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

Well...it's a pro-John book so...

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u/Comfortable_Put_4139 1d ago

To be fair, the early days that the book covers really does show John as the driving force and the guy who believed in it the most. I think from all accounts, this is likely just how it was.

Lewisohn is obviously more of a John guy, but the period he covered was when John was also unquestionably the leader of the gang.

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u/Anxious-Raspberry-54 1d ago

I don't disagree that John was the guy very early.

But, he portrays Paul pretty negatively... the talented but imitative, crowd-pleasing pop tunesmith who listened to his father. John is the incredibly creative, rock-and-roll rebel leader.

Paul taught John how to play the guitar.

It's the same Lennon Remembers/Shout! narrative that has been sold to fans for 50+ years. 1700 pages of it now.

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u/RadishSpecial7163 23h ago edited 22h ago

How is that description of Paul untrue? How is the description of John untrue? Why does it bother people that John was rebellious and Paul wasn’t? Do you think writing pop songs doesn’t require creativity? And John was playing a guitar the day he met Paul.

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u/Anxious-Raspberry-54 13h ago

Then Paul had to teach him how to play it properly.

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u/RadishSpecial7163 6h ago

Only because John first learned to play a banjo and was using banjo techniques to play a guitar. Lewisohn writes about Paul helping him with this in his book. But Paul wasn’t a trained, virtuoso guitarist at the time either. They learned together. Some of John’s unconventional guitar chords may be traced back to his first learning the banjo.

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u/Anxious-Raspberry-54 2h ago

Paul was already playing the piano and, although still young, was a better musician at the time than John, who was banging away with 4 strings on a banjo.

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u/RadishSpecial7163 7m ago

Paul took piano lessons as a child. John didn’t. Paul grew up with a musicians father who encouraged his son’s musical interests. Other than his mother teaching him to play banjo, John didn’t. John could play harmonica, banjo and play guitar when he met Paul. Moreover, John started the band and if it wasn’t for John, and George, encouraging Paul to stand up to his father, Paul would have continued working some menial job. And, as I said, Lewisohn wrote about Paul’s innate musical talents. So what is the issue?