by John Keogan
Ian Leslie, author of ‘John & Paul: A story in love songs’ visited Liverpool One Waterstones on Tuesday evening for a Q&A event to discuss his new Beatles book.
Hosted by BBC Radio 6 Music presenter Chris Hawkins, Leslie answered a range of questions on the relationship between the pair, their music, and their celebrated partnership.
“I think the world needs many more books about The Beatles” the author responded to Hawkins’ opening question of “why another Beatles book?”
It was an obvious question, playful almost, but not entirely unreasonable considering the number of works already written about the band.
One list estimates there to be somewhere in the region of 3,000 books written about The Beatles, its individual members, their music, and their lasting impact on pop culture.
Even within the last six months, new titles focusing specifically on Lennon and McCartney have been released.
Including ‘The McCartney Legacy Vol.II’ , which contains a staggering 768 pages on just six years of Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles life. While Elliot Mintz recounted his friendship with John Lennon in ‘We All Shine On’.
Leslie, whose previous written works focus largely on human behaviour and psychology, has found a new way of looking at the complex dynamic of Lennon and McCartney.
He explores this bond through their music, Leslie said: “You cannot understand their relationship without their songs.
“They found a way of channelling their life into these two-to-three-minute songs”.
The songs provide the chronological narrative of the book, beginning with ‘Come Go With Me’, the song that Lennon’s band ‘The Quarrymen’ played the day he met McCartney in July 1957, and ending with ‘Here Today’, McCartney’s musical response to Lennon’s murder.
And over 50 years later, The Beatles continue to be an integral part of Liverpool’s identity, a 2016 report by two Liverpool universities found that tourism associated with the band helps bring over £80m per year to the local economy.
But as Leslie observed at the sold-out event, the city of Liverpool was equally significant in shaping The Beatles into the global sensations they became.
Leslie added: “Liverpool was essential to their personality, their creativity. They were funny, almost a comedic group. They weren’t from the capital, they were ‘outsiders.”
“They came in, changed the world, and got out. And I think that’s beautiful”.
Leslie took questions from a packed audience, Beatles fans of all ages.
Among them was John Winter, who had seen The Beatles play several gigs at The Cavern Club in the early sixties.
A discussion followed Winter’s question about The Beatles time in Hamburg, covered in the earlier chapters of Leslie’s new book.
Soon it came to light that Winter himself had written a book about The Fab Four several years earlier, ‘Blame it on The Beatles. And Bill Shankly’.
And just like that, in Liverpool, of course, Leslie wasn’t even the only Beatles author in the room.
Before leaving the stage to sign copies of his book, Leslie was asked one more question.
“Is the relationship between John & Paul the greatest love story of all time?”
“I think so” Leslie replied.
