0:04
Hello everyone and welcome back to conversations with Tyler.
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Today I'm delighted to be chatting with Ian Leslie.
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He has a new book out which I just loved.
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It is called John and Paul a love story in songs and if you know anything about Ian or about me, you will know that John and Paul is John Lennon and Paul McCartney namely a big part of the Beatles.
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Ian in fact has many other accomplishments and writings but today is not generalist day. Today is Beatles day.
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So Ian, welcome to the show. Hello Tyler.
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It is an honor to be here.
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I have so many questions.
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How is it that John got to be such a great songwriter so quickly?
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If you look at the early songs like if I fell, not a second time, please please me, it won't be long, all I've got to do.
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They seem to come from nowhere.
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So Paul builds up and eventually is doing Hey Jude, Golden Slumbers.
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But John who supposedly is lazy just starts with incredible creations. How does that happen?
1:09
It's a good question and I I don't have a definitive answer but perhaps it's connected to what you were saying.
1:12
John was less methodical than Paul perhaps a little less analytical in the way he thought about songs and song structures and more prepared to just sort of blunder his way into into things and see what happened.
1:30
And of course he had wonderful intuitions.
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He had some kind of innate talent and and and he'd been raised on different forms of music as had Paul both rock and roll and blues and skiffle but also he was introduced to the great American songbook by by Julia by watching movies and so on.
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And but he had this incredible I guess what we'd call today sense of agency.
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This sense that well I'm just going to do it this way.
1:58
The very first time Paul saw John playing was Woolton Village Fete.
2:03
They met for the properly for the first time afterwards and Paul was thrilled by how John got the words wrong to a song that they they both knew that Paul knew.
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And I it took me a while to work out why Paul was so thrilled by John getting the words wrong.
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And I think he was taking from John this sense that yes this is American music but we don't just have to imitate it.
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We can actually do it in our own way.
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We could do it wrong and it'll come out right.
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And so I think John was the kind of first to get onto that in a really strong way and that's probably what pushed him further furthest ahead in those early years.
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What's your model of how lazy John was?
2:47
Because in the Get Back movie he seems detached.
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In the middle years it seems it's always Paul driving them into the studio.
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How is he so agentic and possibly so lazy at the same time? That's a great question.
3:01
I mean Yeah I I think if if the Get Back movie had been shot while while they were recording Revolver for instance a couple years earlier we would have seen a very different John much more valuable much more energetic more obviously kind of charismatic.
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But I I do think that even then he had this kind of different attitude to work which was I'm going to just when I when I get the time to to to lie around and do nothing I'm going to do that.
3:35
And maybe I'll take some drugs at the same time.
3:36
Whereas Paul was much more oh come on come on guys let's let's go to work let's let's write some songs let's play.
3:44
Now this is all relative.
3:44
They both they all worked hard right?
3:46
This you look at their schedule during the 60s is absolutely crazy.
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But when when they got time off John was often quite happy just lying around on a sofa.
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But from his point of view he was just kind of going deep into the recesses of his mind sometimes enhanced by drugs and pulling things out.
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Whereas Paul was always on and kind of looking out and and I think John thought Paul was missing something and Paul thought John was missing something and they they they're two different kind of attitudes to the world come together and create this incredible new thing.
4:21
With what song in your view did the Beatles really start as an entity?
4:23
So many people would say Please Please Me.
4:28
I have a slightly different and surprising nomination but what's your view?
4:31
When do you say this is the Beatles?
4:35
Now I would I'm going to give the you've made my answer sound really boring cuz I think I Please Please Me is the point when they turn into a kind of pop machine.
4:44
It's it's the it's the point at which they both create something which is emotionally truthful because it's full of the jealousy and and yearning.
4:57
It's this has got real kind of authentic emotion in it.
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But it's also this absolutely incredibly hooky pop song.
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It's got tremendous propulsive force and I think it's sort of slightly underrated in the Beatles repertoire and of course it's you know it's it's the the second single that they released. But you tell me yours.
5:15
Well it's a strange nomination but it's when they're backing Tony Sheridan but they do Ain't She Sweet with John singing.
5:22
Which I feel he sings with total confidence and it fully sounds like the Beatles.
5:26
And they did plenty of covers early on as you well know so we can't rule it out on those grounds.
5:31
But if Ain't She Sweet were on say what Americans call the Beatles second album I wouldn't think twice about it.
5:37
I wouldn't think oh that song doesn't belong there.
5:42
Yeah and it's it's typically it's quite an odd song to cover.
5:45
You know I don't think many other bands if any would have or singers would have considered covering that.
5:52
It's one of those kind of strange quite hard to see so you know why would you do that?
5:57
And yet those are the songs they often kind of sought out.
6:01
They were often making deliberately weird choices in the songs they covered.
6:07
And of course as you allude to nearly all the songs they played before they got famous were covers or you know 90% of them.
6:14
The the songwriting and play well the songwriting started earlier but actually performing the songs that they'd written started relatively late really just before they they they got famous.
6:26
In terms of the recordings which do you think are their least successful covers?
6:31
And again I have my own nominations here. Well ooh good question.
6:37
Maybe we should talk about yours first.
6:39
I mean I'm thinking of Mr.
6:39
Moonlight but that as everyone says that I I I'm sort of loath to to mention it. Give give me yours.
6:46
Well the two Chuck Berry songs I think Roll Over Beethoven the George vocal is somewhat weak.
6:50
It's not nearly as good or as interesting as Chuck's version.
6:54
And then Rock and Roll Music which John does quite energetically.
6:58
But again Chuck's is just more interesting and Chuck is the one early rock and roll figure who in that sense defeated them. So I think Mr. Moonlight's fantastic.
7:06
I might nominate it as their best cover.
7:10
It's so much better than the original.
7:12
It's one of John's best vocals.
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It's done with complete conviction.
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And the notion that it sounds ugly and the organ is weird I think they were just doubling down on everything and that it works.
7:22
It's one of the Beatles songs I listen to most often in fact.
7:27
Okay I'm persuaded by that.
7:27
I wouldn't actually go that far.
7:28
I know I don't often listen to it but I do think his vocal is so bizarre that it absolutely is incredibly memorable and and kind of cuts through.
7:37
I would agree on I actually like Rock and Roll Music cuz I again I think he's he sounds so committed to it.
