The Nature of Their Intense Relationship

Hello, monkey fiddlers. It's me, Richard Herring. Thank you for downloading my podcast. Please keep listening if you can. Uh the big news is uh twentieth of April, Leicester Square Theatre, one of the guests has been announced. It's Natasha Hodgson. Uh one of the geniuses behind and in front of Operation Mince Meat the musical. Sorry, my cat's running around the kitchen making a ringing sound, hope that's not disturbing you. Um once the Operation Mince Meat fans hear about this, it's gonna sell fast, so Get your tickets now, go to Rich Charring.com slash Ralisterper, and you can see all the dates. There's a couple in July as well. I'm doing uh Rick Mail Festival as well, but that is sold out. Um become a badger at go foster strike dot com slash badges if you want to Help us continue to make these bloody things. Anyway, sit back, relax, and enjoy another episode of one of my podcasts, you little fiddly monkey fiddler. Stop ringing those bells Hello, welcome to another Hallist of Book Club. This week I have been listening to and reading John and Paul The Love Story and Songs. By Ian Leslie, who is with me now. Hello, Ian, love to meet you. Hello, Richard. It's a terrific book. I enjoyed it very much. Um let's um Let's let people know about your pr previous life before because the you know you were not r really a a music person or not a music writer before this. So what were you you've written other books? Yeah, so I I'd written a few books. Um my books uh tended to be in the area of Kind of in that Malcolm Gladwellish area of popular psychology and ideas and so on. Or it's a book about curiosity and why that's important. Yes. Good. Yes. And I and I then I was thinking about what I was gonna do what topic I was gonna do next. Um when and and this is during lockdown as well, when I had I was lucky enough to have some time on my hands. And I I just had one of those kind of side projects um where I thought, do you know what While I'm thinking about this, um, why don't I write a a ten thousand word sub stack paste about why Paul McCartney is good at music. Which is something I give a lot of thought to. Um you know people get obsessed by different topics. One of my topic is is the Beetle. And and I've been thinking, you know, I don't Paul McCartney's actually weirdly sort of underrated. And I wrote this like long kind of like screed. Um and expecting it to just I this needed to get it off my chest really. Yeah. Um and very unexpectedly it went insanely viral. And and like a huge response and and a very sort of um passionate and and powerful response as well. And at that point I started to think, oh, hmm, maybe I could write a book about this group that I've been fascinated by since I was a kid. And and um it just gave me license to to think of it as a of myself as a person who might write a book about the Beatles. And and it didn't take me long to think, well, if I'm gonna do this, I I I want to write about the relationship between John and Paul because that's the most fascinating part of the whole story for me. Yes. Yeah. Because then like musically, and you know the the musicology in there is very What I what I like about it and what what people from the nineteen sixties would find amusing, I think, the sort of the people who responded to the Beatles immediately, was you know, it's very academic look at the the music and the belief that that music will last for a thousand years, which obviously the contemporaries of the Beatles would not necessarily would have laughed at the idea of this silly pop band being being even talked about in sixty years' time, let alone Yeah, so so my my my aim when when I was writing it was I I want to kind of Just just go deep on on the incredible chemistry between these two guys. Yeah. Um and and not just 'cause it's interesting in itself, which it is, you know, if you tell the story of a of a of a fascinating, explosive, tempestuous relationship, it's gonna be interesting. But also because there's a reason for it. And I I don't think you can really understand what happened with the Beetle the music of the Beetles, this whole kind of crazy creative thing we call the Beetles, without uh understanding the chemistry. Um and and so I wanted to kind of tell the story of the music and the relationship At the same time. That's why it's a love story in songs I mean so each chapter starts with a song. Um and and and so the in the terms of the music bit, I wanted to help people understand like w why this music is so special. Yes. Even the songs that you think are really simple, 'cause we've you've heard them a thousand times or more, um And those very visceral and immediate are actually incredibly clever. Even those early songs are very innovative and strange and weird and you just don't notice it. And so I just wanted to help people understand that. So that's why I go deep on on the song as well as the story. Yeah, well that's the enjoyable thing. I mean I guess the enjoyable thing about living in the modern world is how easy it is to call up any song you want to hear. But you leave it, you read a chapter and then go, Oh, I must listen to that song again. So you do and it ends up being this uh this additional experiences of look of listening back to the music as well. No, it's fantastic. I mean a number of people that have got in touch with me and and said, I've been going through your book and and it just sent me back to these songs that frankly I hadn't listened to in years 'cause I thought, you know, I know them. Yeah. Um so I just love that that It's sort of re sort of you know revitalising people's love of of this music. Yes. Um and so look, the w it seems like people want to fill the world with silly songs about silly uh books about the Beatles. But was there an element where you thought I can't there are so many Beatles books? Or did you know that you had something Th because it i it I have to say it it you know, I've read a lot of books about the Beatles and I love reading books about the Beatles and there can't be enough of them I don't think. But I do think this one does you know, it's it's more about uh the sort of why the songs