Latest posts by Nancy Carr (see all)
- Hey Dullblog Online Housekeeping Note - May 6, 2022
- Beatles in the 1970s: Melting and Crying - April 13, 2022
- The Beatles, “Let It Be,” and “Get Back”: “Trying to Deceive”? - October 22, 2021
It’s that time again! Yes, another post on housekeeping from Hey Dullblog headquarters. I have two things to highlight:
- We do not and will not publish abusive comments. (Note: this is not directed at anyone who has posted recently on the blog.) This morning I trashed a few of these; today’s targets were John Lennon and a commenter. Be assured that Michael and I have zero tolerance for posts that feature name calling or insults.
- Courtesy and giving people the benefit of the doubt go a long, long way, as I’ve said before. Speaking for myself, I’ve never thought “I should have flamed that person’s comment harder,” but I have thought “Wow, why I did I come in so hot on this?”
I like to think of this blog as a kind of house party, where we’re all hanging out together and sharing thoughts (I envision the Beatles’ townhouses in Help!, which are all interconnected once you open one of the front doors.) I greatly appreciate all of you who approach this place in a similar spirit.
Related posts:
Commenting Standards on Hey Dullblog
I’m So Tired: Responsive Notes on the Phenomenon of Beatle Fatigue
Variety agrees with Hey Dullblog: 2014 is the Year of Ringo
Our Comment Policy, and the Future of Dullblog
Comment Policy
Dullblog’s Greatest Hits
Lies, Damned Lies and Dullblog
Supporting Dullblog.
Help Dullblog Get to 100,000 Views!
Dullblog’s Top Posts of 2015
Happy birthday, Paul! (with a few notes on style)
Yellow Submarine Liner Notes
In the Beatles townhouse of life, I am the groundskeeper with the chattering teeth.
That is a fine, fine thing to be.
I call dibs on the mysteriously frosty housekeeper who secretly controls all.
I’m the bookcase that is definitely not a secret passageway
May I ask what was offensive about my post regarding John’s hands? Someone wondered if Paul’s comment on his beautiful hands should be taken literally. Having perused older articles on your blog, there seems to have been many more Lennon fans posting in the past than there are now. They seemed to have all fled. Wonder why??
Michelle, I am serious about my invitation for you to write a post. A Lennon-focused post by you would be most welcome.
Your comment was not offensive but it was extremely long and had many external links. If you’d like to pare it down I will post it.
One of the reasons many former commenters fled is that the site became dominated for some time by behavior I can only term “internetty” in the most pejorative sense possible. The “Were John And Paul Lovers?” thread, in particular, brought in a bunch of new commenters who seemed solely focused on that issue and who were convinced they had the One True Perspective on it. Too often that thread in particular, and others by extension, devolved into personal attacks and hair-splitting insistence. Michael and I came close to shutting down the blog entirely, because it stopped being a place to have an interesting conversation with other Beatles fans and became a virtual cage match with people who were shouting over each other instead of listening.
For anyone who feels they have an idea for worthwhile content on the blog, please write a post and send it.
Just to give everybody a glimpse behind the curtain: last week, I wrote a post formally closing comments on this site, and converting it to post-only, with commenters invited to write posts. Nancy, and some good, substantive comments convinced me otherwise — but I am still pondering this.
HD is not a message board, it’s a publication; it’s not a public utility, it’s something I, and occasionally Nancy, pay to create and maintain. It ran beautifully for about ten years, and then the culture changed to one I don’t like at all. I don’t like the bickering; I don’t like the Team John OR Team Paul people (why no Team George or Team Ringo? :-); I don’t like the endless return to a few fixed ideas like You’re Insulting John or Paul Never Gets His Due. It’s boring and I don’t want to pay for it.
I have attempted, with little success, to nudge community standards back to where they were from 2008-18 or so. If the comments remain good I’ll keep ’em going; if not, we’ll convert to post-only, or shut ‘er down.