7:46
I think I would agree with George's version of Roll Over Beethoven I just just it's kind of limp.
7:50
But you know George was was lagging behind.
7:53
But as a vocalist and as a you know as as a performer and and then at the time as a songwriter as well.
8:01
But since almost everybody else in the world was I I don't really blame him for that and of course he started to catch up.
8:08
And I think Words of Love is slightly weak.
8:10
Like Rock and Roll Music I think it's done well but it's not better than the Buddy Holly original.
8:16
Nor is Rock and Roll Music I think better than the Chuck Berry original.
8:18
It doesn't quite add some special thing in either case. Whereas Anna does. Anna is a great cover. Yeah yeah.
8:26
It's interesting cuz maybe they were less good on when they were covering artists whom they really really respected and loved.
8:32
You know the closer they got to that the harder it was for them to get distance on them.
8:36
And it's interesting for instance that they they'd covered very little if any now I think about it Elvis Presley songs and of course they were huge Elvis Presley songs.
8:46
So I think they found it harder with Chuck Berry and and Buddy Holly who are their kind of formative influences harder to kind of take a step back and say well how can we do this differently and ended up producing these slightly weaker I mean I still still great in in my mind but slightly weaker kind of imitative versions.
9:06
That's a good point you know Gnome Dwerman and I agree that either Paul McCartney or Wings covers of Beatles songs are almost uniformly mediocre.
9:15
They're sort of faithful.
9:15
They're well executed but I never want to hear them.
9:19
I can't think of a case where they improved on anything or gave it much of a new slant.
9:26
Do you agree with that or is there a really good Macca or Wings cover of a Beatles song?
9:29
Oh I I think some of the performances on Wings Over America are pretty good but I generally agree.
9:37
And I think it leads me well at least sort of leads my mind to this kind of larger point which is that part of the reason they were so incredibly incredibly innovative in the first place was that they were British and therefore had this distance from American music.
9:58
They were not part of you know, organically part of the American traditions of blues and and jazz and and gospel that that fed into rock and roll.
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And so this music was a kind of alien language to them.
10:14
It connected to some of the music from from home, but it was in other senses wildly different.
10:18
And that enabled them to see things about it and to to perhaps be a little bit more analytical about it cuz they had this distance distance on it.
10:27
And to say, "Well, why can't this go with that?
10:29
Why can't we Why can't we mix up this style with that style?
10:31
Or why can't we change this chord structure so it's not like the normal one?"
10:35
In a way that perhaps Native American artists at the time were not doing were not able to do it with the same facility.
10:43
So I think that that sense of distance from from from it is is actually what creates the the innovation.
10:52
Two of the best covers for me are you've really got a hold on me sung by John and Paul doing Long Tall Sally.
10:57
I think those are just amazing, much better than the originals. And I think Please Mr.
11:04
Postman as well is is one of my favorite and it's again it's a lot of the early ones it's just the sheer incredible commitment of the of the vocal.
11:16
Long Tall Sally, Paul, Please Mr.
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Postman and others for John.
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And They kind of find the emotional heart of these songs in a way that sometimes the originals you know, which are a bit neater have the kind of edges sawn off were not able to do.
11:33
And I think that just is what makes them really so powerful.
11:40
I have some questions about joint composition.
11:43
These may be matters of opinion, but how much of Help!
11:45
do you think Paul actually wrote?
11:50
Tell tell me why you ask the question cuz I otherwise we'll we'll be sort of going through the the the track listing and I'm trying to remember.
11:57
Well, Paul has claimed I stress the word claimed that he wrote parts of Help!
12:00
and helped John with the melody.
12:03
Now that could mean many different things.
12:07
Oh, the song has lyrics to the album. Yeah. Yeah, the song.
12:10
It does sound to me truly joint the way Say From Me to You is truly joint.
12:16
Whereas a John song is monotonous is I don't mean to sound negative, but John melodies are more monotonous in the sense that I Am the Walrus or parts of In My Life just run on and push on. And Help!
12:29
to me has some Paul-like chord changes, but I'm not sure. What's your view?
12:33
Yeah, it could be It is always very hard to tell because they were so they they their principal influences apart from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and girl groups and doo-wop and everything else Bob Dylan, their principal influences were each other.
12:46
And so they they they're kind of stealing things from each other all the time.
12:50
Uh so you might be right.
12:52
It might have been a Paul contribution or it might be just John saying let me run kind of Paul software in my head.
12:56
Now what what would he do?
12:58
The the thing that I think we did do know that Paul contributed to Help!
13:00
was those backing vocals.
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Uh you know, And now those days are gone.
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And you know, the backing vocals kind of act as this counter melody.
13:08
And they do this odd thing which is quite is quite unusual, which is they start before the lead line. Right?
13:14
So that So the backing vocals kind of announce the line and then John comes in and sings.
13:20
And it creates this lovely effect of the of as if John's friends are anticipating his thoughts.
13:25
You know, it creates this incredible empathy.
13:29
So I I I think that's one of the the most sort of powerful effects of that song.
13:35
I have another hypothesis. Tell me if you agree.
13:37
Now I'm not talking here about pieced together bits like side two of Abbey Road or Cry Baby Cry, but genuine joint composition.
13:44
And I think of Baby You're a Rich Man as maybe the last genuinely joint John Paul composition. Right. Oh, I see.
13:54
So I've got a feeling wouldn't count in your book because separate songs and Paul said, "Let's put these together."
14:01
And it was wonderful, but it wasn't jointly composed. Yeah. Yeah.
14:05
I'm trying to think now after 1967 if there are examples of those truly jointly composed songs. And I'm not sure.
14:18
Uh so you might be right.
14:18
I mean I don't think Sometimes this is exaggerated and people say, "Well, you know, they basically became independent forces after 1967."
14:26
Or people put it on different dates.
14:29
I actually think they were writing together all the way through.
14:33
It's just that some of the contributions are very subtle.
14:38
Kind of go And actually you saw that in in the Get Back movie even when Paul's writing the lyrics to to Get Back the song, you know, Paul is kind of throwing in little ideas and Paul is using him as a sounding board.
14:53
Uh but yeah, I I think those kind of absolutely fluid where where where what you don't can't tell where one person's contribution starts and the other's ends, those songs I yeah, you're probably right.