are there rather than when or what happened. I mean you get you get the store you get the auto But the the biographical biographical stuff, but it's more about the why the song. Exactly, exactly. And that that was a kind of um yeah, I I did think about that. And that was part of the reason that that before the McCartney piece came out, that when when this idea did flow into my head of writing something about the Beetles, I I kind of pushed it away because I just thought there's so many books about the Beatles. And everyone's gonna say this, the publisher's gonna say it. And in fact some of them did when we when we kind of pitched the book, right? Uh that was kind of present in my mind, but the but then I thought, well nobody's told this story this way. And and and nobody's really I I don't think done justice to how what's really incredible about the whole story. Um and and and nobody's kind of combined looking at the relationship, the chemistry between these two and the and all four. And The mu and looking at the music. Some do one, some a bit of the one, bit of the other, but nobody's kind of brought these things together. So and actually when I've stepped back and I thought is it there's a really no been no serious about just Lennon and McCartney focusing on Lennon McCartney. Yeah no. Well that's crazy. Yeah. That's just crazy. So it's like I I think it's kind of an interesting lesson because uh often I think we are put off creative projects generally both by thinking, Oh well, you know, that's been dumb. People have done that a lot. Yes. But actually, you can often do it in a new way. Well I think we you know, it's the same with comedy that often you think, Well I won't do that subject because everyone does that subject, but if you can find the new thing I wrote a a show all about the human penis. That's been covered a lot in in comedy. But you're kind of actually if you're coming from you know you know a different if you can find the different way into that subject. That's great. And then you know that that's amazing because you've found you've found a space in something that's an overcrowded market. That's exactly right. We we can call it the penis principle now. So that that you know that that that is a very you know universal creative But I am you know I'm sort of I mean I do love the Beatles. I mean I'm not massively into music, but I've always really loved the Beatles. But I've always been fascinated with that relationship. And I I realised I mean I was in a double act for uh uh almost the same length of time as John and Paul, I think I'm almost exactly because they were starting fifty s they were fifty seven to sixty nine, I guess with seventy. And I I met Stuart Lee, who I work with for this in eighty seven and work with him till nineteen ninety nine. So I know I think I've got the exact same length of time. I would argue possibly not as successful as the button. Um but we might not be being talked about in a thousand years' time or indeed now. But but I I really understand that the dynamic between two people who are like in sympathy with each other, aiming at the same thing, but coming at it from different angles, those different personalities. I mean I in the group in that relationship I think I'd be the Paul McCartney and he'd be the John Lennon. Equally then I think John Lennon You know, a lot of the s the re I know the the impetus of this is is you know, John Lennon being seen as the cool one and Paul McCartney being seen as the uncool one. But a lot of it is Paul is is John Lennon just saying he's the cool one. And everyone just writing it down. I'm not saying that's the same as Stuart Lee. Well it's interesting how how people perceive uh a writing partnership. Uh and then and then decide after you know, and then decide oh well that was the one who did everything, or that was the one who did this this particular bit. And often You know, you look back and go, Well no, actually we was the other way around in our relationship. And it was a lot more complex. Um and like everything else, you know, it once the story gets told and retold and retold, it tends to get kind of coarser and and and more and more binary and more polarized. Oh, well he was all about that and he was all about that or or whatever there. Um and actually it I mean, that was the other you know, the big impetus b behind writing it was like the story's a lot more interesting than that. And it's not just a case of me going, Oh well no, Paul's actually as cool as John. It wasn't something as stupid as that. You're not doing justice to either of them and to what what they did when you put them in these like simple boxes. Something much richer and more interesting going on. It is. I mean they I mean and you know, and together they create this genius and you know, and and it's sort of it's collaboration and competition and and everything that the and that's the spark and that's when s when two people come together like that. I really understand that that you get this you know and and you know that because there's got to be I think an element of competition in in a writing partnership like that, there is going to be fighting as well. I sort of find it fascinating. They they're absolute geniuses but then a lot of the time they're so foolish and so short sighted about about you know and and and so bad at actually understanding the world, get pulled into stupid little cults and you know silly little ideas, try to set up Apple and all you know and it all goes up 'cause they're giving stuff away. So there uh they're so I think but is it that I wondered if it's their openness To everything that makes them so brilliant as writers, but then equally there's a sort of naivety to them, is there. Oh yeah, I mean there's a there's an amazing naivety. I mean they're they' bas basically kind of um there's something quite childlike about about them. Yeah. Um at the same time though There's also an aspect of them which is like they grew old really quickly as well. So they were both incredibly mature and also incredibly at the same time. both of them lost very significant people but John Lennon seemed to lose All and but aside from Paul