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Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Inside John Lennon and Paul McCartney's partnership and the song that shifted the 'balance of power'
For the record:12:27 p.m. April 6, 2025: An earlier version of this article misstated the year Paul McCartney wrote 'Yesterday' and the year Lorne Michaels offered the Beatles $3,000 to appear on 'Saturday Night Live.' It's the greatest story often told. The Beatles are not just the most successful musical act of all time; they are perhaps the most analyzed, deconstructed and dissected entertainers since the dawn of recorded music. We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new book, 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,' is, astonishingly, one of the few to offer a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's partnership. And it's a revelation. Leslie gives a complete portrait of this remarkably fecund and frequently tortured creative partnership, which began in Liverpool in 1957 and ended in New York City on Dec. 8, 1980, with Lennon's murder. The basic facts of their first encounter are well known. They met in the summer of 1957 at a garden party in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton, where 17-year-old Lennon was performing with his skiffle band the Quarrymen. McCartney was there to scout Lennon, who was already establishing a reputation as a riveting stage performer. McCartney, 15, ginned up the courage to approach Lennon after his set; their bond was forged over a mutual passion for Little Richard and Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel.' They took to songwriting with alacrity, driven by an urge to create their own material at a time when there was no precedent for a band to write its own songs. 'It entailed the two of them educating each other in the art of songwriting and doing so from scratch,' Leslie writes. 'And there was no division of labor.' One of their first joint compositions was 'Love Me Do,' which was written in 1958, four years before the Beatles recorded it. All of their songs, whether fully realized or half-baked, were dutifully logged by McCartney into an exercise book he had swiped from school. The early songs that fans know by rote — 'She Loves You' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' among others — came fast, in a mad swirl of ideas tied to a steady work ethic. Lennon and McCartney were so bound together that Leslie writes of a 'double consciousness' whereby the pair alternated vocals on the same song, as in 'A Hard Day's Night,' or twined them together into a first-person confessional like 'If I Fell.' This equipoise held for four very productive years, but there comes a moment in all love stories when one partner gets fidgety and starts to pull away. According to Leslie, that moment came in 1965, when McCartney wrote 'Yesterday' with no input from Lennon. ' 'Yesterday' feels like a shift in the balance of power,' says Leslie. 'From the beginning they were equals, and 'Yesterday' wasn't only just a hit, but the song that more artists covered than any other Beatles song. Paul even sang it onstage by himself when they performed. And it triggered John's insecurities.' Read more: Sony reveals Beatles cast, will release all four films in April 2028 A further separation occurred in 1967 when Lennon, along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, moved out of London into the suburbs while McCartney stayed behind, soaking in the beau monde of the city's arts scene. Leslie also writes of Lennon's use of LSD and McCartney's reluctance to follow suit. 'They weren't living near each other anymore and songwriting became more like a job with set hours,' says Leslie. But 'even as they were starting to drift apart, the songs were still astonishing.' One-upmanship between the partners became a spur for Lennon to try harder, with McCartney responding in kind. When Lennon presented McCartney with 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' a woozy reverie loosely based on his childhood, McCartney wrote his own memory piece, 'Penny Lane.' Lennon wrote 'Imagine' a year after the Beatles broke up and thought he may have finally topped McCartney. 