15:05
They they didn't really happen after 1967.
15:10
Now Flying is the only song I believe credited to all four Beatles, but who do you think actually wrote it?
15:18
I I mean I would imagine Paul although although maybe kind of collaboration between Paul and George.
15:26
Cuz you know, Paul George was involved in some of the kind of wackiest stuff around that period.
15:31
He hadn't actually been that present during the making of Sgt. Pepper.
15:39
But he kind of came back renewed um from sort of Magical Mystery Tour onwards.
15:44
So I don't know, what's your guess?
15:48
I agree with your hypothesis.
15:48
Parts of Flying remind me of Zoo Gang and some other weird McCartney besides of the early to mid-70s like Lunch Box Odd Socks.
15:57
And then there's something else in there which seems to me more George than John.
16:03
So I think we agree completely. Yeah. Yeah.
16:05
Yeah, I mean you're right.
16:05
I mean anytime there's some sort of weird really avant-garde thing to do we should be thinking about Paul.
16:13
Not not always the case of course cuz there are tracks like Tomorrow Never Knows where uh John really kind of goes full blast, but even then it's in part That's a Paul song in my view in a funny way.
16:26
Like John did the composition and the vocal, but I think Paul did the arranging, the orchestration, worked with George Martin to do the production. Yeah.
16:37
Well, it's an interesting example of like where the the composition starts and where the production starts.
16:44
Because you might say it's a John composition and vision.
16:50
And Paul executes it incredibly.
16:50
I I think what John wanted from the song was to create a psychedelic experience so that the song was not just about uh the void.
17:02
It was just wasn't just about psych- about a psychedelic experience.
17:09
It was a psychedelic experience.
17:10
You know, he wanted it it to embody it.
17:12
And I think he successfully communicated that vision to Paul and the others.
17:17
And of course then Paul is incredibly well placed to deliver on that because he's been thinking and he's been immersed in that world of avant-garde noise production.
17:30
Um so he knows exactly where to take it.
17:32
So I yeah, I I I see what you mean.
17:32
It's It's almost a Paul song, but I do think it's John's vision.
17:36
It wouldn't have happened without John.
17:40
Do you think that This is now pre-Yoko.
17:43
Did John care John Lennon care about John Cage in the way that Paul did or did he just think it was silly? Like this isn't music.
17:52
I don't think he thought it was silly.
17:53
I've never detected that.
17:53
I think there's some sort of quote where he says, "Oh, avant-garde is French for bullshit."
18:00
Uh yeah, I don't think he really believed that.
18:02
And I've seen more quotes from 1966-1967 where he's talking about "Me and Paul are into this, you know, or Paul played me this."
18:12
And so then we listened to We started listening to Indian music or we started listening to to avant-garde stuff.
18:19
No, I I don't think he kind of got it He was quite as into it in the way that Paul was, but I think he was open-minded and curious and he loved to to check out new new noises, too.
18:31
Was John as impressed by Brian Wilson as Paul was? It's a good question.
18:37
I mean it's clearly had more of an influence on Paul.
18:42
A part partly cuz you know, they're both bass players.
18:44
They both had these kind of expansive melodic gifts.
18:50
So you can see the affinity more clearly.
18:54
It's harder for me to see what the connection between Brian and John is, but but I also I've never seen John deprecating the Beach Boys or Brian Wilson either.
19:06
And of course he was quite capable of of doing so. So I'm not sure.
19:08
Have you Have you got a feeling for that?
19:14
My sense is he felt it as distant.
19:17
Uh not negative, impressed in the abstract.
19:19
But somehow uh not said in the right way.
19:22
And in some ways it too much of a false cheeriness for John who was willing to just dig in and be negative.
19:29
And emotionally I doubt if it resonated with him, but that's speculation. I don't know.
19:35
Yeah, that's a really great point there because I think what John always looked for I think they all they both did.
19:42
Um but John perhaps more than anyone was a visceral emotional connection A a physical kind of feeling that kind of comes off the song like like flame.
19:54
And I think in the Beach Boys, you're right.
19:59
I can imagine he listened to the Beach Boys and thought this is very clever and very melodic and very beautiful.
20:07
But it's not breaking my heart or it's not making me want to want to dance.
20:10
And so therefore it feels a little distant.
20:16
Whereas Paul was more likely to be seduced by the the you know the the complex and extraordinary beauty of Brian Wilson's composition.
20:23
So yeah, I think what you're saying makes sense.
20:26
And I view Brian Wilson as embracing sadness.
20:29
Whereas John uses anger to deny sadness on average. Yeah.
20:36
Well, well John always throws sadness together either with anger or humor. Or or or both.
20:47
Um And he didn't deny sadness, you know, necessarily.
20:52
If you think about the the songs on the White Album, you know, Yer Blues, he's literally talking about being lonely and wanting to kill himself.
21:04
I mean, there isn't much more But it turns into suicide rather quickly, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:08
So so it's kind of theatrical.
21:13
But I think it's also very heartfelt.
21:15
I I I don't So so when we sense that there's some humor going on in a John song, we shouldn't think oh therefore he's just having a laugh, he doesn't really mean it.
21:25
You should actually think the opposite.
21:26
You should think oh my god, if he's joking about it, he's really really really feeling it.
21:33
Do you think Paul's song Yesterday is excessively sentimental? No, I don't.
21:40
I think it is I mean, first of all, it's not really sentimental in any way.
21:46
I mean, I can see I think it's got acquired this reputation cuz it it does seem to come from a different tradition, kind of perhaps a more easy listening tradition in in the first instance.
21:56
Although I I can hear echoes of music going you know far back from that in history.
22:05
But as a song about this this person, this woman has left me and I have no idea why.
22:11
Uh it doesn't then sort of go on to describe how wonderful this this this girl is.
22:15
Just says she's gone and I don't know why.
22:17
It's it's bleak, you know.
22:21
And the way he sings it is more of a kind of It's clipped. It's brusque. It's northern.
22:30
There's almost this kind of northern folk sound to the way he sings it.
22:34
He doesn't and the arrangement the string arrangement, he made sure that it wasn't sentimental.
22:41
He said to George Martin explicitly, you know, we've got to find a way of not making this sound saccharine.
22:45
And so they asked George Martin asked the players not to play with vibrato or or to play with very little vibrato.