McCartney, unless Paul McCartney did die in a car crash in nineteen sixty six, which you don't really cover. We'll get that to he lost you know Stuart Sutcliffe, he lost his mum, he lost Brian Epstein. You know, even out Alma Cogan you mentioned I think that you know there's the there's all these figures that that he's that he's losing who are dying. And quite a lot of people connected to the Beagles died very young or surprisingly young or in in tragic circumstances. So it it that's a real haunting thing through throughout especially John's story, I think. But obviously the the them both losing their mums is the thing he liked on the thing. So so I I I think that they I and and and and they they seem to kind of mature at this you see them uh during the years of their fame going from these like fresh faced, you know, kids, you know, grown up kids in in suits, to these like eight hundred year old prophets, you know, with like long hair and beards by but you know, looking c really kinda moody at the end of the sixties. Um Uh just that sheer you know, the evolution of of the personality is amazing. Um so yeah, so uh at the same time that they're obviously living in this kind of weird like bubble. And you say, Oh, Kenny, you know, th they they fell for these like stupid things. But I think more the point is like they were doing lots of crazy things and they worked when they shouldn't have, like you know, so so they would say, Well actually, you know, we're we're gonna do make albums like like this, we're gonna stop touring, or we're gonna do a double album full of like incredibly weird stuff. Or or we're gonna pretend to be another group and dress up in stupid Edwardian like bright colored suits. Oh, it worked. Uh the only thing that didn't come off was was Apple, uh you know, as as a business and that and they were incredibly sort of naive about that. But it's a mistake that I can kinda forgive because up until then give or take the magical mystery tour, you could say that as the film. You know, you say everything else that they did just sort of became magical, you know, and and just the speed of it. I mean the speed of their I mean obviously it it you're talking fifty seven to sixty two, sixty three, they're just a working band and they're playing the small clubs and they're getting big in Liverpool towards the end of that. But then The the the when they become famous it's sort of almost instantaneously world famous within a matter of weeks, it almost feels like, but it's certain certainly a sort of small amount of time. They they're world world famous. Well they're nationally famous for the first sort of year. They don't really become like Well they don't become American superstars until a year later. After a year of of British fame. But but they they they they go uh you know, they have kind of smash they have number ones early in nineteen sixty three. Um and actually I I would say there's still a gradual ascension because they kind of go from being this teen pop sensation to national figures. That really happens when they play the palladium and, you know, rattle your jewellery and all that kind of thing. Which is kind of in the autumn of nineteen sixties. Now at this stage they are just huge, like British on the front pages of newspapers, they're not just for for the kids. They're for you know, everyone kind of knows who they are. Um and and then just after that, beginning of nineteen sixty four, they go on the Ed Sullivan show and and and and the and then they're like huge in America almost that's interesting. That that is incredibly kind of quick. Um and then and then you know, most pop stars then kind of fizzle out and and go and become game show hosts, you know. Um that was the the the path that w many had gone down. Um and and it was just the fact that they get that kept it going and they they kept evolving that was so Yeah, I'm gonna be but that was you know, in it's such a short period of time between you know, even the the the Beetles being the Beatles and being recording artists. It's give 'em the breadth of what it is. It's insane. It's seven years. Yeah. Uh and and and we're still talking about them. Yes, yeah. And um it's it's seven years about them actually kind of r recording and and and being public stars. Um and and yeah, the the the I still am sort of shocked by the velocity with which they moved. So we talked about the Ed Sullivan show, so they're playing, you know what, I I I want to hold your hand and and and Till there was you on the telephone show. About two years later that they release Tomorrow Never Knows, which is this absolutely mind blowingly weird avant-garde, crazy stuff. I just cannot believe they go from there to there in two years. And then they and then they keep moving. So um that I know will stop being. And one of the things I wanted to do with the book is just kind of re-astonish people, because I think we'll all slightly take them for granted. And I wanted to kind of step back and go, Hang on a minute. This was freakishly weird. Well I think even making yeah, because you know I would have been very I said about the early stuff is sort of boy band teeny bop stuff. And I think again the book does a very good job of saying No, this sound A was coming at the right time for America, especially the and the kind of aftermath of Kennedy being shot and all this sort of stuff. So there was a they needed something. But there was something raw and I mean just you talking about but the script various screams Paul McCartney does through different songs. You listen you go, Oh yeah, that is weird. But it's like it's g it's sort of this visceral My my favourite song of Paul McCartney's is Maybe I'm amazed. And and with that And I didn't appreciate that that came so quickly after the breakup of the Beatles when I was been listening to it for. But that but it just it's because it's so uh visceral and open and honest, you know. And I think that's what I mean they both had that, but I think Paul McCartney especially had that. Yeah, and I I think even like well uh early on in those early hits, you can actually hear the the kind of um um musical and emotional payoff of the fact that they