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Working it out
Sep. 17th, 2010 11:39 amSince I complained about journalists and clichés two months ago re: a certain Spiegel article, let me also praise when they get it right:
Two of Us: Inside the Lennon/McCartney connection by Joshua Wolf Shenk is truly excellent, manages to do both of them justice, musically and personally.
Choice quote: " Lennon and McCartney did affect each other, change each other, goad, inspire, madden, and wound each other. But they also each contributed to something that went beyond either individual, a charged, mutual space of creation—those pearls your ear probably recognizes and leans toward as much as to your parents' voices."
He makes some interesting comparisons - the obvious one to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards ("In a 1995 interview, Mick Jagger was asked how he and Keith Richards lasted so long as songwriting partners, when Lennon and McCartney split. His answer was simple: A team needs a leader. He didn't go so far as to explicitly identify himself as that leader, but he made it perfectly clear" - this reminds me, aren't we due Keith's memoirs this autumn?) and less obvious ones like to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and imo rightly points out that a key factor was that the emotional power play between them was constantly fluid rather than fixed to certain positions, as in this telling anecdote:
"Paris in 1963. The Beatles' producer George Martin had arranged for them to record "She Loves You" in German. When the band missed their studio appointment, Martin came around to their suite at the George V hotel. They played slapstick and dived under the tables to avoid him. "Are you coming to do it or not?" Martin said. "No," Lennon said. George and Ringo echoed him. Paul said nothing, and they went back to eating. "Then a bit later," Michael (McCartney) said, "Paul suddenly turned to John and said, 'Heh, you know that so and so line, what if we did it this way? John listened to what Paul said, thought a bit, and said, 'Yeah, that's it.' And they headed to the studio." How would we chart the lines of authority for this decision? You could say Lennon made the call to refuse the recording session, then reversed himself—the band following him both times. But it was actually Paul who shaped the course the band took. His move to avoid a direct confrontation—to let John stay nominally in control—only underscores his operational strength."
Working through quotes from first meeting descriptions ("John Lennon saw the two sides of his attraction to Paul McCartney quickly and clearly.(...) What Paul represented to John—for good and for ill, for excitement and for fear—was a loss of control. All through his relationship with McCartney, the power between them would be fluid—a charged, creative exchange that fueled them and frustrated them, leading to creative peaks and valleys of recrimination and estrangement") to break up descriptions, Shenk voices the interesting and not unprecedented theory that for all his "I want a divorce" and "Yoko and me, that's reality" bluster, John might have been engaged in another power play for dominance and not prepared for Paul to finally call his bluff by and upping the ante by making the break official. (Hence the even for John monumental explosions in the press and the oddly endearing bits of Lennon logic (not like earth logic at all) like "me asking for a divorce is no reason to go to court").
The comment section below the article is for now blessedly free of infighting and contains among other things a sweed anecdote of a couple taking their offspring to a McCartney concert in Toronto last month and the kids only on the drive finding out that the Beatles broke up. (Aw.)
Two of Us: Inside the Lennon/McCartney connection by Joshua Wolf Shenk is truly excellent, manages to do both of them justice, musically and personally.
Choice quote: " Lennon and McCartney did affect each other, change each other, goad, inspire, madden, and wound each other. But they also each contributed to something that went beyond either individual, a charged, mutual space of creation—those pearls your ear probably recognizes and leans toward as much as to your parents' voices."
He makes some interesting comparisons - the obvious one to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards ("In a 1995 interview, Mick Jagger was asked how he and Keith Richards lasted so long as songwriting partners, when Lennon and McCartney split. His answer was simple: A team needs a leader. He didn't go so far as to explicitly identify himself as that leader, but he made it perfectly clear" - this reminds me, aren't we due Keith's memoirs this autumn?) and less obvious ones like to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and imo rightly points out that a key factor was that the emotional power play between them was constantly fluid rather than fixed to certain positions, as in this telling anecdote:
"Paris in 1963. The Beatles' producer George Martin had arranged for them to record "She Loves You" in German. When the band missed their studio appointment, Martin came around to their suite at the George V hotel. They played slapstick and dived under the tables to avoid him. "Are you coming to do it or not?" Martin said. "No," Lennon said. George and Ringo echoed him. Paul said nothing, and they went back to eating. "Then a bit later," Michael (McCartney) said, "Paul suddenly turned to John and said, 'Heh, you know that so and so line, what if we did it this way? John listened to what Paul said, thought a bit, and said, 'Yeah, that's it.' And they headed to the studio." How would we chart the lines of authority for this decision? You could say Lennon made the call to refuse the recording session, then reversed himself—the band following him both times. But it was actually Paul who shaped the course the band took. His move to avoid a direct confrontation—to let John stay nominally in control—only underscores his operational strength."
Working through quotes from first meeting descriptions ("John Lennon saw the two sides of his attraction to Paul McCartney quickly and clearly.(...) What Paul represented to John—for good and for ill, for excitement and for fear—was a loss of control. All through his relationship with McCartney, the power between them would be fluid—a charged, creative exchange that fueled them and frustrated them, leading to creative peaks and valleys of recrimination and estrangement") to break up descriptions, Shenk voices the interesting and not unprecedented theory that for all his "I want a divorce" and "Yoko and me, that's reality" bluster, John might have been engaged in another power play for dominance and not prepared for Paul to finally call his bluff by and upping the ante by making the break official. (Hence the even for John monumental explosions in the press and the oddly endearing bits of Lennon logic (not like earth logic at all) like "me asking for a divorce is no reason to go to court").
The comment section below the article is for now blessedly free of infighting and contains among other things a sweed anecdote of a couple taking their offspring to a McCartney concert in Toronto last month and the kids only on the drive finding out that the Beatles broke up. (Aw.)