22:54
So I think it's yeah, I I I I think it's a very unsentimental and in a way it's not that far off for no one, which is a kind of anti-sentimental song where there's Or another girl even, right? Yeah.
23:11
Girls are leaving all the time in that song and it's quite brutally about something very particular.
23:15
Yeah, it's interesting because I think in that year 1965 with another girl and I'm Looking Through You, he is really soaking up I think from John uh or or The Night Before, he's he's leaning into his Johnness in the sense of like he's finding some anger and some hostility. See Me, yeah. You Won't See Me. Most of all.
23:44
Um well, whereas before he really had kind of two modes.
23:50
He was like full-on rock and roll, I Saw Her Standing There, or this beautiful kind of romantic reflective side, Things We Said Today.
24:00
By 1965, mainly cuz of John, partly cuz of Dylan, who was this incredibly kind of you know boiling with with hostility and anger at times anyway.
24:11
McCartney was really uncovering that side of him as himself as well and and pouring that into songs.
24:16
So and actually yeah, you're right.
24:18
I don't think Yesterday is that far from from some of those more ostensibly kind of negative songs.
24:25
Do you ever in Paul hear the influence of Dylan? And if so, where?
24:31
Yeah, I think you can hear it in in those songs.
24:33
I I like I'm Looking Through You.
24:36
You know, just just the the willingness to put his insecurities and his jealousy um and almost kind of um spitefulness into a song, which of course Dylan was just fantastically willing to do.
24:53
To put a kind of more complex kind of character in in into a song.
24:55
I think you could see even earlier in I'll I'll Follow the Sun.
24:59
You know, that sense of just just keeping keep on keeping on, you know, just the sense of a troubadour with a guitar um who's just going to keep playing and and and it will never get too attached to anybody.
25:14
I think maybe he gets a little bit of of Dylan in the into his repertoire there.
25:18
So yeah, I I I think you see quite a lot of Dylan.
25:21
So most often talked about in terms of his Dylan's influence on John, but I think Paul well, I think Paul was the first to get into Dylan and introduced Dylan to to the others.
25:33
Do you hear any Dylan in Hey Jude?
25:38
I Just making the song long, right?
25:38
This is the era Blonde on Blonde is coming. That's a great point.
25:45
Something about the cascading Desolation Row, yeah. extension, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
25:51
I mean, I I I do think the that that cascading extension Well, it's I mean, it's very different from Desolation Row or those long songs in that it's just it's not a one long song.
26:04
It's but neither is it a one song welded onto another.
26:07
Because in the first part of the song, he's foreshadowing it.
26:12
When he says na na na na, yeah. Hey Jude.
26:16
So he's kind of like giving you a little hint of what's to come.
26:23
And part of I think a part of what makes that song such an incredible achievement I think is it's we're moving into another chapter, but we're we're taking what was planted in the first chapter with us.
26:35
So that it actually feels integrated even as it kind of takes off like a rocket.
26:43
What's the Indian influence on Hey Jude? I don't know.
26:49
What is the Indian influence on Hey Jude?
26:50
I I might have written about that and completely forgotten it.
26:54
But so There's something in your book and you could express it better than I could.
26:57
But again, the way the vocals develop reminds me of some parts of South Indian Carnatic music.
27:04
And Paul always had more interest in Indian music than he let on, right?
27:06
You hear this in the guitar solo on Taxman, which of course is Paul, not George.
27:13
Yeah, you can hear I I agree, you can hear Paul kind of taking things from Indian music.
27:18
You can hear it in uh uh So in I Want to Tell You, he often contributed Indian-flavored things to George songs.
27:30
So Taxman, I Want to Tell You, he does some kind of wonderful vocal melismas there. Hey Jude, maybe.
27:37
I I So just the kind of fluidity of the melody, it might be kind of Indian-influenced. And uh I don't know.
27:50
There there may be other examples in songs that are quite subtle.
27:52
So I mean, this is not John and Paul, but but I think you can hear Indian music in songs like Here Comes the Sun, right?
27:59
So George's song Here Comes the Sun, it's almost like he'd kind of digested and absorbed the influence by that time and it returned to Western music, but but with a subtle kind of that those rhythms are quite are quite in those kind of and the kind of fluidity of of of the melodic line.
28:17
Um so I'm really fascinated by by how the Indian influences worked themselves into Beatles music in non-obvious ways as well as the more overt ways.
28:30
A more obvious way is the song Cosmically Conscious, which as I'm sure you know is written in 1968, though it doesn't come out until what, the mid-90s on Paul's Off the Ground album.
28:42
But that's a wonderful song.
28:42
Do you think it would have been better as a Beatles song?
28:44
You know, you got me there.
28:46
I actually didn't know that song.
28:48
So your your your your Paul nerdery has exceeded mine, which is nice.
28:53
nerdery is hard to beat, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a great song. It's online. Cosmically Conscious.
29:00
You you hear quite a lot of the the Indian influence in his Fireman album Fireman albums as well from the the 90s.
29:09
And so it obviously stayed with him at quite a deep level, you know, he wasn't doing that just to signal, you know, I I'm kind of hip anymore.
29:18
This is way way after that. So I think you're right.
29:21
It was it became a part of his musical soul.
29:26
You know, the 1968 Beatles version is called Child of Nature written by John.
29:30
It later becomes Jealous Guy on John's Imagine album.
29:32
Do you think it would have been better as a Beatles song?
29:41
I think everything would be better as a Beatles song.
29:42
I mean, I cuz I I I think that they when they played together there was just this magic thing that happened and I think this just no question that with Ringo George and Paul it was sounded better.
29:58
I'm really glad he turned it into jealous guy.
30:03
Child of nature is just a really terrible song.
30:05
And obviously has this has this pretty melody but it's so sort of awkwardly gawkish and and and sentimental.
30:15
And jealous guy is just John at his best in that he was just able to tell the truth in a way that's very simple sometimes.
30:24
So sometimes he can write these kind of incredibly surreal baroque complicated word pictures like I am the walrus.
30:33
And other times he could just say I'm just a jealous guy and make the words fit the melody in such a perfect way that it it just goes straight to your heart.
30:46
He always kind of bypasses the music all together.
30:51
So I John so jealous guy is I yeah I think one of his greatest solo songs.
