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A review by eclecticemily
John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs by Ian Leslie
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This book ends with a general statement and historical look back at the way male-male relationships have been perceived over time. It makes the statement that in modern culture, people can't understand these types of relationships to have an element of romance without it also being sexual. That perspective is important to keep in mind while reading because the book bills itself in its subtitle as a love story, but it's not writing any kind of fanfic or expose about them having an affair or something, but is instead about a deeper sort of soulmate connection.
The book explores the relationship of John and Paul primarily through a close examination of the songs they wrote, both together and apart. The author also does a close look into the way the songs were produced and performed to examine more about what the songs might be saying. Because of this, it's a good idea to have some way of listening to the songs as they're being discussed. The book is able to briefly go over the lyrics of the song, but for obvious reasons, it can't play the actual music for you even if you're listening to it as an audiobook.
This book is very in depth in its examination of the songs, so even if you're a Beatles buff, you'll probably have something new to take away from it. For me, the biggest takeaway was the way it connected different songs together to weave a story. The song "Hey Jude" was written by Paul about John's son Julian. There's a quote by John talking about the song and saying Paul wrote it for him instead, which I've always seen framed as John being a narcissist, but the book actually supports John's view. It ties it back to the song "She Loves You" which is about a friend advising another friend how to proceed in a relationship and says "Hey Jude" is a continuation of that theme.
The only part where the book falls a bit short is in some of the darker aspects of John and Paul. It addresses briefly some of their cheating and John's abuse, but doesn't discuss it much. This is probably because the focus of the book is the relationship between John and Paul and those elements aren't really relevant to it, but it is a bit strange to be reading a love story about two people when you know at least one of them is an abusive alcoholic.
The book explores the relationship of John and Paul primarily through a close examination of the songs they wrote, both together and apart. The author also does a close look into the way the songs were produced and performed to examine more about what the songs might be saying. Because of this, it's a good idea to have some way of listening to the songs as they're being discussed. The book is able to briefly go over the lyrics of the song, but for obvious reasons, it can't play the actual music for you even if you're listening to it as an audiobook.
This book is very in depth in its examination of the songs, so even if you're a Beatles buff, you'll probably have something new to take away from it. For me, the biggest takeaway was the way it connected different songs together to weave a story. The song "Hey Jude" was written by Paul about John's son Julian. There's a quote by John talking about the song and saying Paul wrote it for him instead, which I've always seen framed as John being a narcissist, but the book actually supports John's view. It ties it back to the song "She Loves You" which is about a friend advising another friend how to proceed in a relationship and says "Hey Jude" is a continuation of that theme.
The only part where the book falls a bit short is in some of the darker aspects of John and Paul. It addresses briefly some of their cheating and John's abuse, but doesn't discuss it much. This is probably because the focus of the book is the relationship between John and Paul and those elements aren't really relevant to it, but it is a bit strange to be reading a love story about two people when you know at least one of them is an abusive alcoholic.