Michael and Nancy,
I just want to say that I really appreciate this site and that you’re keeping comments open for now. I’m mainly someone who browses, but I’ve found this place to be the most hospitable to fans of the whole group and the range of discussion here can’t be beat. Most other active places online seem to be places where things are more specialized, whether they’re groups for people who are interested primarily in collecting or solo years or early years or for people who are fans of one Beatle more than the others. This board is a beautiful one-stop shop where I’ve encountered more ideas and perspectives than I would have anywhere else and where, from where I’m sitting, people talk to different kinds of fans with different perspectives than they might do otherwise. If I were a moderator and someone who paid for the site I’m sure it would look different to me, though, and I respect that something you do for fun (and pay for!) shouldn’t be stressful. I really appreciate this place and the community you’ve built and will do so even if it eventually goes to post-only.
Comment more, @Elly! I know there are lots of lurkers who value Dullblog, because they write me privately. Thank you for your kind words.
@Nancy and Michael, I want you to know I appreciate the site, too. I love the level of discussion; I found the site through the John and Paul thread, as I think I’ve said before, but that was early on in my Beatles-historical discovery and I think I’ve learned a lot and changed my mind a lot since then, and I give credit for much of that to discussion here and how it’s opened my eyes to some of the nuances of this decades-old discussion. I really like that there are few sacred cows — that’s one of the best parts of discourse here. Anyway, I hope you leave discussion open, but I do understand that moderating a bunch of people with very differing points of view and different emotional reactions can be an annoying and thankless job. 😀 So here are some thanks for your work: appreciated!
@Kristy, thank you.
As I said to Michelle below, the reason there are few sacred cows here is probably because John Lennon was a central feature in my formation as a creative person. Even when he was hypocritical, which was frequently, Lennon recognized and valued honesty–he had a core value of trying to see people and life as they are, and accepting them, so you could dispense with the false fronts and publicity and bullshit. If I ever seem particularly hard on him, it’s because I know he knows better.
It doesn’t really matter what opinions people come away with, it’s more that they come away thinking more deeply about a wonderful thing. The Beatles were an instance when Life really exceeded all reasonable expectations, and something wonderful happened. The “dark” stuff we touch on isn’t meant to diminish that, quite the opposite; it is meant to show what kind of odds the Beatles overcame, first to happen, and then to persist for 12 glorious years.
No. No, it wasn’t anyone from the John/Paul thread. These Lennon fans seemed to want to discuss music and/or Beatles history, not dirty laundry. Perhaps that’s why they left.
Michelle, I was saying that a lot of commenters left because of that thread and its effects, even if they didn’t participate in it.
Again, I urge you to submit a post about Lennon’s music or life. Seriously.
Nancy, I realized that’s what you meant right as I hit post. Thanks for the offer. If I get inspired to write something, I just might do that.
@Michelle, I think there were more different commenters early in the site than today; whereas now there are more comments. Until we uninstalled Jetpack a couple months ago, traffic was trending higher than it ever has. Not that this is or should be our metric for success.
Anyway, can you give some specifics on what you mean by “dirty laundry”? I assume you mean the sex and drugs and maybe-the-Ballad-wasnt-true stuff?
It is 2021. Every aspect of the conventional story has been discussed, here and elsewhere. There are no more unreleased tracks. Most of the principals are dead. If discussion is going to continue in the manner we’ve done it here since 2008, it going to have to delve into less and less conventional areas. If that’s not to your taste, and that is fine, there’s a whole internet there for you.
Lennon fans are, like their hero, conflicted about truth. They love him precisely because he seemed to show his real self in public more frequently. But then whenever anybody “goes too far” they squawk.
Too far does not apply here. John Lennon drew himself performing cunnilingus on his wife, and sold the drawings for money. I make no moral judgment on this—at 51, I actually think it’s kind of sweet—I just mean to say he was not a man who cared much for propriety. Furthermore, he used limited, strategic releases of personal information to make money and sell records. More than any other public figure I know of—throughout all history!—talking about John Lennon’s dirty laundry is right and proper, because it is simply following the rules that he established himself. Furthermore, it is putting into practice Lennon’s two main philosophies: tell the truth, and don’t worship celebrities. Any Lennon fan who is squeamish, I say, “Don’t take it up with me, argue with John.”
