McEastman

"Every love song I write is for Linda."

- Paul

McEastman is the het ship between Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman from the The Beatles fandom.

Canon
Paul and Linda first met on the 15 May 1967 at a concert. Linda was currently on an assignment by her boss to photograph rock musicians, and the two connected briefly. They weren’t romantically interested - Paul was in a relationship and Linda was more interested in John. Despite this, they became good friends, keeping in touch regularly about events in their life. Paul also grew close to Linda’s close relatives.

Paul was planning to ditch his girlfriend Jane for a weekend to go around America, but Linda found out and persuaded him to change his plans. Instead, they spent the weekend together abroad. It was through this weekend that Paul started having romantic feelings, due to her appearance and sense of independence. She and Paul were also rather different, with different fashion styles, and Linda was rather relaxed and calm to Paul’s perfectionist and workaholic attitude. The two spent more time together, with Linda coming into the studio as both a guest and as a photographer. Paul proposed to her, and she accepted.

The two were married in March 1969, some months before the Beatles breakup. The two were very content with their life, and had a daughter, Mary, some months afterwards. When the breakup of the band occurred, Paul was thrown into a deep depressive state, to which Linda comforted him, praising his work and persuading him to write more songs. Her support of him led him to write a song about her, Maybe I’m Amazed. Paul would later say that he was surprised that Linda could live with him at that period of time. The two were both interested in nature and animals, which would be focal points for photography, an interest they shared. This would spark Paul to create a new song for Linda: The Lovely Linda.

When Paul expressed his desire to create a new band, he asked Linda to join. Linda accepted, despite the fact that the band had no name. This changed after the birth of their second daughter Stella, where Paul named the band Wings after a vision he had, and the two became a main force in the band. Linda was often teased and mocked, even by other members of the band, but Paul always defended her.

Paul and Linda decided at the same time to become vegetarians, starting a life-long fight for animal rights. In the late 1970s, they had a son, James. In 1980, when Paul was thrown in prison for 10 days due to drug possession, Linda worried constantly about him, and managed to visit him one day. Wings broke up in the early 1980s, and the two comforted each other about it, with them both noting that it was coming.

When Linda expressed her desire to make a cookbook for vegetarians, Paul was anxious about the idea, but later changed his mind. The project soon went almost out of hand, with the ideas of Linda having a food company. Paul was fine with the idea and supported her, but was fully against the idea of using the McCartney name in it. The idea went ahead, and the two were devoted to it, dividing their time between their fights for animal rights, the company, and Paul’s solo career.

When the two found out about Linda’s cancer, Paul was immediately panicking, but Linda kept assuring him that it was going to be fine. As the situation kept getting worse, the two spent more time at home together. Paul recalled that the day Linda died, he was talking to her, the last thing he said being a “picture this” type of speech. It was said after her death that Paul and Linda had spent every day together, except the 10 days Paul was in prison.

Fanon
Out of all the ships featuring the Beatles with their wives, McEastman is arguably the most popular. Fans are incredibly supportive of the relationship, considering it one of the most healthy ships in the fandom. One of the most common reasons people ship McEastman is because of their shared chemistry. In the eyes of fans, the two are remarkably different in many senses, but work well together, and the majority of fans consider them the “golden couple”. Fanfictions include Alive AUs, and one of the main locations is their farm.

On AO3, McEastman is the 7th most written tag in the tag The Beatles (Band), and is the most written for Linda, as well as the 5th most written for Paul.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

Quotes
"When we went for a drive, Linda always wanted to get lost. I had an in-built panic about being lost. I always want to know where London is. I don’t want to get to, say, Staines and not know my way back. We would go down to the most obscure places, have a great time, find a little tearoom or a riverbank. She taught me little things like that, to relax and be down to earth. It was very valuable to me then, a great part of the healing process after the Beatles broke up … Linda was a very natural woman. She loved the fresh air and the freedom and the privacy of the countryside … She was just a great person to hang out with: very funny, very smart and very talented."

- Paul on Linda

Trivia

 * The alternative ship name for the two, Wings Mk. 3, is a reference to the different lineups of Wings. The final lineup of the band is commonly referred to by the fandom as “Wings Mk. 2”, and the name Mk. 3 was coined with the knowledge that a fellow member in the band considered Paul and Linda to be the only true members.