#lewisohn's monsters

[mythserene]

A BEATLE DIDN’T SAY THAT! Lewisohn’s lab-created quotes

“One of the things about this book that is a strength is it’s not me saying anything, it’s them or other people. I shape the text, I plot where it goes, I weave it, but the quotes are theirs. And so when I’ve got Paul McCartney behaving in a way some readers might think, ‘Whatever, oh dear,’ it’s actually him saying it. So you end up thinking that to his own credit he said that. It’s not me saying it.” (Mark Lewisohn, ‘Noted,’ (October 7, 2013) Somerset, Guy.)

This is hella long, and that's because it's actually a full blog post. (In case you want it in a less monstrous form.)

A lot of people for a long time have put a lot of trust in Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes. Or at least in the fact of those footnotes. Because once you dig through them for any length of time you quickly discover that Mark Lewisohn’s footnotes hold secrets that would get him expelled from any undergraduate program. They reveal a “history” often contrived through a mass of Frankenquotes, ala carte creations, Lewisohn rephrased ‘paraphrases,’ and worse. For some parts of the narrative things aren’t too bad, yet in others monsters lurk around every corner. But this is not the sort of thing that’s graded on a curve, and it is past time to have a conversation about what standards should be accepted in Beatles’ scholarship.

Lewisohn lists his sources unlike most others. And his footnotes alone are more insightful than some other writers’ books. (Reddit, r/beatles)

I do not judge footnotes based on their insightfulness, nor do I want to single out a redditor, but I grabbed the comment because it’s an opinion that is widely shared and even accepted as canon. At least by people who have not combed those freakish footnotes. And while the pages of piled up sources do look fearsome en masse, a closer inspection reveals an offense to the truth, a threat to the record, and a blight on Beatles’ historiography.

“The rules for writing history are obvious. Who does not perceive that its chief law is never to dare say anything false, and never dare withhold anything true? The slightest suspicion of hatred or favor must be avoided. That such should be the foundations is known to all; the materials with which the building will be raised consist of facts and words.” –Cicero

A Look at Lewisohn’s Lab-created Frankenquotes

FIRST, WHAT ARE QUOTES? AND WHY ARE QUOTES?

Quotes are the soul and center of recorded—and recording— history.

And the rules around quotes and quotation marks are pretty simple. Most people, even if they’ve never written anything beyond a term paper, understand what quotation marks represent.

A set of quotation marks means, “This person said or wrote ‘these exact words’ at some given time.” You can smash a quote from two hours before or two years before right up against a separate quote to make your point—although it might get your grade lowered—but what you cannot do is take two different statements from two different times and make them seem like they are one statement.

When you put words inside one set of quotation marks you are stating, in black and white, that the identified person made this statement. That they said all those words together—or if you want to excise a reasonable part and use ellipses to represent that— as part of the same statement.

Look, combining two separate quotes that are not part of the same thought or topic is not a subjective issue. It is not an issue of controversy. Quotes are the bone marrow of written history. Quotes are the alpha and omega. In academic work or journalism they have to be, which makes sense as soon as you think about it. If it was cool for me to take a transcript and grab half a sentence from page 2 and half a sentence from page 17, push them together as if those words were spoken one after the other in a single thought, I bet I can manage to get those words to say almost anything I want.

Separate thoughts must be in two separate quotation marks. Separate. Somewhere between four sentences and a paragraph is widely accepted as the “two separate quotes” line, and there can be some ethical and technical wiggle room in a long rant by a person, but what makes all that subjective nonsense go out the window is if the quotes come from two separate questions. Or two separate days. That’s two quotes. Not hard.

Which again, makes sense if the point is conveying information to the reader and lessening the chance of a writer manipulating someone else’s words to express something that the person didn’t mean.

This is the contract inherent in a quote. These are the rules we all agree to and understand, and these are the reasons why. And there’s no reason to break them.

Why do you want me to believe that John said these two things at one time? What was wrong with what he did say?

THE FOUR MOST COMMON WAYS MARK LEWISOHN MAULS THE MEANING OF THE QUOTE:

The Basic Lewisohn Frankenquote 🧟‍♂️

(“CONCLUDING FIVE WORDS FROM—” – I cannot even see the point of this THREE PART monster. Full footnote reads: 9) Author interview with Tony Meehan, September 6, 1995. (“I met George again in 1968 and for some reason he was harboring a grudge against me. He was very, very uptight about it—’You blocked us getting a recording contract …’ ”) First part of George quote from interview by Terry David Mulligan, The Great Canadian Gold Rush, CBC radio, May 30 and June 6, 1977; concluding five words from interview for The Beatles Anthology)

This three-headed monster attributed to George Harrison is a very dull little guy. Not particularly venomous. Just convenient, I guess. For whatever reason, Mark Lewisohn decided it was worth rummaging through the quote buffet until he collected enough pieces for George Harrison to say this thing. “…concluding five words from…” What are we even doing here? No, really. Please tell me.