This is why defending John is silly; it reinforces the image, which he hated. We all love him. He was fascinating and maddening and lovable and a bastard. And the music remains. But even if it doesn’t, he’s just a man. And wherever he is now, he is not injured one whit by any crazy theory on a blog.
@Michelle, I didn’t see the comment but we reserve the right to approve or reject any comment for any reason. You have the WHOLE INTERNET in which to comment. Hey Dullblog isn’t a message board, it’s a publication. Nancy and I are the gatekeepers to a curated community; we try to be as easygoing as possible, but occasionally something comes through that we have to trash. Apparently that happened here?
The composition of our commenters has shifted multiple times over the 13 years of this site, but here’s the thing: HD is for BEATLES fans. Not “John fans” or “Paul fans”. If there is one thing that I think has really reduced the quality of our discourse, it’s been the appearance of an intense and peculiar John/Paul partisanship, which we did not have much of for the first years of the site. Picking one Beatle and defending him seems silly to me; it seems like exactly the kind of fan-behavior that John Lennon himself did not respect. John Lennon did not need fans to defend him; he certainly doesn’t need that now.
I love and am fascinated by all four Beatles; my love and fascination does not generally extend to the solo years. My definition of love includes critique–all four were amazing, I certainly take that as read, and you should, too, when reading anything I write. I really try to avoid picking a favorite, or even getting too sure of any one vision of J/P/G/R. I think image-making, and worship. did each of them a lot of damage. I try to be interested, but not worshipful, and I try to remember that they were people, not images in my mind.
I’ll grant you this is a personal, idiosyncratic relationship to The Beatles — but it’s the vision that’s created this site, in all its weaknesses and strengths. I hope you enjoy HD, but it is what it is. John will be criticized; so will Paul; so will George; so will Ringo. They are towering figures, and our beloved Uncles–they can take it. It’s FANS who can’t, and that’s a note to examine one’s relationship for overinvestment.
Michael and Nancy, I can understand your frustration, I think many feel frustrated. I’m not a John vs Paul vs George vs Ringo person, believe me. I am a Beatles fan. I grew up with the band. But it seems to me that a very post on Paul McCartney: The Lyrics should be exactly that: Paul McCartney: The Lyrics. Let’s Give Paul his Due? Why not? I took the post to be about him, not John, not George nor Ringo. I don’t know why it turned into a can of worms, but it seems anything about McCartney does exactly that. So it’s then about John’s lyrics, his IQ, about George’s grievances, about Paul, the overbearing controller (again), about left-out Ringo. What has any of this got to do with McCartney’s lyrics? In that case, I don’t see why any serious discussion should preclude an attempt to provide some perspective on the man, his songs, or his relationships with the others. But I’d much rather feel I didn’t have to.
Michael, I found this blog late, and after reading through the older posts (2008 on) and comments, I can see why you are frustrated.
I don’t know why people are suddenly John vs Paul, and why the partisanship is so intense. As a politico, I wonder if the extreme partisanship in our politics has carried over into other aspects of society. We are a polarized country, but it seems crazy for The Beatles to get mixed up in that. I don’t know.
No matter what you decide to do with this blog, I appreciate and respect you, and Nancy, and all the great writing here. I’ve learned so much, and have expanded my views on what the Beatles mean to me, and the world.
I also agree with Elly’s comment that this should be fun for you, not stressful. Life is stressful enough. After all, The Beatles were fun, and joy and love.
I will continue to read no matter what you decide. I do think you should make a book of the best posts and comments here. I would buy it!
