a day when all of them were free and willing. Luckily, this was for George and a lot of people were willing to move things around and make it work for him.

The date they set was for a day very early in December of that year, not long after George would have died in the other timeline. One day, when they were working on planning the event, George had asked, "What day did I die?"

Paul was taken aback. It took him a minute, but he told him.

"I want to do the concert after that."

Paul studied him for a while and eventually asked, "Why's that?"

George smiled. "It's a day that's all my own."

Paul didn't come to understand that for a long time, but he agreed to set the concert after November twenty ninth all the same. It just so happened that the most convenient day for everyone involved was less than a week later. This was making Paul very nervous, though George said he regarded it as a good omen.

The set list was long. "I want this thing to go all night long," George said. "What if everyone did a song of their own and a Beatles song? Specifically, one of mine. You know, for the most part, at least."

"That would be very long," Paul said, sounding very stressed. "Who should do the announcements?"

"Do you think that Princess Di would do it? We've done charity events with her before."

Paul sounded even more stressed after that, but he did manage to get a hold of her and she did agree to do it. This was a short reprieve because soon enough the benefit concert was going into rehearsals. They would never be able to find so much time that everyone was free to schedule rehearsal time. Instead, all of the artists met with Paul and George at the studio George had built into his penthouse in New York City. This took up most of Paul's time over the next several months and he was only home in Vermont on the weekends for the most part.

Paul only became more stressed out by the artists that they were working with. First, Elton John came into the studio and insisted on starting with a beautiful rendition of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".

"No," Paul said. "Nope. No, no, no. no. We are not doing any goodbye songs."

"Well," George said.

"No," Paul said.

"I like 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road', though," George countered. "It's one of my favorites from you, Elton."

"Thank you very much," Elton said.

"But it's not a memorial concert. No goodbye songs. None." Paul would not budge on this matter. "What about 'I'm Still Standing'? A nice, slowed down rendition of it?"

George and Elton both liked the sound of that, so they went with it.

Queen was difficult to work with simply because they were out of practice. Deaky was determined to not perform any more, ever since he had lived through Freddie's death again. But for one last performance, for George, he was back. Brian and Roger were more than excited to perform. The three of them all fought over which songs they should sing.

"All right, all right!" Paul cried. "Just listen to me!"

"I want to do 'Bohemian Rhapsody'!" Brian said. "It's the best option."

"Which one of us is gonna fucking sing it?" Roger argued. "No one but Freddie —"

"Exactly," said Deaky. "Exactly why we should do 'No One But You'."