were writing and performing their own songs. Right. Which was obviously quite unusual a a a at the time. Um especially for these kind of pop groups or pop acts. Um and uh It it it's not just that therefore, you know, they were making money from from these things like you can hear the authenticity and the honesty in these songs and these teenagers could hear them on the radio. And and when when Please Please Me, you know comes out And it's this s this love song which is also kind of like um uh it's got a bit of anger and resentment and like it's a mix of feelings. Like please please me, like I please you. Like you know, last night I said these worlds to my why why don't you ev ever even try, girl? You know, um And so it's not a kind of pretty, nice I love you kind of. It's real, right? When you're a teenager in love, that's how you feel, right? It's a mix of emotions. And I think the the the teenagers, especially the girls who who who heard that one like That's why they're screaming. Yes. 'Cause it's just like this absolute like inf inf infusion of like genuine human emotion into a an amazing pop song. Yeah. And suddenly y y the whole thing moves on to a different level. Yeah. So no, it's you know, it is it really does uh bring all the uh the the the love of the music back and the and the w you know this sense of wonder and it and I think this idea of taking a song for each chapter, which you know is is loosely 'cause some sometimes you'll you'll go off in a completely different d direction. But it does you know, I think uh I think the uh the Penny Lane Strawberry Fields Forever chapter is very interesting as well, just the way that those that they're working sort of together. They they don't even quite remember which order it's in themselves a few years later. But those two songs are sort of answers to each other and You know, and and that that I think gives a real insight into their working relationship. Yeah, I mean that th that's maybe the kind of uh it could arguably that's the kind of peak of their whole partnership. And and uh there's lots of interest isn't lots to say about it. But um I I I I think it's fascinating because it's it feels like they have developed their individual music person musical personalities, pushed them out to the extremes whilst remaining kind of umbilically connected, right? So so they act together as a pair of songs about childhood, right? And about what it feels to Miss your childhood and at the same time know that you can never go back there. Um they're both on on on that theme. There's both this little kind of like a sense of sadness combined with happiness in them. So so they act as a pair. But at the same time they're incredibly different, right? And and Lane is like the most Paul song ever. And Strawberry Fields is the most sort of John song ever. So uh so that's why it's so interesting to me. Like they they're pushing out towards the r outer reaches of their musical kind of personalities. Uh at the same time, that they're absolutely d together. These are like two songs in conversation with each other. It's just beautiful that it was a double A side. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And I mean I think because you're looking at things from this psychological point of view as well, I mean it does Because I mean you start the book I should say by talking about uh obviously Paul McCartney receiving the news uh well not receiving the news but being interviewed about John's murder uh and the sort of famous reply they go when he goes it's terrible and he goes, Yeah it's a drag which obviously like was quite bad looked quite bad at the time. But I think w when you look into when you delve into it and understand that, hey, you know, there's some people asking fucking stupid questions to a guy who's who it should be in mourning for his friend, but also he hasn't he hasn't processed it really, has he? No, I mean one of the things about the the Beatles is that they they were kind of first to do so many things, right? You know. We've talked about some of them first kind of group to be performing their own songs more more often than not, and first group to really kind of take the album as a form seriously. First first first. But they're also the first people to be ex people. The first people to be like primarily known for the group that you used to be in. And and and this was another horrible first, you know. Um and and uh John's uh assassination, but also Paul having to respond to it. Yeah. Um and these days if such a horrible event happened There's a whole system and process, you know, you'd be you taken to you know, the PR team would kind of draft uh uh an Instagram post and everything would be organized and and y you don't just walk out and start talking to the press, you know, a few hours after you you you found out. with nothing to say except I want to get to my car, essentially, which is what happened to Paul, right? Um and so he didn't handle it well. None of us would have handled it well. Um and so I I start the book there because it seems to kind of um When when when people saw that and still when people refer to it, it seemed to kind of crystallise this sense that um they really didn't like each other. Paul had no feelings for him and Paul was a bit weird, like shallow anyway. You know, what a terrible thing to say. Um but then when when we come back, we've m uh at the end I come back to it at the end and hopefully people have a much greater understanding of of what was going on. I think so. But and also like it you know, and and not without reason, like two members of the Beetles have been attacked by by mad fans. Uh and you know, at that point you must have been also thinking, you know, Christ, you know, what's g what's gonna happen to me? Realising that can happen to be absolutely terrifying. I think you mentioned uh The Paul I uh out of the book anyway, I was thinking about the Paul Simon and the late great Johnny Ace, which I think you do do you mention that in the book or have I just been a sort of Oh I don't know maybe it's just I've written about it since But in that in that book uh in that song rather, you know, he's he says that when