@Tasmin, thank you — and thank you for reading back. Those early years, when both Devin and I were going full tilt boogie on HD, are particularly interesting. I was very very ill, so posting to Dullblog was about all I could muster; but I was coming off of several years of intense study on the Beatles and John Lennon so I had a lot of new, strong opinions, and ones that I didn’t (and still don’t) see many places. And Devin is probably the best, most interesting writer on the Beatles that I’ve ever read. If you haven’t read his book Magic Circles, you should. You will see the group differently afterwards. He has a truly brilliant critical mind; and I was bringing my usual Sixties-obsessed historical intuition, so we went some interesting places.
Nancy has brought an entirely new perspective herself, which I enjoy.
I think that the manner of communication created by political partisanship has bled over into all aspects of the internet. This is to some degree why my magazine is print, and has a merely gestural web presence. I find the internet toxic; it is engineered to make people crazy and at each other’s throats. I am determined to keep Dullblog reasonably sane, and I think Nancy would say the same.
@Michael Gerber, I tell you what — when I get my hopefully inevitable Amazon gift cards for my birthday, I’ll finally spring for a copy of Magic Circles. There’s no e-book, so I’ll continue one of the few perks of the pandemic and get another package in the mail.
You won’t regret it! 🙂
Just ordered my copy!
As a new reader/participant here, I would like to second what Elly and Kristy have said. You have a great site that is intelligent yet accessible. Informative yet always interesting. You also have a great archive of material explore.
I hope your comment section stays open as it is interesting to read the various views and opinions although I can imagine (no pun intended) that having to moderate contentious content must be a drain that simply proves too much.
Well, thanks everybody. I edit/design/publish a whole magazine by myself which is an insane workload, and Nancy has a tremendously full plate as well. So Dullblog simply can’t make me EDIT. I’m happy to comment, to post, to moderate a bit–but the community here can’t require the same kind of patient tending that I did in 2012.
Commenters come and go; they say what they have to say on the topic, and move along. So the people who get the feel for commenting here–almost any opinion is acceptable, as long as it’s reasonably arrived at, and lightly held–eventually leave, and people used to the slash-and-burn of the rest of the ‘net come along and I have to demonstrate over and over how we do things. Put simply, if a topic this unimportant, and wonderful, causes anyone a moment of angst, something is very wrong and should be pointed out.
Passion is welcome; eccentricity is welcome; but commenters here must cop to what’s really going on: you are speaking about YOURSELF, for YOURSELF. The opinions you hold tell us who you are, whether you realize it or not. When I talk about the Beatles fitting into the alcoholic family pattern, or talk about John’s addict-like self-mythologizing, I’m drawing on my own experiences, and trying to use my interest in the Beatles to learn more about myself…and the Beatles, too.
Commenters in the grips of attack/defend, who lack the self-awareness to realize that their opinions say much more about themselves than the topic at hand — it’s pixels in service of self-delusion, and while I can’t change the world, I want so much better than that, for all of you.
I’m fortunate that I don’t live in a polarizing country, but in a progressive liberal one. Also a resilient one that has been hit hard by various events in recent years. There is no room for worship here. There are bigger things in life than the Beatles, however much we love them, however interesting we think they are, however interesting we think we are. This John/Paul dichotomy is not new, unfortunately, and with due respect to all Americans, it was largely created by an America just as divisive and polarizing in 1970 as it is now. And after John’s murder, the rest of the world galloped away with it. Lionizing one over the other diminished them both, it diminished the Beatles. Perhaps in some way it was a blessing in disguise that Brian Epstein died. He would be truly heartbroken if could see what happened to his beloved Beatles, his John and Paul. It was bad enough for the rest of us so God knows what it would have been like for Brian.
While the marketing of the Beatles is certainly part of this story, I think the fandom changed irrevocably when John Lennon, the Chief Beatle if such a thing was possible, publicly trashed and dismissed Paul McCartney, the worlds biggest Beatles fan. JOHN, not some Yank marketing man, defined those two as opposites, insisted fans choose, and then pretended like the choice was indicative of something.
That John did it for the pettiest, stupidest of reasons—ego and record sales—makes it even worse. He spent the rest of his life walking this back, and surely would’ve continued had he lived.
