Did the Sixties change Britain? The Beatles and the State of Culture Today
The Beatles story is one of the most enduring, beguiling and seemingly never-ending of our modern age. What else is there to be said? Ian Leslie thinks he has an answer in exploring the relationship, inner workings and chemistry between John Lennon and Paul McCartney – the central axis of the phenomenon that was the Beatles.
This is a riveting, well-written account throwing new light on old stones – the band, John and Paul, songwriting and creativity, and the craft of some of their most critically acclaimed songs (and some lesser-known gems) – all told within a poignant narrative about male friendship, musical alchemy and loss.
There is a welcome revisionism in John & Paul. Leslie throws out the well-worn concept of completely distinct John and Paul songs – one of the central strands of numerous Beatleology studies. Instead, he sees John and Paul as creations of each other, demolishing the simplistic dichotomy of John the rocker and Paul the sentimental balladeer, John the visionary and Paul the champion of ‘granny music’. ‘There was no John without Paul, and vice-versa’ writes Leslie observing of who wrote what: ‘They were so far inside of each other’s musical minds that it does not matter.’
There are numerous powerful passages and insights into the inner working of John and Paul’s music creation. This includes how they wrote songs individually and together, assisted each other and worked in part competition, and the evolving art in the 1960s of music as a set of colours and soundscape in which the Beatles were revolutionary pioneers – and which only Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was in any way in the same league at the time.
Leslie’s approach is to chart the arc of John and Paul’s relationship through 43 songs from ‘Come Go With Me’ by the Del-Vikings, a doo-wop song Lennon played at the summer fete at Woolton when the pair first met in July 1957, to the post-Lennon assassination ‘Here Today’ by McCartney. In each he contextualises the specific song referencing the period and other songs recorded at the same time by the band or John or Paul post-Beatles.
Source: bellacaledonia.org.uk/Gerry Hassan