he heard the news some a stranger comes up and tells him John Lenz died and they go to a bar and have a a drink and listen to the songs all night. You can't think that Can't have happened. If it happened. Imagine being the person the stranger who taught Yeah, you'd have gone Paul Simon, you know, John Lennon's died. I mean you'd die now from being the person who told it and then go, Okay, let's go to a bar. Um because you know you'd think Paul Simon would the first thing you'd think if you heard that news is shit, I better get undercover because I'm gonna be I could be killed at any second by some. It's not accurate. I don't think it's true, because I think that guy would have come forward and it doesn't seem the very Paul Simon thing. Weirdly, this is and we're off on a sidetrack now. But when they sang that at the uh Central Park concert, the Simon and Garf on call In that very bit that he's a a guy runs up on stage and goes, B Paul, Paul, I need to talk to you just as he's talking about John Lennon having been shot and he gets sort of bundled off stage, obviously within you know five hundred metres of where John Lennon was shot. Yeah you don't want to see a guy running onto stage at that point. He's very f go and it's on YouTube, it's worth it's wrong. Anyway, there we go. That's by the by that's my that's my sub stack about uh about the death of John Lennon, not yours. Um There's there's a few things I w that uh uh of that uh just I'm interested in. From Craig Brown's uh book about the Beatles, which I also loved. Um there were the the bit that I was that I was fascinated with was the time where Paul they'd come back from um Germany and Paul was back at work really and was offered a promotion and had to weigh up whether he wanted to go back and play with the Beatles uh or get this promotion his job. Which I thought, you know, while the the alternate universe is where he makes the operate decision. In your book you suggest that maybe that was actually more of a sort of bargaining chip from Yes, exactly. He's using it as a kind of point of leverage with John. I mean in the early days, but actually all the way through, um I think when Paul felt that John was becoming a little bit, you know, tr trying to impose himself a little bit more on and on the group. He would push back. He'd find ways to push back and say, Well actually no, I'm not sure I want to go along with this. But you're doing quite subtle he wouldn't actually say that. You know, he would do it in sort of slightly passive aggressive ways. And this is one of the points where he was saying, Well actually I've got this job at the factory now. I might just want to do that job. I'm not sure I want to be in agreement. I don't think he would ever have done it. There's no way I mean Paul's Paul's defining kind of um one of his defining characteristics is And this goes back to what I was saying about him and John. He didn't like being bossed around. No. Hated having a boss. So the idea that he's gonna like have be a good guy at the factory and work for this bus for like ridiculous. I always like that story because I thought, Oh, imagine, you know, if you could talk to the other Paul McGartney who decided to be sexually and see and just how different the world would be if the if the Beatles were never. Some sort of tire factor factory. But yeah, but Paul I think again you make the point that Paul I mean he is this he's got this detachedness that you know, again, that I think people would put into John rather than him. But you talk about him at school, you know, he's quite he's clever at school, but he's not that interested and he's watching T V and doing his homework at the same time, which I think again shows this sort of multitasking thing he's Able to do because you know g we've all that now all the Beatles fans have seen Get Back, which you do talk about. You sort of see how his Amazing. Musical brain. And now he's able to just sort of pull something out of his ass basically or out of thin air and produce a massive puppet out seemingly out of nowhere. And it's what it's what he and John had in common. Um sorry, he and um George and John had a c which was they they were all very smart kids who just didn't take to school at all. Yes, interesting. And um Well they did for well. I mean John did pretty well at school and until he became an adolescent and then sort of went crazy. Um and and and Paul was you know, his teachers loved him. But after a while they just realised he was never gonna do what they wanted him to do. He was very charming, very smart, incre very very quick learner, but there was a a sense that he was just like Yep, hi. Yeah, I'm not gonna do that. And you know, his dad had to deal with that as well. You know, and his dad said that actually he he he he was doing really well in Latin and when the teacher said to his dad, Oh, Paul's doing really well and his dad relayed it, Paul stopped doing well in Latin. Right. Yeah. It's like I don't want to do what you well, but it did. Um so he had that kind of perverse streak and they all had that to to to to to some to some extent. Yeah. I mean it's sort of the first time in history. It's in the twentieth century, you know, you suddenly get figures who are political figures who come from absolute poverty and rise right to the top. And it's this you know, the sixties was this time where suddenly some boys from Liverpool with a guitar could could conquer the world and become the richest people imaginable and you know and have everything that came with that, which obviously Paul McCartney well they all took advantage of, but Yeah, no, that's right, that's right. Yeah. It was like a new a new kind of path to to uh a new career path had had opened up. Yeah. So it's it's fascinating. So and and I guess you could cover obviously all the enmity and the sort of weirdness of the the various song afterwards. Funny, I I was listening to I was l when I was listening to Maybe Ma I'm Amazed again I was thinking there's something in this piano part that's an echo of something from the Beatles and then I realised it was just it's a little bit like Imagine Almost in the middle of Maybe I'm amazed. Yeah. So