I don’t think John realized what he was doing in 1970. I don’t think he ever really realized what his group meant to people, not in a screamy way, but artistically. I think he was beginning to realize this in 1976-80. But of course he was one of the four people on earth who lived in a world without the Beatles; he lived in a world where he was in a band with three friends which would occasionally piss him off.
Was this thrashing of Paul McCartney done by John in the form of a press release inside the Plastic Ono Band album? I’ll grant you he probably did it for ego, but record sales? Nah…
Believe me, I’m tired of defending John.
What I mean to say is, I have praised Paul plenty on here – saying he was an underrated lyricist, brilliant, funny in his own way, etc. This is not a John vs Paul thing with me.
I don’t see how Paul’s press release thrashed John or the Beatles (as for Klein, yep). In my opinion, if it hadn’t been for a headline he didn’t write, nobody would have thought Paul announced the breakup.
See my comment. I’m talking about “Lennon Remembers.”
When asked about John, his peace efforts and the Plastic Ono Band, Paul said, “It doesn’t give me any pleasure.” Now, kudos to him for giving an honest answer. But he’s the one that asked the question, turning it into as much a criticism as anything John said later, when asked by an actual journalist, about Paul’s album (which, by the way, contained a song that had this bit of snark: “Singing songs that I thought were mine alone.”) The mud slinging came from both sides, sorry. Paul isn’t this weak victim who doesn’t have control over his own image.
@Michelle, (no reply-y-y-y link), it’s a matter of bias – mind and yours. For my part, I see that Paul also said he loved and respected what John did. And I REALLY don’t see any snark in that lyric – I see it as he was heartbroken but now he has someone to share his songs and his life with. John had said he wanted to end the myth of the Lennon-McCartney credit in September of 1969, which probably stung, especially since they had worked on some songs together on the last two albums.
I find the snarkiest thing on Ram to be the two-beetles photo, with the “preaching practices” line being so oblique that I doubt anyone would have caught it if John hadn’t called it out. And Ram DID come after Lennon Remembers.
My view is that John was in the habit of bringing a knife to fistfight. Paul was and is strong, and I see John as having had a need to squash him like the aforementioned beetle (yuck) in order to feel strong himself.
@Laura – Thanks for the laugh. I get where you’re coming from.
No, I was referring to “Lennon Remembers.” We are used to it now, but back then? The Beatles were as close to holy as the counterculture admitted, and you might have a favorite but…dissing a Beatle? Only another Beatle had the juice to make that stick. In 1971, John was probably second only to Dylan in how totally countercultural people trusted his integrity and authenticity. So when he aired all that dirty laundry, and painted his former bandmate in an unflattering light–and in ways that Paul couldn’t really argue against (“I’m not a control freak! I’m not square! I’m not the World’s Greatest PR man!”)–it forced Beatles fans to choose. They’d always been encouraged to have favorites by lame-brained PR (Smart Beatle, Cute Beatle, Quiet Beatle, Funny Beatle), but that was 1964; this was 1971, and people who had been tribal 12-year-olds were now politically aware adults of 18/19.
John attacked Paul in a very precise way, a way that split Paul irrevocably from “the counterculture.” After that interview, if you were politically aware or hip, you couldn’t really dig Paul McCartney. That’s why Rolling Stone couldn’t see how awesome RAM was; because there was a concerted effort, led by John, to paint Paul as at best a fuddy-duddy, and at worst counterrevolutionary. Someone like that by definition couldn’t make a great rock album. It was against everything rock-culture believed about itself.
John never really healed this rift, and only he could’ve. It can still be felt at places like Beatlefest, where people split into John-tribe and Paul-tribe–which is a clear sign that they’re not really thinking of these guys or their group very deeply. Every bad, or good, thing you can say about the one guy exists in the other. That’s why they were the perfect collaborators.
Some critics didn’t like RAM because the lyrics are kind of dumb. If John wrote lyrics that weren’t up to his standards, such as on Mind Games (save for the title song), the critics were merciless. The critics were merciless with STINYC too. Critics are big on lyrics. Once Paul started writing better lyrics, such as on Tug of War, through Flaming Pie and to the present, his reviews were much more favorable. I can’t believe you think the critics were pro-John, anti-Paul for something John said in an interview.