30:57
But this is a very important question and I think we we maybe disagree on this.
31:01
So if I think of junk written by Paul in '68 but of course it appears on the McCartney album in what 1970 George's isn't it a pity which Paul kept off Beatles albums.
31:14
I think they're better on the solo albums.
31:17
And I actually think it was efficient that the Beatles split up when they did. I'm glad they did.
31:20
I didn't think that as a kid but I feel we got more first quality output and that they would have been getting in each other's way say in the '70 through '74 '75 period. Do you disagree? No.
31:36
Like all things must pass is a great album but we never would have had it if George was rationed to like two cuts per whatever. That is doubtless true.
31:47
I think the the kind of better version better alternative history might have been George's does All Things Must Pass and John does Imagine Paul does Ram and then the next year they get to do they do a Beatles album and then the year after that they they do their solo projects and they come back and do a Beatles album right?
32:06
So they would be kind of going back and forth and they did discuss something like that very briefly.
32:12
You see it in the Get Back documentary.
32:16
But I'm kind of glad they didn't.
32:16
I mean I think part of the power and resonance of the Beatles story is that they are seven years and out.
32:30
You know there's this incredible narrative tightness to what happens. They get famous. They change the world. They change music.
32:38
And then they split at the top of their game.
32:41
So I can't think of many other groups if any who split up after recording one of the best album.
32:48
I mean Abbey Road is the last album they record right?
32:49
It's not like they've just you know declined in form and they're thinking well we're not that good anymore we got to split up which is what most groups do.
32:56
They're making this really I think the first album of the '70s and then they split up and they they split up on after the end.
33:06
You know at the end of a melody medley.
33:10
I just think like the the god of narrative just said this is the way it shall be and I'm very glad that they didn't sort of then dribble on kind of as you say kind of reforming and forming getting back together maybe getting another member in maybe someone leaves and all that all that kind of narrative junk that most bands go through they didn't do that.
33:30
They they just exploded and then they flamed out.
33:34
And there's this free rider problem which they already had toward the end that if you're getting back together again you save your best songs for your solo album right?
33:43
Maybe George was doing a bit of that. Yeah. Yeah yeah. No I think that's right.
33:47
So All Things Must Pass you know he had that at the sessions and you see him rehearsing it with the others during Get Back and it's sometimes said well you know John and Paul should have realized how great that song was isn't that isn't it a pity?
34:04
But I actually think it was George thinking no I got to keep that one for my solo album.
34:10
So you're right there would have been this sort of divided loyalty as far as for for for all of them naturally right?
34:17
So it's it's a great point.
34:20
Is there a great unreleased Beatles track or not? Unreleased now? No.
34:28
No no unreleased during their their tenure.
34:31
So all the demos have come out but is there one where you hear it and you think my goodness they should have put that one on one of the albums.
34:36
I don't have a strong candidate.
34:38
I think my my lead would be What's the New Mary Jane?
34:43
That if you had given Paul his way with it you know over the course of a week he might have turned it into something great even though it's a John song.
34:51
But I don't have a clear nomination. Do you? I like Come and Get It.
34:59
I don't think there's like a truly great song that that should have been released.
35:06
I mean some of the songs that just to refer to our our previous bit about that ended up on solo albums like Maybe I'm Amazed not Maybe I'm Amazed but Back Seat to My Car were were kind of floating around and maybe they could have been on one of the final albums but no I I That's better as a pure Paul song I think. Yeah. Yeah.
35:29
Just Paul and Linda you know deeply in love and John George would get in the way.
35:33
And that and that kind of incredible sense of defiance it really becomes about the breakup in a in a sense.
35:36
So I don't I don't really think so and I think it goes to one of the extraordinary things about them is that they had incredible taste and they were very good at judging their own work and if you listen to the demos that get released and the off cuts you very rarely think a that song should have been on an album.
35:56
Yeah as you do with Dylan for instance you often think well Blind Willie McTell's obviously should have been on on that on an album.
36:06
You don't really get that with the Beatles and you also never think oh that earlier take should have been the album cut or you very rarely think that.
36:12
So they pretty much had a perfect record of of choosing the best cut and the best songs for for each album.
36:21
How good is Free as a Bird? I quite like it.
36:25
All the kind all those kind of post Beatles Beatles songs I there's a kind of poignancy to them and I like George's playing and I like Paul's middle eight actually on that song.
36:41
Is it a song that I really need to listen to? Not really. Do you like it? I like it.
36:47
One of my hypotheses is that if you had had a Beatle reunion it would have sounded I mean that is a Beatles reunion in a sense a lot like Free as a Bird which is Paul completely in charge the others contribute bits.
37:00
Paul might even in terms of vocal subordinate himself to the others.
37:08
But it would be fairly artificial as is Now and Then which I also like.
37:13
But it doesn't thrill me.
37:15
I don't sit down and think I need to hear Now and Then.
37:18
Maybe I feel that Now and Then but I think that is a kind of template for the Beatles reunion. Paul being the boss. Yeah.
37:27
And pretending he's being subordinate. Yeah.
37:30
And I think I I agree and I think this points us to one of the fundamental truths about the Beatles which I talk about in the book which is the music was really rooted in the personal chemistry between them.
37:46
You know it wasn't just that they had these talents and abilities and then that they bring their talents and abilities together and they collaborate and they make something really good.
37:53
It was spending time together and knowing each other intimately that created this extraordinary music.
38:03
And so this is why the model of them kind of going apart and then coming back together getting into a studio and leaving and never seeing each other again for a year would have been very unlikely to to work.
38:15
They needed to be in this kind of intense hot house atmosphere where they're pressing it particularly John and Paul.
38:21
When John and Paul were not in physical proximity to each other they they just found it much harder to to to have a creative connection.
38:31
The the the the creativity and the personal relationship are inextricable for those two.
38:38
Do you agree with the common view that in 1969 something very bad and damaging happens between John and Paul and John becomes so upset or hurt by Paul?
38:49
Do you think that's true and if so what was the reason?
38:54
I don't think there is a thing really.
38:55
I don't think there is I don't think Paul hurt John in any kind of concrete way.
39:01
So John talks about being winded but nobody's quite sure what he means by that.
39:10
Even Yoko you know when Yoko was interviewed by Philip Norman I think in the kind of I'm not sure if it's the '80s or '90s.