And like a lot of the footnotes for these bespoke quotations, there are further problems. “[F]rom interview for Beatles Anthology”? An interview that aired? In one of the episodes? Can you narrow it down? I guess I’ll just have to listen very closely to them all and hope I don’t miss the five words.

But if we got bogged down in the sorts of trivial details that would immediately lose a college student a letter grade off a History 101 paper we would never get anywhere. We have to stick to the violent felonies.

*Love the "George would say——" Uh, would he? Well, I guess after all that trouble you went to, he would now. It's really incredible how cavalier Lewisohn is about a Beatle's words.

These sorts of reconstituted, lab-engineered, made up “quotes” are shot throughout Tune In. “Quotes” made up of words from two, three, and even four sources, spoken months or often years apart.

Ala Carte Creations 🍱

It really is a buffet, and these ala carte creations come in all shapes and sizes. They might just be words that have been plucked up and glued back together to make something more useful to a particular narrative. (Ellipses or dash optional.)

TUNE IN: “John saw a bigger picture, and it would be surprising if it wasn’t equally obvious, or made obvious, to Brian and George. He likened Paul’s enduring snag with Brian to his other long-standing difficulty: ‘[Brian] and Paul didn’t get along—it was a bit like [Stuart and Paul] between the two of them.’” (Footnote 37: Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971)

Bonus 🍒 Phoebe's dramatic reading of John's original quote:

The Donut 🍩

Then there are a seemingly uncountable number of “quotes” with a sentence or three ripped out from the middle, but with zero representation that more words were ever there. (And in most of these particular deceptions, the simple representation of something excised (. . .) would make the quote fine. There are a lot of these, but they are also the easiest to fix.)

Chapter 10: “I was in a sort of blind rage for two years. [I was e]ither drunk or fighting. **It had been the same with other girlfriends I’d had.** There was something the matter with me.”

And then there are the true buffet bonanzas, words lifted and twisted beyond recognition until they say something brand spanking new. 

However, John remembered Paul’s attitude to Brian being very different. John was always emphatic that Paul didn’t want Brian as the Beatles’ manager and presented obstacles to destabilize him, to make his job difficult … like turning up late for meetings. “Three of us chose Epstein. Paul used to sulk and God knows what … [Paul] wasn’t that keen [on Brian]—he’s more conservative, the way he approaches things. He even says that: it’s nothing he denies.”

The Lewisohn Remixes 🍸

And then there are the “paraphrases.” I couldn’t even begin to guess how many of these there are, and often they aren’t even paraphrases, but whole new Mark Lewisohn re-interpretations with quotation marks slapped around them. But if you don’t check, you probably won’t know, because like this Lewisohn rewrite of a well-known Mrs. Harrison quote, there’s a good chance you’ll recognize the bulk of it, making it less likely that you’ll catch the scalpel work excising Paul. And while I don’t want to get caught in the nooks and crannies of intent in an example like this one I have to say, just this once, that what has to be a purposeful excising of Paul to create a slightly new quote on one side, combined with a badly acted, bad faith—(or bad scholar)—“Where was Paul when John’s mom died?” on the other, is par for the course. 

George Harrison’s mom’s made up Lewisohn rephrase which coincidentally removes Paul from the imagery.]  ❦  LEWISOHN:“ Asked some years later to describe how he’d been able to help John cope with the loss of Julia, Paul could remember nothing of the period at all. It could be they didn’t see much of each other in the summer of 1958. John was working at the airport, and Paul and George went on holiday together—adventurous for boys of 16 and 15. But Louise Harrison would recall how she encouraged George to visit John at Mendips, “so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.”  ❦  DAVIES: “They were still practicing a lot at George’s house, the only house where they got endless hospitality and encouragement. . . . I forced George to go round and see him, to make sure he still went off playing in their group and just didn’t sit and brood. They all went through a lot together, even in those early days, and they always helped each other.”

Why do you have to slice and dice and reconstitute people’s words? No writer, and certainly no historian, should ever feel empowered to take words from a historical figure from two or three different places and topics and times, splice them together, and tell us, “Winston Churchill said this.” No he didn’t! Why are you so intent on changing the words of the people you’re writing about? What’s wrong with just using two different quotes? 