Believe it, sister! I do indeed think that the opinions John expressed in “Lennon Remembers” became holy writ, not just to Jann Wenner, but also to the critics he directed—not just edited or published, but directed—in Rolling Stone. And from Rolling Stone, became the shibboleths of the counterculture—how most music fans looked at both John and Paul in the 70s.
That belief, backed up by every source I’ve read, most specifically Joe Hagan’s Sticky Fingers, is fundamental to my idea of John and Paul’s cultural profile in the first essential years after the breakup. The post-Beatles reputation of both men was pretty firmly set during that period, and hasn’t shifted much since.
It’s conventional to believe that Paul’s post Beatle work—especially McCartney, the single Another Day, and RAM—were unfairly panned by critics at the time of release, and are now either classics, or at least very fine examples of McCartney’s work.
Compare the reception of POB which was—whether the individual critic thought it was Pepper-level genius or not—considered serious work by a serious important artist…even though in retrospect it’s been probably less influential, all things considered, than RAM.
John’s work, STINYC included, has always been protected by the idea that “he’s an artist doing something important, so even if you don’t like it, you have to respect it” just like Paul’s work has always had the “out” of Pauls commerciality—“he’s just trying to sell records.” Both men came in for their licks, and while Lennon was probably unfairly treated by audiences/fans, Paul was unfairly treated by critics. That’s the standard story, and it’s been a stable narrative for decades now.
Really good point about the critics Wenner promoted, Michael. I’d like to amplify this a bit — I know you’ve made similar points before.
I think it’s virtually impossible to overstate how much power Rolling Stone and a handful of critics publishing elsewhere had over the perception of music and popular culture in the 1970s — and even into the 1980s. There was no social media, there were a limited number of television channels, and a few media outlets had a reach and ability to define the discourse that is hard to believe today.
Take Robert Christgau, the self-proclaimed “Dean Of American Rock Critics,” who wrote the “Christgau Consumer Guide” for Creem magazine for years and gave out letter grades to albums. (Ram got a C+; Red Rose Speedway got a D+). In an era where people couldn’t easily listen to music on demand, critics like Christgau could shape whether people even bothered to try out a particular album or artist. Digital listening on demand has pretty well vaporized the kind of sway that Christgau and a few others once held.
I think the ultimate expression of the Rolling Stone standard Lennon/Ono narrative is The Ballad of John and Yoko, an anthology produced in 1982 by the editors of Rolling Stone. One of the essays, by Christgau and John Picarella, is titled “Portrait of the Artist as a Rock and Roll Star,” and in it the two men do their damndest to prove that Lennon was the band’s one true genius. Anyone who doubts the force this point of view once had should check out this piece.
It’s not just the passing of time that has led to a reevaluation of the Beatles and Beatles’ solo work, it’s the fact that far more people can share their experiences and opinions in relatively public way. As much power as some media outlets and social media influencers possess now, the landscape of commentary has diversified and shifted in ways that don’t allow for the same kind of totalizing narrative that Rolling Stone and others were able to build (and not just about Lennon and the Beatles) for a time.
Agreed, 1000%, and I consider it one of the jobs of us Gen X fans to really emphasize how 1) monoculture narratives used to dominate, and 2) how the shock and sorrow of Lennon’s murder really caused John to become elevated at the expense of the others. It was common for John’s opinions on everything to be accepted without criticism from December 9, 1980 until The Anthology. When “Spies Like Us” or “My Brave Face” or “Say Say Say” or a million other McCartney songs come out, they were viewed with Lennon’s opinions on Paul foregrounded. “More weak stuff! What do you expect? He’s the ‘World’s Greatest PR man’? He put the Beatles into suits! John said so!”
This is, in part, why I’m so rough on the “give Paul his due” crowd here — Paul is neither the drip John sometimes said he was, nor solely a victim; we must try to see him clearly outside of the narratives, and that’s hard because his talent is so big and he’s done so much, and has chosen to remain hidden in plain sight.