39:16
She's like you know John used to talk about how Paul had hurt him more than anyone else in the world but I was never sure what he was talking about.
39:24
I could I couldn't work it out.
39:27
I think there was a kind of pivotal moment.
39:32
I really think that India was the turning point and the aftermath of India was the point at which John kind of something inside John kind of snapped.
39:45
And John was always on the verge of snapping, right?
39:46
Cuz he had this incredibly volatile personality.
39:48
His childhood was just wild, you know, it's so difficult and and unstable.
39:56
Um and so he was sort of plagued by insecurities and and all sorts of personality problems.
40:01
So I and I and and India, he goes into India feeling very close to Paul, very close to the others.
40:09
He comes out of it quite bitter and angry.
40:11
And there's a kind of element of a wildness to him and a sort of malignancy that wasn't as prominent before and certainly hadn't been for a few years.
40:24
It actually been relatively kind of calm the few years previously, couple of years previously.
40:29
So something happens around then, but I think as I think it happened inside John's head.
40:32
You know, I don't think there was a concrete thing that happened.
40:36
I think it was just the way he was feeling and and particularly the way he was feeling about his relationship with Paul.
40:42
He started to feel I'm never going to be as close to Paul as I would like to be.
40:50
I think he had this vision of them as completely wrapped up in a personal and creative relationship in which he could be blissfully happy.
40:59
And I think around that Well, I think during India, for whatever reason, perhaps cuz he was just spending a lot of time meditating and well, actually just by himself thinking.
41:11
And then Paul goes home and he's sort of bereft cuz he spends the last couple of weeks by last few weeks by himself.
41:18
I think he that tips him over into a personal crisis.
41:21
And out of that comes Yer Blues and I'm So Tired and some of those miserable songs, which afterwards he said, you know, I really meant those songs. Sexy Sadie also Yeah.
41:29
Sexy Sadie and he takes a lot of starts taking a lot more drugs. He gets drunk a lot.
41:35
Splits up with Cynthia in a horrible way.
41:38
Gets together with Yoko and there he is.
41:40
So I think that is the kind of turning point.
41:44
You mentioned what good taste the Beatles had and I agree with that.
41:45
Why is it they were not better judges of talent at Apple Records?
41:50
Cuz other than Badfinger, it seems pretty weak to me. Yeah.
41:57
And Badfinger's best song was written by Paul.
42:02
Well, I mean I guess there's James Taylor, um Billy Preston, Mary Hopkins.
42:08
I mean, I I agree they're not like heavyweights, but um I don't know if that's cuz they were but were they turning away great talents?
42:20
They they would have had loads of applicants, right?
42:21
But I don't know if there was a good filtering process.
42:23
Um and and and and and cuz there was no process whatsoever at Apple.
42:27
So in a way that that might have been the problem.
42:31
That there was nobody kind of being the stage one filter.
42:36
And so they had a kind of a lot of rand- randomness in in the process.
42:41
If Paul was so upset about the Phil Spector arrangement of The Long and Winding Road with all the strings, why did he play more or less the same arrangement in concert for so many years? I agree.
42:53
I mean, it's it's a pretty good stri- string arrangement.
42:56
And you're right, he plays it with taking the best kind of melodic phrase from that string arrangement um from from Phil Spector.
43:06
So I I think he was upset at Spector just more generally for you know, having the arrogance to come in and change the Beatles' music in in in any way without Paul's permission.
43:19
Paul hated, you know, anybody who was going to mess around with the Beatles and and and his music without, you know, without his uh his say-so.
43:28
So I understand why he was angry, but I think I think you're right.
43:31
I think in that case Spector did a good job.
43:35
What was Paul like as a collaborator with Denny Laine in Wings?
43:40
You know, it's a difficult relationship.
43:44
Denny Laine was pretty, you know, very good uh a good uh singer, decent guitarist, but he obviously was not a talent anywhere on you know, on the same scale as Paul or as John or indeed of George.
44:05
And so there was always this kind of and of course Paul was a next Beatle, there was always this kind of inbuilt imbalance.
44:12
And but he did stick with him all the way through the '70s until the you know, 1980s, the very early 1980s.
44:19
So it was an enduring musical collaboration if not an equal one.
44:25
And but there there there was also this question of like the money, you know.
44:32
So Denny was being paid by Paul um rather than them both going to getting getting royalties.
44:40
Um although Paul did kind of co-write Mull of Kintyre with him.
44:43
I don't know how much of Mull of Kintyre was was contributed by Denny, but that might have been Paul's, you know, letting Denny in, as it were.
44:54
And no words they co-wrote on Band on the Run.
44:57
I I think I can hear which is the Denny part and which is the Paul part.
44:59
And the Paul part just makes the song become magical.
45:03
The Denny part is good, uh but I wonder how that was for Denny. Yeah.
45:09
To to say, "Look, here's my song."
45:11
And then Paul takes it and just sort of takes it to another level. Uh yeah, I I I agree.
45:16
And well, I do think the result is really beautiful and and a really underrated uh song from the Paul's post-Beatles career.
45:28
What was John like as a collaborator with Harry Nilsson?
45:33
Well, he was very professional and and sort of uh workmanlike, which is slightly surprising.
45:41
But in a sense not surprising because he'd grown up as a recording artist in the Abbey Road studio where everything ran like clockwork.
45:49
But Harry Nilsson said, yeah, he was always in the studio and and in the morning and then saying, "Right, let's get to work." And they did work.
45:56
But then in the afternoon or the evening they would then kind of go crazy and go on drinking bouts and and and and take drugs, but I think he was uh a pretty kind of um efficient and professional producer.
46:11
I'm not sure they produced great work together.
46:16
What was Paul like collaborating with his brother Mike McGear?
46:20
People have forgotten about that album somehow, but it's quite interesting.
46:22
I don't know that it's good.
46:25
Uh Paul is deferring too much.
46:25
I think he should have just taken over.
46:30
But he does, I think, only in the one song called All My Loving, which sounds quite like Paul.
46:36
And the title itself tells you something. Yeah, exactly.
46:40
I mean, I think it sounds much more of its time than anything the Beatles did.
46:46
So I and and so I, you know, that's probably because, as you say, Paul was not really pushing it and perhaps was being a little bit careful not to be the dominant voice in the room with people who he didn't know very well.