the minute you start looking it's like you start I saw that that's an echo the Beatles and then I rise actually no, imagine's got a little 'cause they're both piano things, really. I don't think it's it but I don't think it's even copied, I just think they're Their brains are just like that. Um and you can hear these like little musical echoes throughout the seventies. And of course in the lyrics, you know, there are points at which in which they're definitely kind of uh communicating with each other, 'cause they weren't really doing that much the Communicating you know, but not about things that really matter to them. So there they were chatting actually for most of the seventies, but they weren't um I mean it is you know, you're right to see I mean calling it a love story and you know people might misinterpret that and that it's n it's not I mean it's not entirely an unsexual relationship. But it's a romantic relationship in In a sense. I mean I think that's what's quite interesting. You talk about the the passage of time that you wouldn't have ever talked about it like that. In the sixties or seventies, 'cause we didn't talk about men like that. But now with a with sixty years passed by, we can talk about the fact that there's a sort there is a romance there. There is a there's a love of there. It's genuinely a love affairs, the two of them communicating and understanding each other. Yeah, exactly. And and I guess that was my my starting point was nobody has really um explored this relationship but properly because we find it hard to classify. So I've heard people describe it as you know oh well they were very close. They were like really close friends. Yeah. It's a bit more than that though. I've got close friends and I don't have that Yeah. There's something another level here, isn't there, of intensity and and and and um or or they were like brothers like well it's not like me and my brother or most siblings that I know. Um and um Or or you know, there's a kind of sub sub culture which is like oh they were definitely having sex all the way through and w nobody wants to admit it. Which I'd never believed, right? So but it's like we can only put them into these boxes. Oh, they were like brothers, they were like friends, or or or or the homosexual lovers. Um But they don't fit into any of those, right? It's just this very, very intense male um friendship which which was incredibly creative. Like and that that was a that was kind of at the center of it was what they were making together. Um that's something we find hard to classify. You do see some examples like I think throughout history of of these kinds of relationships. But but you know that they're yeah, that they're a little bit they they elude our traditional um categories. And then and so and that sort of explains all the seventies stuff because it is like a it's like a break up and each going, well this guy's a dick 'cause of this and that guy's a dick 'cause of this and but even just like you say, just leaving little things that you know The other one will pick up on it's not even necessarily a criticism or a on something m nasty. Yeah. Uh though usually it is. Sometimes it's very loving. Um and um but y but so they will that they were kind of very connected because yeah, they knew that the the the the other one was was listening to them and because they were now kind of off having their own lives and they were with with partners and families and so on, um, and of course there was still a lot of difficulty around the business relationship, they couldn't really have a kind of close heart to heart type conversation or or relationship. So when they did want to communicate something it important it tended to be through the song. Yeah. And and you know, I guess there's echoes of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in there as well, which again is a a a similar sort of relationship. And then I think when and also 'cause there's a point where You know, John's gone a bit Peter Cook and sort of disappeared up in just being a house husband and not really doing anything. Right. At the same time that Paul's becoming this and being a big solo success like Dudley Moore went back to Hollywood. If John Lennon had lived It's r I mean obviously if this all we're all in speculation territory. It's very difficult to know how things would have gone right, because it's sort like it could it could e it could easily have been eclipsed completely by Paul. It wasn't I think like his final albums that didn't well I didn't really I don't really go for much of John's solo stuff. I don't think it's like really you know survived as well as the stuff they did together. Whereas I think um you know there's obviously some Paul McCartney songs that are fantastic as well. But it does feel like Paul was gonna be the more commercially successful one. And then for John to have to cope with that, I think we might have been I mean I I I think one of the things about Paul is that he he even as I you know, from terms of like quality control and he's got an incredible engine on him. Like he's just incredibly like he's always producing, he's always creating. And John didn't have that in in in in quite the same way. John could kind of like just step away from it or or adrift, you know, until somebody came in and said, Right, John, what about this? Let's do this. Um and so that would have been you know that would have been difficult for John. Like just finding the he was a lot more he's a lot more insecure actually about about about things. Yeah. Um but um I I I d I I I think that they would have you know I I think at some point they would have worked together. It wouldn't have been the same for all sorts of reasons, but I I I think they were kind of drifting back towards a kind of And there's a little suggestion that they might have, you know, started working together and things near you know Paul turned up with a guitar one day and just John wasn't in the mood that day. Which I didn't know about. But you know, there is that Yeah I mean, obviously with the you know, the death of John Lennon is just such a a terrible thing anyway, but also you do you do also