1970 didn’t just see the end of the biggest band in the world – it also marked the fracture of one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of all time. As Beatles fans now know, the road to conciliation in the years that followed was a long one. Though as Paul McCartney now reveals, it didn’t hinge on music so much as something far more domestic.

In a new interview, McCartney shares how his rift with fellow Beatle John Lennon was mended in part by a shared love for – you guessed it – baking bread.

Speaking in the new Audible audiobook The Man on the Run, the bassist opens up about the messy aftermath of the Beatles’ split and the unraveling of his bond with Lennon.

“When we first broke up, good old John, he was like, slinging missiles at me,” says Macca. “He was just writing songs against me [like] How do you sleep at night?. You know, I was thinking ‘ok thanks.’”

“This is John, you know, if he doesn’t like someone, he’s going to sling arrows at you. And knowing that I can’t really effectively sling back stuff because I’m just not that good at that. It’s not my thing, you know?”

Beyond the musical back-and-forth, McCartney points to deeper tensions around business decisions as a key source of friction at the time.

“In the beginning, it was quite sort of hurtful, obviously. And it was the business thing. They were trying to stay with this guy who we knew was trying to rob the company. And it was like I was the only one who’d seen that the emperor wasn’t wearing any clothes,” he explains.

“But then they started to realise I was right about Klein, and they went off him. So it was healing itself, as you said. And eventually we were actually able to talk to each other, instead of ‘Ah, you…’”

With tensions cooling, the Lennon-McCartney pair gradually found their way back to each other – not through music, but through everyday life.

“John had had Sean, so he was now the father of a young baby. So, you know, I would bring him up and we’d talk about kids and domestic things,” says McCartney. “And I started making bread and it was getting pretty good, you know. And I started talking to him. He said ‘Oh yeah, I’m making bread’.”

As Macca explains, those small, ordinary connections proved surprisingly meaningful.

“The things we had in common were just ordinary little domestic things,” he says. “So somehow that was peaceful. And it was nice that we had that in common. And we weren’t fighting anymore.”