'When he played it for people to get feedback, the question he asked was, 'Is it better than 'Yesterday?,' ' says Leslie. Yet even as they were rewriting the rules of pop music, the dynamic between the two began to fray, especially after the death of their manager Brian Epstein. When their revenue stream was threatened by Epstein's brother, who wanted to sell 25% of the band's future earnings to a group of merchant bankers, it sparked a multipronged legal battle in which McCartney chose his brother-in-law John L. Eastman to represent him in court proceedings, while the other three cast their lot with the brash Allen Klein. It was the beginning of the end, as has been well documented. But it wasn't quite over. According to Leslie, there were numerous social occasions when Lennon and McCartney enjoyed each other's company after the Beatles broke up. Leslie writes that it was McCartney who helped broker a rapprochement between Lennon and his estranged wife, Yoko Ono, in 1974 during Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' period in Los Angeles, visiting Lennon at his Santa Monica beach house to deliver the news that Ono wanted to get back together. There was also a strange moment in 1976, when Lorne Michaels offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on 'Saturday Night Live.' McCartney happened to be visiting Lennon in New York at the time and they briefly considered shocking the world by hightailing it down to Rockefeller Center, but the idea was abandoned. 'Despite their differences, there was always this feeling with John that perhaps one day they might get together again,' says Leslie. 'John had the greatest admiration for Paul's musicianship and songwriting, and there was always this mutual respect, even when they were fighting in court. There was this unspoken dialogue between them, long after they stopped writing together.' Get the latest book news, events and more in your inbox every Saturday. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Wall Street Journal
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘John & Paul' Review: When Lennon Met McCartney
John Lennon was a tough Liverpool teenager with a well-earned reputation—a rocker with a volatile streak—when he first encountered Paul McCartney. It was a summer day in 1957. John's skiffle band the Quarrymen were playing a local gig, and Paul was amazed to see John playing the difficult-to-find-in-England R&B hits and inventing lyrics to boot. Wary and slightly shy but profoundly convinced of his own ability, Paul eventually contrived an audience during which an impressed John watched him perform Eddie Cochran's 'Twenty Flight Rock' and fell in love. As Ian Leslie writes in 'John & Paul, A Love Story in Songs,' once Paul joined the Quarrymen on guitar (he would later switch to bass), he and John became best friends. More significantly, they became writing partners. The Liverpool scene was teeming with rock 'n' roll acts playing Carl Perkins and Little Richard tunes. In their early days, that's what the Quarrymen—later renamed the Beatles and eventually joined by George Harrison and Ringo Starr—would do as well. But in the private teenage terrarium of their flourishing imaginations, John and Paul had already dreamed something bigger. Their inspirations were brilliant songwriting teams: Leiber and Stoller or Gershwin and Gershwin. A shared vision for what was to come led to the fateful decision to be co-credited as Lennon-McCartney. Describing an early miracle, Mr. Leslie rightfully stipulates that 'the musical genius of 'She Loves You' is as easy to miss because its effect is so immediate.' Paul's sentimental heart and John's exuberant screaming met the charming mayhem of a perfectly-formed foursome. The telepathic rapport of John, Paul, George and Ringo sprung from the bonding that occurs after shared triumph and trauma: long days and nights toiling in obscurity, followed by the hothouse of their early fame. Mr. Leslie has written multiple books about topics in psychology, including 'Curious' (2014) and 'Conflicted' (2021), and here he combines his interest in the workings of the mind with a focus on how emotion fueled his subjects' songs. 'John & Paul' shows us that the band's collective closeness grew out of an earlier intimacy between the Beatles' twinned geniuses. It celebrates the convoluted, beautiful and tragic nature of a songwriting partnership that still reverberates across the universe. Both young men encountered unusual depths of grief when in their teens. Paul's mother, Mary, was the anchor and major breadwinner for his close-knit family. Her diagnosis with cancer and subsequent death occurred in horribly quick succession. John, meanwhile, was raised by his Aunt Mimi after his slightly wild mother, Julia, was judged unfit for the care of a child. At 17, John was beginning to reconnect with Julia when she was pointlessly struck dead by a the Lennon-McCartney partnership was a force of life, it was stalked by these and other deaths: The former Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe died at 21, their beloved manager Brian Epstein at 27. In each instance, the bandmates proceeded with an obsessive work ethic that mirrored the 'keep calm and carry on' mantra of their parents' war-worn generation. One way to read the Beatles' outpouring of songs is as a pent-up, exhilarated, terrified and kaleidoscopic breakthrough of that decadeslong, carefully managed energy.