think of the art that we've lost as a result of of that uh that uh Well, I mean it's a sort of unbelievable uh unbelievable event. Um what do you think about the uh the Paul McCartney dying in a car crash in nineteen sixty six and being replaced by more talented look like I can understand it in some ways, because he's so like Incredibly like insanely productive that you think there's gotta be more than one of these guys. There must be like a whole team. Yeah, and they just lost one of the things that they're gonna do. So you know I I I haven't I haven't gone into the actual like but there are still people who there are still I mean there are so many people who believe in I was just uh I was just on Facebook with someone who was genuinely putting it forward again and 'cause you could all go, Well like you know, A, if someone else has come in to take over their life, they've had to leave their life and all their life. And no one's no one's there's they've gone Jane Asher's got to go. Yeah, yeah, he looks like he'll do. I'll take him up from it. And then and then not only be able to sort of you know I mean create better work than the early Paul McCartney, I would say. So it would be it would be pretty amazing to find that looking like delicious. It's like most conspiracy theories. But um I I kinda I kinda like the fact that people are still um you know st still into it. I think we've got the first real conspiracy theory. I mean it is, yeah, it is. But it' the the the genesis of it I think has been discovered as well, really, because it was some student radio thing in America where I think the there was there if you look into the story, I think someone sort of admitted starting it and it was you know I can't quite remember the details. So it it you know that still people will go I mean it does again there is a different thing about humanity, but it does show that ability to go, No, I'm not gonna trust anything and If you look at his ear his ears. The ears tell the whole story. I'd find that kind of stuff fascinating as well. But uh I reckon it's probably the the same one. And if it's not, you know, he's just as good. It's like it doesn't really matter who Shakespeare is, does it if the it's the work doesn't matter. After a few years it won't matter who who the actual guy was anymore. But uh is there any songs uh that you uh looking back at it you wish you had included that you didn't include as one of your I mean you've covered a lot. There's a lot in there. Is there is there No, I mean there's um Oh gosh. Are there songs I mean there's lots of songs that I just didn't have space. I mean, I could write about loads of them. Yeah. Um but um I didn't it's already, you know quite a chunky book. Um I wanted it to be as as tight as possible. Yeah um it's just such an it's one of those books that's just so enjoyable that you look at and go, you know I quite like the sometimes you get big history, but that's even a bit thicker than that and you think, Oh, I'll never be able to read that. And then you read it in two days because it just pushes you you know, you just and massive, I was listening to it in the car. Uh and my wife was I think it was about the sort of Yoko Ono and years and my wife's going what's this sort of and then she went oh and then she didn't listen to it all very quickly. That's great. So yeah, so she you know, I think it's one of those books that like I think again, you know, it was I mean as a publisher I'd go well obviously Yeah, this book Beatles books will probably sell, so it seems worthwhile anyway. No, I meant well sorry, um not uh all publishers agree that commercial proposition. Yeah, no, but you'd think they would. You'd think they'd go, Well it's worth a punt because there's a lot of Beatles books out there and a lot of them well. You can understand why they would go, Well there's one out we don't want to uh do another one. But I think it does you know, it really does its own job. And I think yeah, just it's that it's as much as anything, and then I think you have come at it from a different way, but I think it is just the time the the the passage of time. So you've got these you know, the books in the that came out in the seventies and eighties that like Yeah, some of which were qu'un pleasant to Paul and but but they're too close to the subject, especially if John Lennon's just died. It's that you know to have a bit of distance from it all and be able to look at it from from that distance, I think is totally agree. And and um it's only with distance that you start to kind of see the the the the size of the mountain. You know, the the scale of the achievement and and how strange it is. And that you know, they weren't just another sixties group. You know, slightly more successful than the other ones. No, this is like something that I think is one of the great kind of cultural peaks to the last hundred years or more, right? Yeah, no, I think so. Um and um and I think that is the kind of perspective you and he get, you know, forty, fifty years af our after it happened. So so actually I I I think there's a lot more to say. Yeah I think there's more to say and it's more you know the music is amazing and it's great to concentrate on the music and it is But it is that what this book also does, there's something about those people, all four of them as well, which I know you sort of say uh you know, that the we that you are concentrating on the middle two, and so that might maybe sort of excludes uh George Ringo a little bit, but but all four of them are this amazing Force and cultural force. I think you say at the beginning you think people will be is it like you'll think people will be listening to the Beatles in a thousand years' time. Yeah, yeah. If you're not in so far as there's anything that would be yeah, I think it is, but they are you know, there are They are a cultural phenomenon, you think yes, that will define The twentieth century comes right in the middle more or less of the twentieth century. It's sort of it is you know, the the the They're the sort of heralds of a new age of youth and you know and and of change. And also I think the music is good enough that people will