You cannot take two or three quotes from two or three or even four separate statements, stick them between one set of quotation marks and say John or Paul or George or Joe Smith said this. 

No they didn’t. They never said that. Why do you want me to think they did?? 

All these words are Abraham Lincoln’s, but this is not a Lincoln quote:

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of — making a most discreditable exhibition of myself.” 

(I kept it ridiculous, although I didn’t have to.)

But I want you, the reader, to be saying to yourself, “Okay, enough already. I get it!” Because in the last few days I have wandered too far into the weeds too many times and written far too many words detailing the multiplicity of ways Mr. Lewisohn does violence to each and every law of reporting historical facts, and could write many more. And I will post a more detailed list of the crimes against the quote that I am charging Mark Lewisohn with as we go forward, but I don’t think we need that now. The fact is that every fair-minded person knows what quotation marks represent, and there is no more fair-minded group of people than serious Beatles fans and scholars. And it is those fair-minded scholars who I want most to hear me. Whether you’ve written books or host a podcast or just know that you know a whole lot of stuff and take seriously your part of the trust in preserving the truth about The Beatles for us and future generations, it is you I am really talking to. My Cicero quoting-freaks. The ones who care about getting it right.

“The chief, the only, aim of style is to put facts in a clear light, with no concealment.” - Lucian of Samosata

⁠What footnotes can do, and what footnotes can’t.

You can list multiple sources in a single footnote. That’s not only fine, it’s correct. If I want to tell part of a story based on several sources, that often means several sources in a footnote. But not for one, single quote. 

The problem isn’t the footnote, it’s the bioengineered quote on the page that you swept under a footnote hoping I wouldn’t notice. 

Which leads us to what a footnote is not. A footnote is not a post-hoc fixative for your textual sins. You cannot do whatever you want as long as you confess it in a footnote. A footnote is not a magic spell. A footnote is not the universally understood symbol for “I have my fingers crossed behind my back.” You cannot fix lies and misrepresentations in the footnotes. Footnotes aren’t for trying to chase down three different sources to match up which part of a manufactured “quote” someone said on which date. Footnotes are not the picture on the front of a puzzle box. I should not need to find corner pieces to figure out which of these George Harrison words were actually spoken together. 

Footnotes are a truthful and independently verifiable record of primary sources. It’s that simple.

And taking Mark Lewisohn completely out of the picture for a moment, I feel sure we can all agree that neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney nor George Harrison nor Ritchie Starkey would want anyone rearranging their words as if they were guitar chords. You wouldn’t take three-quarters of Penny Lane and one-quarter of Across the Universe, put them together and call it a Beatles‘ song. So don’t take three quarters of John to Jann Wenner and one-quarter of John to Lisa Robinson, put them together and call it a Beatle’s quote.

MY PERSONAL STANDARD IS THAT IF SOMEONE REPRESENTS, “A BEATLE SAID THIS,” IT BETTER DAMN WELL BE SOMETHING A BEATLE SAID.

None of the Beatles, dead or alive, would be cool with their words being taken out of context at all, let alone two or three different statements on god knows what being combined into one. This isn’t hard, though. Use two or three separate quotation marks, and don’t take statements out of context. Don’t mix and match their words, but don’t twist them, either. If a person said something, it is the historian’s duty to represent those words to the best of your ability, and then use them to tell a factual story focused on what you feel is important. Staying true to the original words and true to their meaning. If you can’t use those words without twisting them, then change your story to fit their words, not the other way around. If their statement helps tell the story your way, use it! For goodness sake, John Lennon said at least two opposing things about almost every topic on earth, so there should be enough to choose from without being deceptive. I actually want the truth. Don’t you?

Biography is story based around accurately represented, trustworthy and verifiable facts. And look, Beatles fans, whoever your favorite is: we are not going to get the truth about his history if we don’t learn to take these things seriously. Let’s have—if not high standards—at least the lowest generally accepted standards. In the mid-term we need a lot more Beatles scholars with a lot more points of view, and now—right now—we need experienced Beatles scholars to prioritize searching out and finding smart, interested people to mentor. And we simply must ensure that we aren’t allowing to solidify into stone “facts” that are not facts and statements no one ever made. I don’t think any honest Beatles fan—(which rounds up to all of them)—wants any question around that issue.