47:05
And uh you know, perhaps he was eager not to be like the big guy, you know, in front of his brother.
47:11
Uh and and but yeah, I I don't know.
47:12
I I think I think your answer is is as good as any.
47:18
What do you think is the most underrated Paul album?
47:19
Paul or Wings or any any combination? Ooh.
47:29
Oh, I think maybe Venus and Mars I really like.
47:32
Trying to think which ones are underrated.
47:37
A lot of them are underrated. Give me your answer.
47:42
I would say Red Rose Speedway.
47:42
And then, I know this is not an album, but YouTube cuts of Wings playing live with Jimmy McCulloch on guitar, I think are generally better than Wings Over America, which is quite good for a live album.
47:55
But to see Jimmy and Paul on YouTube, those are just phenomenal performances.
47:59
Songs like Magneto and Titanium Man quite come to life on YouTube live, whereas it's only pretty good on Venus and Mars, I think. Yeah.
48:07
Or Letting Go or Call Me Back Again.
48:10
Just for They they become phenomenal blues cuts on YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
48:17
Um I think the the very underrated ones because very obscure ones are the Fireman albums, including Rushes, which is this almost totally instrumental album that he records in the wake of Linda's death. And it is very poignant.
48:37
And the the the the kind of few words and and sort of fragments of recordings from life that you do hear are very moving when you know the context.
48:46
And it's typically Paul in that I think it's one of his most personal and raw albums and he says very little in it.
48:58
You know, so it's and it's kind of hidden away and in fact it's under another name altogether.
49:04
So, you know, I I I and I think that's the kind of fascinating thing about Paul as an artist is that at and if we're thinking about him in comparison to John, it's particularly fascinating that Paul is emotionally complex but in in a but with a complexity hidden inside brilliantly simple, powerful pop songs a lot of the time.
49:26
So we're I'm not talking about the Fireman now.
49:27
That is a like a sort of more avant-garde example, but just something like Penny Lane, you know, it seems like this bright, breezy pop song and then you go to Strawberry Fields and it's like so obviously radical and weird and and odd.
49:41
But there are layers of complexity to to to to Paul's songs that that are not obvious to to the naked eye, and they reward a kind of as you would put it a Straussian reading.
49:53
So, you know, a song like Oh!
49:53
Darling, which appears to be a love song, is and and I think it's partly about him splitting up with with John.
50:00
So, I wrote about that in the book.
50:04
But it's also this he overloads it with emotion.
50:06
This is something he does in a song now and again.
50:09
He'll kind of write a simple pop song, and then he'll kind of like turn up the emotion somehow in the way he sings in a way that distorts the song and puts it on and takes it into this strange place.
50:19
So, this kind of screaming vocal in in Oh!
50:21
Darling, I hear in it a lot of anger.
50:24
You know, I don't just hear love and sadness and loss. I hear anger in it.
50:31
And all you know, a subcurrent of violence actually.
50:33
And I think you could read it, you know, a feminist reading of that song would be that Paul is kind of exposing the uh possessiveness and sometimes the violent possessiveness possessiveness that underlies some of these male rock and roll songs about don't you leave me, baby, you know. Uh Run for your life.
50:55
of John's Run for Your Life, right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
50:56
But hardly anyone knows that.
51:01
What's the most underrated John album?
51:06
I I think uh Walls and Bridges is really pretty good.
51:13
I I I I I'm not a huge fan uh with the exception of Imagine the and the Plastic Ono Band.
51:20
I'm not a huge fan of his subsequent albums.
51:21
Uh but I do think Walls and Bridges are and Mind Games are pretty good. Uh yeah.
51:28
I didn't have strong feelings about them.
51:29
You would say Mind Games, why?
51:32
There's a lot of songs on it like Meat City or I know that you know that seem forgotten, but they're very good.
51:36
I think the production is systematically weak, but the songs are excellent.
51:43
If he had brought Paul in, it would have been an incredible album, I think maybe better than Imagine.
51:46
I don't feel all of Imagine has worn that well. Mhm.
51:53
I think he I think one of the problems is that I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I think John kind of lost his voice much sooner than Paul.
51:58
Lost the top kind of level of his voice.
52:05
Um not surprisingly cuz he was he'd been screaming in songs and in therapy so much.
52:11
He was been shredding his vocal chords.
52:14
He'd it obviously been smoking a lot, he'd been taking drugs and so on.
52:18
And I think quite quickly from the early '70s onwards, his voice is thinner and to me not nearly as powerful it was.
52:27
So, on the Rock and Roll album that he makes in 1973, whatever it is, I I think part of the reason it's not very good is that his voice is just not there anymore.
52:36
It's no longer this incredible instrument that it was through the '60s into the very early '70s.
52:44
And there's not enough diversity of sound on that album.
52:45
I feel it was great he did two albums with Phil Spector, but should have moved on and looked for someone else.
52:52
And that it kept on sounding the same too much.
52:53
And when you do that, when you're doing covers and your voice is somewhat subpar, uh a lot of things went wrong there.
53:05
Yeah, I would agree with that. contributions to Cats.
53:08
So, you can debate who did what on Cats, but Too Many Rivers to Cross and Subterranean Homesick Blues, I think of them as as as much John songs as Harry songs.
53:19
That's debatable, but they're two of the highlights of his solo career.
53:21
Harry didn't never did anything like those on his own.
53:28
Yeah, there were little glimpses of John's brilliance throughout the the recordings he made in the '70s, but overall, I'm just struck by how much he missed that really annoying guy telling him to, you know, try this or do that or how about this or come on, John, let's let's go to work.
53:50
Um and George did too, of course.
53:50
So, they spent the the last sort of couple years of the Beatles having a bit of a moan about Paul, but without Paul, they wouldn't have made some of the incredible music they made at the end of the '60s and through the '70s, they very quickly kind of lose momentum.
54:09
And he while Paul kind of just tunnels on, not always brilliantly, right?
54:12
In fact, his his solo and Wings records are kind of erratic, but my god, he's productive. He just keeps going.
54:22
Now, you've studied the Swan artistic collaboration in great great detail.
54:27
Uh what do you feel you've learned about artistic collaboration in general?
54:29
Or how do you now look at other artistic collaborations through a different lens?