But in the post, I was actually referring to Wenner’s Editor-in-Chief habit of reading reviewers and sending them back for rewrites if the review didn’t agree with his personal taste. No Beatle/solo review in RS, especially not 1968-1985 or so, should be considered independent of Wenner’s opinions, taste, and commercial drives. We know he wanted to curry favor with Lennon, and later, Ono; currying favor with Ono made him a LOT of money.
Wenner sucks up to Ono; Ono consents to books like “The Ballad of John and Yoko”; the content of that book is tuned to “John (and by extension Yoko) was a genius”; and everybody makes a packet via the mythologizing of Lennon. Lennon-as-icon, Lennon-as-product.
And the problem with that is, journalists now quote articles like “Portrait of the Artist as a Rock and Roll Star” as if it were history. And so the myths are embedded into the foundation.
@Michael, I realize what you were talking about. I was responding to Michelle, and unless I’m mistaken, she was obliquely referencing Paul’s press release as trashing John before John trashed Paul. So much trash!
I swear I clicked the correct “Reply” but I should have added her name for the sake of clarity.
@Nancy
Thanks to you and Michael for more of this context! I need to read Christgau’ and Picarella’s “Portrait of the Artist.”
I’m wondering how John’s in-print putdowns of George/George’s music played out with critics as well. Christgau’s 12/22/80 Village Voice piece where he questions why it’s always people like John who are taken rather than people like Paul suggests that George and Ringo aren’t “worthy” in the way John was either, but I’m wondering how much of that attitude was in print before December 1980 with respect to George and Ringo.
Graeme Thomson’s biography of George describes John hearing some of the ATMP sessions and being “blown away” with how good it was, but then suggests “That Lennon was later characteristically derogatory in print about the music was, perhaps, an even greater compliment. He tended to strike only when he felt threatened.” George potentially believing that these printed put-downs were ultimately compliments possibly helps explain why he didn’t have a problem playing with John later. I wonder, though, whether people like Wenner or Christgau, not knowing (or maybe not caring) that these put-downs could be seen as compliments trashed George’s work as much as Paul’s? I know George’s solo reputation had started to suffer after ATMP, but I wonder how much John’s appraisal of his work had an effect on Wenner/Christgau and other critics and also how much of an effect it ultimately ended up having on George’s legacy, because what critics said then doesn’t seem to have stuck to George nearly as much as Paul.
@Michael G- I agree. This is why arguments should not be broadcasted for everyone to witness, especially if you’re later going to have a change of heart. I will also add that outsiders fueled the division too. Such as saying that John was the Beatles, no one hurt John more than Paul, and how Paul was Salieri to John’s Mozart. Saying things like this will definitely cause people to take sides. It’s quite sad because as you said, he disavowed it and spent the rest of his life rebuking those statements.
I agree with you and Michael both, Kir. John’s trashing of Paul followed by John’s murder are what make the Beatles story so compelling. Add all that fuel to the fire you mentioned and it’s… pathos city.
Admittedly, the “John vs. Paul” thing is endemic to most other adult forums I’ve seen for Beatles discussion– a place like tumblr allows you to curate your experience by unfollowing or blocking people who like to wank, but other forums, of the more “traditional fan” type, let’s say, feature the JvP fight daily. Add in that I’m new and I’ve tried to read a hundred Beatles books in a couple of years, all books with their own agendas and narratives, and the fandom goes from being fun sometimes to really frustrating because I expected better. Erin Weber’s book on historical method and the Beatles has been really fascinating in that arena.
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Anyway, I have no delusions that I haven’t felt the weight of that baggage when I form my opinions and thoughts, though I have tried to LEARN to moderate that for HD at least, and will continue to try better. 😀
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I’ve seen it bandied about that really young people practice Beatles fandom on places like Instagram and TikTok, and the thought of trying to have any kind of discussion there fills me with horror. Apparently it’s rife with call-outs for various ~isms and ~phobias and problematic behaviors, discussions that are completely useless outside of a context and emotion and knowledge of the fact that humans are just messed up. Which HD has in spades– thanks again.