The record is the most important thing. Now, and always. This is not about John versus Paul. John versus Paul may live on always in our hearts, but for Beatles history, it’s the wrong question. I’d rather someone be up front about their loves, but in the end the focus should be on representing the primary facts in their most pristine form. Love who you love most, but place truth above all. Pristine facts. Pristine quotes. Nothing hidden. Nothing misrepresented. 

Let the historical actors speak for themselves. That is their right.

And the historian’s duty.

NEXT, WE DISSECT A MONSTER.

Final note: I became frustrated and (maybe strangely) offended by Lewisohn's obscene pretenses in 2020, but my frustrations were nebulous and unfocused until this incredible AKOM series. I feel much better now. Angrier. But better. They worked their asses off. 🥂

[mydaroga]

All of the messages were recorded live although at one point in the proceedings Paul asked George Martin to feed playback tape echo into the studio as they spoke. George replied, with heavy sarcasm, “Do you want to make a production out of it?” George Harrison then chipped in with “Yeah, let’s double-track everything!” and John offered his suggestion, “He can double-splange them! That’d be great!"

The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions Mark Lewisohn

The occasion was the recording of spoken holiday messages on 6 December 1966 for pirate radio stations

[anotherkindofmindpod]

"To their great credit, Little, Brown (my UK publisher: round of applause genuinely deserved) said they wanted to issue the whole thing, all 780,000 words, as a premium-edition item. However, I still had to create a mainstream book (which we've called the trade edition), because a 1700-page tome j-u-s-t might deter the casual buyer. I spent three further months picking apart the full version's intricately-woven tapestry, reducing the word-count and then stitching it back together to leave no holes. Everything necessary is still present but what’s gone is even more colour and layers of depth and perception. This is how we've ended up with two different products: the 960-page book (October 2013) and the 1728-page monster (November 2013). It's everything I wrote, and I'm very proud of it. More to the point, I'm happy with both books."

-Mark Lewisohn on Tune In

[longforyesterday]

part 1/2 thanks for sharing everything you find interesting in that book. I feel like you've posted half of the book here and I didn't see anyone mention appreciating it. so yeah, thanks for that. just a few things (my personal opinions of course) : I get the feeling that Erin Torkelson Weber, The Beatles and the Historians is heavily biased, basically everything he says is about comparing john vs paul, and sometimes biographers vs biographers, even while he criticizes others for being so

2/2 for instance, the meaning behind "paul being a PR man" was distorted. being a PR man isn't necessarily about giving as many interviews as possible. it's purely about how you present your image in the media. john and yoko were all over the news during the early 70s when paul clearly avoided any raucousness. he managed to keep a good image despite being constantly slammed by critics and john, while john n yoko were presented as an abnormal couple. that's good PR on Paul's part (theres a 3rd p)

the 3rd part: meanwhile John and Yoko were desperate to fix their image, which didn't exactly happen until john died. the other thing is, a very personal unpopular opinion of mine, but john and paul are in no way two sides of the same coin. but more like one side of 2 different coins. Paul's musicianship and professionalism is in no way equal to John's, it's way more superior, and the lifestyles they chose is nothing alike.

----------------------

Hi!

The Beatles and the Historians is perhaps the most unbiased book I’ve ever read about the Beatles. It is an anaylisis of the biographies that have been written by the band since 1962 and it’s conducted through an academic method that is normally used for writing about historical events. 

You said “biographer vs. biographer”, and you got it right, since the book’s purpose is to show the different narratives that have been promoted by the different authors (ex. Norman’s heavily Lennon-biased version vs. Doggett’s more or less even-handed account) since the band’s break-up.

That leads me to “John vs. Paul”. Ever since the news of the break-up came out, the former Beatle who was the busiest in trying to destroy his past in the band and promote his own version has been John, mainly in his infamous Rolling Stone interview Lennon Remembers, an interview he gave to a still fledging magazine (which would later become renowned in the musical business thanks to him) in a period when he was still bitter, angry and addicted to heroin. And we all know John was dominated by his emotions and most of the times said things he didn’t really believe in. His narrative is still treated as gospel despite having been refuted by John himself both in the mid-70s and in 1980 (when he was in a better state of mind) and proven wrong by later researches on the Beatles (I’m thinking of Lewisohn’s work and the transcripts of the Let It Be sessions). Rolling Stone championed this narrative until the 2010s, but Yoko still promotes that old, factually wrong and contradictory version as the only truth. Paul, on the other hand, didn’t tell his own version of the story until 1997, with Many Years From Now. His version is now considered closer to the truth than John’s - and yet, he’s STILL accused of revisionist history when John has been doing it since day one to promote his own agenda as someone who was more than a Beatle. So, the comparison between the two exists in the book, because the two promoted two versions of the story, and the authors and biographers followed their leads (mainly John’s, since he was in the public eye for two years, and when he died the narrative he had walked back on became the truth no one dared to challenge for the following decade).