be able to do that. The music is it sort of transcends its moment in a way that, you know, we're still reading and and watching Shakespeare plays. Um and you know, music is a lot actually a lot more immediate and easier to to kind of get into than than Shakespeare. So um I I do think there's a pretty good chance that, you know, in five hundred years' time. Yeah. I think so I think so. I mean, that's when I when I'm interviewing people, I said this to Grayson Perry. I think like in a hundred years' time people will still probably be talking about Grayson Perry 'cause he's an artist and art c survives and people will be interested in it. Whereas most people that you Talk to Yeah. Who we know now I'd you know, in a hundred years' time we're not gonna rem remember it. Even very famous people they aren't gonna be remembered. You say that to your other guests. I don't say that to them. Well showbiz is so is so that's the thing with showbiz it's so ephemeral and so you go to I'm in theaters and you look at backstage in old theaters and they've got all the play bills up. And you don't you know, you might occasionally see one name, you go, Oh, I recognize that person. But it's a whole play bill of people that are completely forgotten. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's just show business. So it's like extraordinary extraordinary Even for us to be talking about a band from the sixties, and I think if you know there's and there were a lot of bands in the sixties and there are a few we're still talking about. Yeah. Yeah. We don't talk about Ian and the Zodiac so much. I'm trying to bring them back. Uh but you know, you've got the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, and then we're sort of starting to The who we're starting to run out of and you know, and I think none of those other bands, I don't even the Rolling Stones, I don't think they're gonna still be able to do that. They're like um you know, Christopher Marlowe, like really bloody good. Yeah. And you know, still perform his plays. But does anyone think that he or the other Elizabethan pet playwrights are on the same level as Shakespeare now? It's just a completely different plane. So yeah, maybe the kinks of Ben Johnson who I who I really like but it's not as famous as it should be. Yeah, yeah, you know, Gray Davis is you know creating I mean, there's some people writing brilliant songs about that back at that time. But Paul Simon as well. But um but yeah, it's uh you know, it is someone was asking me who I thought was better which was the better of the Pauls. And I don't think there's any any competition really. No, there isn't. And I love it. So look it's been a huge a huge success, this book. And I w you were recommend I asked people at the end to recommend a book and you were recommended by uh previous guest um uh but obviously you know it's really you know done great business. Is that how does that feel as a as an is that an un is that an unusual feeling for you? I don't know how successful the other books were, but I don't think they were as successful as this. No. With as as a writer there's so much work going into stuff in it, like we were talking before, but We start recording about um you know, you put a lot of work into a book and you don't really know what's gonna happen with it and sometimes they sort of disappear and sometimes they they take off. Is it is it sort of everything you hoped it would be to have a a book be as successful as this one? It's incredible. It's very difficult to talk about this without sounding immensely smug. and and and hugely fun and um you know it it's wonderful s all sorts sort sort of reasons but there's a kind of deep satisfaction in knowing that um I wrote the book uh I I um you know it's a real labour of love. Yeah. And I and I wrote the book that I wanted to write, you know, in a sense have been built building towards all all my life. Yes. And and it's done well. I mean number one would have been enough. I mean number two is like this incredible bonus. But um so um it's a a very nice feeling, yeah. Yeah. And it's and and I guess it the uh you know, as as much as we want to read books about the Beatles, the Beatles is something that The fans of the Beatles think they know all about I looked, I checked the internet and it seemed largely positive. But but actually more positive than I anticipated and in tur Yeah, most people have have have fallen l in love with it. And and and that's been just a really kind of delightful aspect of of the whole thing. And I listened to the audio book you chose uh Chris Addison to read your audio book for you. The great Chris Addison. He's all right. And he's an old friend of yours. Um but he is, as you would agree with me really a really really fantastic and the perfect person for this book. See, I listened to I listen to everything at one and a half speed and so my wife listen at one s uh one times, which is the correct way to Chris Addison was talking so slowly when she was doing that one catcher What's happening? What's happening? So it's a very confusing thing I he's someone you can Who was I listening? I was listening McCurdy's book, who's a fantastic uh American author who used to be a child children an actor in children's stuff and she's written some couple of brilliant books about I listened to her on one and a half speed and I had to s I had to slow it down. It was too fast. She's very fast. Dar O'Brien sounds like he's on two times when you just talk to him normally. Right exactly. If you get a Dar O'Brien book, don't that's just my audio book thing. I do love an audio book. And this book really works as an audio book, but I but I think also it's You know, it's n it's nice to have it as as a book. There's a few pictures in there, but that's by the by, but I think just 'cause you'll be able to step away and just and and then listen to the music. But if you listen to the audio book it's also quite a bit of a both. That's what I think. So our household has three copies. Two audio books and one and one actual book. So that is very nice. Um I do ask everybody um if they uh have anything that they're reading that they'd like to recommend