Los Angeles Times
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Inside John Lennon and Paul McCartney's partnership and the song that shifted the ‘balance of power'
It's the greatest story often told. The Beatles are not just the most successful musical act of all time; they are perhaps the most analyzed, deconstructed and dissected entertainers since the dawn of recorded music. We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new book, 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,' is, astonishingly, one of the few to offer a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's partnership. And it's a revelation. Leslie gives a complete portrait of this remarkably fecund and frequently tortured creative partnership, which began in Liverpool in 1957 and ended in New York City on Dec. 8, 1980, with Lennon's murder. The basic facts of their first encounter are well known. They met in the summer of 1957 at a garden party in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton, where 17-year-old Lennon was performing with his skiffle band the Quarrymen. McCartney was there to scout Lennon, who was already establishing a reputation as a riveting stage performer. McCartney, 15, ginned up the courage to approach Lennon after his set; their bond was forged over a mutual passion for Little Richard and Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel.' They took to songwriting with alacrity, driven by an urge to create their own material at a time when there was no precedent for a band to write its own songs. 'It entailed the two of them educating each other in the art of songwriting and doing so from scratch,' Leslie writes. 'And there was no division of labor.' One of their first joint compositions was 'Love Me Do,' which was written in 1958, four years before the Beatles recorded it. All of their songs, whether fully realized or half-baked, were dutifully logged by McCartney into an exercise book he had swiped from school. The early songs that fans know by rote — 'She Loves You' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' among others — came fast, in a mad swirl of ideas tied to a steady work ethic. Lennon and McCartney were so bound together that Leslie writes of a 'double consciousness' whereby the pair alternated vocals on the same song, as in 'A Hard Day's Night,' or twined them together into a first-person confessional like 'If I Fell.' This equipoise held for four very productive years, but there comes a moment in all love stories when one partner gets fidgety and starts to pull away. According to Leslie, that moment came in 1966, when McCartney wrote 'Yesterday' with no input from Lennon. ' 'Yesterday' feels like a shift in the balance of power,' says Leslie. 'From the beginning they were equals, and 'Yesterday' wasn't only just a hit, but the song that more artists covered than any other Beatles song. Paul even sang it onstage by himself when they performed. And it triggered John's insecurities.' A further separation occurred in 1967 when Lennon, along with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, moved out of London into the suburbs while McCartney stayed behind, soaking in the beau monde of the city's arts scene. Leslie also writes of Lennon's use of LSD and McCartney's reluctance to follow suit. 'They weren't living near each other anymore and songwriting became more like a job with set hours,' says Leslie. But 'even as they were starting to drift apart, the songs were still astonishing.' One-upmanship between the partners became a spur for Lennon to try harder, with McCartney responding in kind. When Lennon presented McCartney with 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' a woozy reverie loosely based on his childhood, McCartney wrote his own memory piece, 'Penny Lane.' Lennon wrote 'Imagine' a year after the Beatles broke up and thought he may have finally topped McCartney. 'When he played it for people to get feedback, the question he asked was, 'Is it better than 'Yesterday?,' ' says Leslie. Yet even as they were rewriting the rules of pop music, the dynamic between the two began to fray, especially after the death of their manager Brian Epstein. When their revenue stream was threatened by Epstein's brother, who wanted to sell 25% of the band's future earnings to a group of merchant bankers, it sparked a multipronged legal battle in which McCartney chose his brother-in-law John L. Eastman to represent him in court proceedings, while the other three cast their lot with the brash Allen Klein. It was the beginning of the end, as has been well documented. But it wasn't quite over. According to Leslie, there were numerous social occasions when Lennon and McCartney enjoyed each other's company after the Beatles broke up. Leslie writes that it was McCartney who helped broker a rapprochement between Lennon and his estranged wife, Yoko Ono, in 1974 during Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' period in Los Angeles, visiting Lennon at his Santa Monica beach house to deliver the news that Ono wanted to get back together. There was also a strange moment in 1975, when Lorne Michaels offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on 'Saturday Night Live.' McCartney happened to be visiting Lennon in New York at the time and they briefly considered shocking the world by hightailing it down to Rockefeller Center, but the idea was abandoned. 'Despite their differences, there was always this feeling with John that perhaps one day they might get together again,' says Leslie. 'John had the greatest admiration for Paul's musicianship and songwriting, and there was always this mutual respect, even when they were fighting in court. There was this unspoken dialogue between them, long after they stopped writing together.'