54:38
There's too much to say about that.
54:38
I I So, I'm going to narrow the lens a a little bit and say I I I think it's really interesting that there are very few creative uh so male romantic but platonic relationships that are that are very creative.
54:57
I think this is a particular type of relationship that you see recurring a few times throughout history and often makes a big difference.
55:06
There's a kind of big leap forward.
55:08
There's some sort of creative or uh intellectual revolution that happens.
55:15
And I think it's kind of distinctive to to this relationship where they're not lovers, they're not just mates, you know.
55:22
Um and they're not homosexual, but they are two men who have very very intense feelings for each other, and that feeds into the creativity.
55:31
I was thinking about a couple of examples recently.
55:32
One is Wordsworth and Coleridge.
55:37
You know, and in some ways it mirrors John and Paul.
55:39
They were a couple of years apart.
55:41
Coleridge is a bit younger.
55:43
They've got very different personalities.
55:44
Coleridge is flamboyant and voluble. He talks a lot. He's wild. He takes drugs.
55:49
And uh Wordsworth is uh a little bit more distant and a little bit cooler and a bit more methodical.
55:59
But they really sort of they turn each other on, right?
56:01
Um and they spend a lot of time thinking and and writing poetry together and really kind of birthed romantic poetry movement together.
56:09
And then the other example I was thinking of, the best 20th century analogy for John and Paul I think is Kahneman and Tversky.
56:17
You know, if you read Michael Lewis's book The Undoing Project, as I have, the the similarities are just too strong to ignore.
56:24
And here it's Tversky who's this kind of wild font of of of insight and speech.
56:30
And Kahneman is is a little bit calmer, more reflective.
56:37
But they're completely in love with each other.
56:38
You know, Kahneman says said to Michael Lewis, "Well, you know, I've been in love and all, but with Amos I was just rapt.
56:43
You know, I couldn't You know, I was completely compelled by him. I was I was lost."
56:49
And they just spent hours and hours together.
56:54
Uh just wanted to be with each other all the time.
56:55
You know, Kahneman's wife said this is much more intense than a marriage.
56:59
And of course, when something is really intense like that, it's going to explode.
57:03
And and in all these cases, uh the the the partnership kind of splinters and sparks and and and falls apart at some point, and then there's this great aftermath of sadness.
57:16
But it's kind of inevitable because they're really kind of two ends of a relationship.
57:19
You you can you can have a sustainable steady marriage type relationship where you love each other in this wonderful kind of loving calm way, or you can have this wildly creative impulsive uh sort of dramatic and volatile relationship, but that can't last forever.
57:37
One thing that struck me is just how few examples there are.
57:41
Another one that occurs to me is Picasso and Braque.
57:43
Obviously, that doesn't last.
57:44
You have a lot of examples where the people do quite different things.
57:48
So, like Rodgers and Hammerstein or Stravinsky with both Balanchine and Diaghilev.
57:54
Uh those work, but they're not competing against each other at all, right?
57:58
They're just working together.
58:00
And I think of Jagger-Richards as ultimately sort of a business relationship where they're quite happy to give up being creative just to make a lot of money.
58:09
That's exactly not interesting for 50 years. Yeah, exactly.
58:12
And there's nothing wrong with that.
58:14
I mean, I think Jag-Jagger and Richards is much more like a marriage, right? Versus a love affair.
58:20
It it's I think, you know, they they love each other.
58:23
But they're not like wildly compelled by each other.
58:26
I'm not sure they ever were.
58:28
They always thought, yeah, this is the guy I want to write make music with.
58:31
He's obviously great, and our talents fit together. Um let's get married.
58:36
Um but it was nothing like this kind of intense jealousy-ridden tempestuous conflicted uh hot uh John and Paul relationship.
58:46
And I think there's other examples like Picasso and Braque.
58:49
I don't think they were like John and Paul either, you know.
58:53
They they were just partnerships who came together, you know, got on with each other, but but kind of turned each other on creatively, and then kind of spun apart. And and that was it.
59:02
I I doubt that Picasso gave Braque much of a thought after they after they stopped working together, and probably vice versa.
59:10
Uh whereas John and Paul's relationship was was much deeper.
59:11
And and I think that's important because actually I think the scale of the achievement of what they did together was rooted in that incredibly rich and and deep relationship.
59:22
It wasn't just a a byproduct or or or you know, coincidence.
59:27
It's striking to me that what to me is the The closest example comes from the same place and broadly the same period and that's Monty Python.
59:36
Which is truly collaborative and they compete with each other, you know, whose skit gets to be done.
59:42
They do TV, they do movies. It has a brilliant peak.
59:44
At some point it collapses.
59:47
Members have quite different skills but they're truly working together.
59:51
Uh that's the other British Beatles, I think.
59:55
Yeah, and there's that wonderful link between them as well via George Harrison.
1:00:00
He becomes friends with them and and funds uh I think the Life of Brian.
1:00:03
So, I I I I would buy that and and it course it reminds me of the this other aspect of the Beatles which we haven't touched on but it's another thing that's so unique about them is that they were a comedy group as well.
1:00:18
You know, can you think of any other groups where laughter is so important, where humor is so important?
1:00:24
And again, that that's primarily John and Paul, right?
1:00:26
They were all funny, right?
1:00:28
George could be very very funny.
1:00:31
But that sense of antic overflowing uh childlike glee and humor that runs all the way through the Beatles is John and Paul and it's not true of any other group.
1:00:44
So, the link between music and comedy is you know, it's it's just so interesting.
1:00:50
Before my last question, let me just plug your book again.
1:00:52
John and Paul, a love story in songs. I loved it. It's one of those books.
1:00:57
I started it and I didn't really get up till I finished it.
1:01:01
Just read it straight through.
1:01:03
But final question, what will you do next?
1:01:07
I am going to spend the spring and summer talking about John and Paul.
1:01:09
I'm going to love every minute of it minute of it.
1:01:13
It is just wonderful to hang out with John and Paul and the Beatles and the great thing to talk about when there's lots of other darker stuff going on in the world.
1:01:20
I'm going to keep writing my newsletter, The Ruffian, my Substack and I'm going to think about what to write next and I have no idea. All suggestions welcome.
1:01:31
He and Leslie, thank you very much. Thank you, Tyler.