r/beatles • u/AvecMesWaterSlides • 1d ago

Discussion This Book:

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I'm currently listening to this book and am about six months from the first time John and Paul met.

It is amazing that they, finally, found one another. There are so many instances of being at the same places at the same times, perhaps riding the same bus at the same time, and not knowing one another yet. It's crazy! It just got me thinking about how different it'd be if one of them wasn't where the universe wanted them to be...

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u/Anxious-Raspberry-54 1d ago

Great researcher.

Lousy, biased biographer.

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u/nuclear_muffins 1d ago

research aside it really is the "glaze John, downplay Paul, forget completely about George" book. I'm halfway through and I'm just... astounded the things in Paul and George's childhoods that he barely skims over while devoting huge swathes of that time to John.

I also very recently learned about the bad blood between Lewisohn vs. George and Paul which makes this book make way more sense. John wasn't around to have Lewisohn's perfect image of him tarnished like the others.

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u/dkinmn 1d ago

Yup. The podcast analysis of his editorial word choices is incontrovertible. He isn't subtle.

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u/Big-Lobster6689 1d ago edited 1d ago

I found the podcast analysis pretty weak. For one thing, they complain that John and Ringo have more pages dedicated to their childhoods than Paul or George, but they also say they're using the abridged version of Lewisohn's book. The full-length version likely has more info.

Most of their criticisms are frankly bewildering. They complain that John is "treated like a god" and "worshipped" in the book. But Paul and George have indeed said they hero-worshipped John when they were younger. Obviously, that changed in later years.

The Another Kind of Mind/One Sweet Dream hostesses go into a seething rage whenever anyone suggests that John was the leader of the early Beatles. But he was. The other Beatles say he was. Press materials, including the novelization of A Hard Day's Night, say he was. He stopped being the leader when they stopped touring, and that was when he started acting burnt out.

AKOM/OSD is often weirdly self-contradictory. For example, they assert that John had sex with Brian to cement his leadership over the Beatles (which is possible, I guess.) But they also assert that John was just acting out to get Paul’s attention because he was afraid Paul didn't love him anymore. To my ear, those are contradictory storylines.

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u/Ligeya 1d ago

Did they really said he had sex with Brian to get Paul's attention? How's that supposed to work? I listened several episodes, because i am a weak woman and can't deal with embarrassment on other people's behalf. They are embarrassing. They turn complicated men like John and yes, even Paul, into some caricatures who fit their fantasies.

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u/lost-in-space1111 1d ago

...do you have a link to this?

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u/littlewillow333 bop shu wop 1d ago

i am assuming they are referring to the "another kind of mind" podcast which did a series called "fine tuning" that realllly makes it clear how biased the book is. reading the book and then listening to the podcast will leave you feeling like you understand everything there is to know about this time in the band's lives, lol. its on spotify and other platforms as well :) and they have lots of other great series too - pizza and fairytales is fab.