@Kristy, Erin commented here for a time before she started her own blog and book. I don’t know if you can search for specific commenters, but if you can, you should — her comments were always just great; really added a lot.
I am endlessly impatient with historians–or, rather, I get impatient because historians can only say what they can prove, and most of life does not leave the kinds of source material that historians recognize. Unlike historians of the past, there is no, or very little, room for character analysis or intuition in the modern academic historian’s art — and that’s a big problem when you’re examining human beings, which are fundamentally emotional, irrational, mysterious to the core.
I’m new to this blog, but I enjoy the discussions. However, I can understand why the both of you may want to step back from it. I haven’t been in this fandom long, but I can see the division. I hope you and Nancy decide to keep the blog, even you guys decide to remove the comment section.
I’ve been a Beatle fan for 30+ years. The more I’ve read and studied, the more I’ve realized that the Beatles were a culture changing phenomenon because of the 4 members. The alchemy of John, Paul, George and Ringo was magic. Take away any one of them, and you change the dynamic.
As for John and Paul, the Beatles would never have existed had they not met and became friends/band mates. So the John vs Paul thing is ludicrous. The answer is, John AND Paul. The more you read and study The Beatles, the clearer this becomes.
I guess that’s the million dollar question. As talented as Paul John George Ringo were individually would we even have heard of them or be talking about them over 50 years later if they had been solo artists instead of Beatles?
I don’t think so. At least not 50 years later.
Paul, I believe, would have had some career in music. He was born to make music, and whether he was just a songwriter, or an entertainer, he would have had some success.
John- I just don’t know.
Ringo – would have went on to moderate success, I think.
George – I’m not sure if he would have went into music. He said once he would have liked to have been a gardener. I don’t think he had a passion to make music like Paul or even Ringo.
McCartney is a songwriter in his own right. He doesn’t need Beatle fans declaring John was looking down on him from heaven whenever he writes a good song, or whenever he writes a bad song, then he’s sorely missing John – who would surely put him right, right? He doesn’t need Lennon’s approval but fans seem to think he does. And if does need it, then I’d say it’s up to Paul to state, not them. It’s not fair on either of them. Good songs, bad songs. Same for Bowie, Dylan, Elton, Costello, you name them. These guys were Paul’s contemporaries, not John, perhaps even before his death. I’ve never seen Paul as a drip (although guilty of terrible judgement at times) or a victim. I do think he’s become the scapegoat. I don’t regard perspective or balance the same as giving him his due. They mean quite different things.
Paul doesn’t need Beatle fans declaring that John is critiquing his work from heaven, because Paul himself says he consults with John to this day as he’s writing. You must have heard this before; if not I’ll dig up one of the articles. It’s a little absurd to say that John, with whom Paul rose to fame and experienced things for the first time every step of the way, wasn’t Paul’s contemporary. Was John actually time travelling during the ’60s?
Paul say that he still consults John as recently as last year in an interview promoting McCartney III.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.uncut.co.uk/features/paul-mccartney-still-consults-john-lennon-128539/%3Famp
Do you often mentally consult John when you’re writing?
Yeah, often. We collaborated for so long, I think, ‘OK, what would he think of this? What would be say now?’ We’d both agree that this new song I’m taking about is going nowhere. So instead of sitting around, we’d destroy it and remake it. I started that process yesterday in the studio. I took the vocal off it and decided to write a new vocal. I think it’s heading in a better direction now. Anyway, it keeps me off the streets!
@Michelle, with due respect, I did say in my comment let Paul speak for himself, which you rightly pointed out. Does this also mean that when Paul writes a clunker, he also consults John in his head? I didn’t say anything about John not being Paul’s contemporary during the sixties. From 1970, all four as solo artists, and no longer working together, found new contemporaries.
Paul writing a clunker would give him even more reason to point the finger at John. 🙂