Cbr17bingo Arts
Like millions around the world, I am a Beatles fan. An obsession developed when I was about 12 years old and lasted through my high school years. I spent all my money on Beatles records. They were my first real music love. Many decades have passed since then but my love was renewed when I saw Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary on Disney+ a few years ago. And thanks to Facebook’s algorithm, my feed has been flooded with Beatles-related posts ever since. As a result, I feel like I have seen every possible anecdote there is about the Beatles’ rise and fall, the solo careers, families, and everything else. I figured this book, published earlier in the year, might have a few new stories but not much I didn’t already know. I’m happy to say that I was wrong about that. Ian Leslie focuses on John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s relationship and what we can learn about it from their music. It was far more insightful than I could have imagined.
The book is about the unique relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney from the day they first met in 1957 until John’s death in 1980. Instead of being numbered, chapters are named for Beatles songs and examine the relationship between the two musicians in light of that song. The relationship between the two guys is tricky to characterize. Certainly, they were friends and collaborators, but what we see is that the bond was much more than that — it was almost like a marriage. It was a deep, intense, emotional relationship that allowed for amazing creativity and connection when all was going well. Plenty of outside factors, however, would eventually reveal cracks and fissures that would divide the two men, ultimately leading to the break up of the band and a personal estrangement that lasted for years.
Leslie does a good job showing the development of this unique partnership. Lennon and McCartney had a lot in common — working class roots, loss of their mothers, and common musical tastes and other interests. What sets them apart from other writers and performers though was the way they worked together. Both guys wrote words and music, both guys sang and played instruments, and within a performance, they might switch back and forth between vocals. I hadn’t realized how unusual that was until Leslie highlighted it. They also had a really unusual and intense way of working together, head to head, sitting and working things out for hours at a time. In the early days, when they traveled and roomed together, the writing was a constant. Later, when they stopped touring, those sessions were fewer, which meant that the bond between them suffered. Other factors like wives/girlfriends/kids and drugs and alcohol got in the way as well. Leslie also goes into personal issues, such as John’s troubled background and how it affected the way he treated people (needing to be the leader, needing attention and devotion). Rivalry and jealousy were also occasional issues. Paul’s single lifestyle, his wide variety of interests, and his near constant creativity seems to have rubbed John the wrong way, and Paul was either oblivious or indifferent to this. Paul also was a workaholic with definite ideas about how songs should be arranged and so on. I think this comes through in Get Back. He positioned himself as a leader of the group, which ruffled some feathers.
Despite the fact that these two guys epitomize the 1960s “peace and love” culture, when it came to their personal relationship, neither one could express vulnerability to the other. They were still males in a culture that didn’t encourage such expressions. Leslie’s argument is that John and Paul used their music to say things directly to each other that they couldn’t express in a conversation. It is an interesting argument and chapter by chapter, he examines specific events and the songs the two men wrote at the time. Often, just the act of making an effort to get together to write and record was an expression of love, an indication of a concern about their friendship and a desire to save it. Even after the break up of the Beatles, they wrote songs at each other. Some were pretty obvious (“How Do You Sleep,” “Too Many People”) but Leslie argues that even songs like “Jealous Guy” and “(Just Like) Starting Over” feel like John reaching out to Paul.
Much like Peter Jackson’s Get Back, John & Paul made me feel kind of sad. Watching that documentary and reading this book, it seemed to me that neither one of these guys wanted to lose their best friend, that that relationship had been the most important one of their lives and losing it was incredibly painful for both of them. They were each supremely talented but also difficult and flawed. When I listen to their music now I won’t be able to help but hear them trying to reach out to each other and be understood.