About the PR thing... Let’s compare the period immediately following Paul’s announcement. Paul himself was living with his family in Scotland, depressed and an alcoholic, away from the world. He avoided the medias because he knew he couldn’t win against John (”He’d do me in”). The other three were against him, Klein was still ruining his life and the whole world hated him for breaking up the band. John and Yoko were all over the news, promoting their peace campaigns, their involvement in the avant-garde scene and telling their (wrong) story of the Beatles in order to promote their agenda and paint John as the only talented and experimental artist in the group. With the exception of some critics, they were the public’s darling, and they didn’t have to “fix their image”. They destroyed Paul’s image, and he struggled to rebuild it, only managing it in 1973.  The abnormal couple was the one formed by Paul and Linda, actually, who were derided for being caring and involved parents by John and Yoko themselves (who on the other hand had abandoned their own children). John and Yoko always maintained that fairytale love story-image, even in 1980, and John’s death in December only elevated their status as THE rock’n’roll couple. John became a martyr, a saint, and no one dared to paint him as lesser than that (well, except for Goldman’s book, which described him as a monster) for decades. [Except Yoko still describe him as a saint, as the Messiah, which we all know he wasn’t. He was human like the rest of us.] John’s image never really needed fixing, it only had to be more accurate to his true being.

And about John and Paul being two sides of the same coin, I agree with what is written in the book... but your interpretation is valid too!

(Sorry for the long reply!!)

[thesilverbaetles]

Hey what books about The Beatles are you reading at the moment? And, if you have already read other books, could you suggest me some? Thank you if you do, your new personal goal inspired me and I'd like to read more Beatles-related stuff!

Oh man, I’m glad I inspired you! I think it’s good for people to read up on the boys when they love them because I don’t know – it’s enjoyable.

Here’s the list of what I have read so far and recommend:

• The John Lennon Series by Jude Southerland Kessler. This story leans more towards historical fiction more than it does purely biography, but all three books she’s wrote so far have been a delight to read. Southerland offers to any willing Beatle fan that picks up her books a fly on the wall perspective of every moment of John’s life, starting from a little before his conception in 1940, and ending sometime after America in 1964 (so far, the story is hardly done. She has five more books to write, I think). While writing this series, (or the parts she has already), Southerland intensively researched and read Beatle by the dozens, along with interviews, etc., etc. Many footnotes are provided and much information about John is given. That’s the basis of my knowledge, really. • The Cynical Idealist: A Spiritual Biography of John Lennon by Gary Tillery. I recommend this book because it dares to go places few go when they write about John: the deep depths of his religious/non-religious beliefs and the rocky road in which they’ve traveled. It’s been so long since I read it–a year or so, I’d say–but still fresh in my memory is how sad I was to finish it after I had, and how quickly I read it. I do remember coming off with a good impression, so I’m gonna give this a recommendation. * The Day John Met Paul by Jim O'Donnell * I, Me, Mine by George Harrison * Lennon Revealed by Larry Kane. I absolutely love Larry and I think he offers a very real portrayal of John. He doesn’t cover his flaws but he doesn’t make him out to be a monster.

Now the big long list of things I want to read (in order on how I intend to read them):

* Tune In: All These Years by Mark Lewisohn * When They Were Boys by Larry Kane * Shout! by the largely hated Phillip Norman, and I understand the reasons, but I’d still to give him a go myself. Especially since he was there and was assigned to the role. * Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the music of The Beatles of Geoff Emerick * A Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein * Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones, and Transformed Rock Roll by Fred Goodman* And lastly on this list for now is The Beatles by Hunter Davies.

I have a plethora of other lesser known books I got from the Goodwill sitting around too, but I don’t plan on jumping on those yet. I have a lot of others to read and love right now, so you know. I’ll update it later if you’d like. Also, if you or anyone has recommendations for me, I’m a thousand percent happy to take them!

[roundthatcorner]

I discovered Mark Lewisohn...so I created a monster, I think.

Philip Norman, interviewed on Something About the Beatles, Episode 54

[mythserene]

Lewisohn: rewriting history in the area where we trust him most – the songs performed

-In which Lewisohn rewrites a Beatles story and completely changes the songs sung, and coincidentally changes them in such a way so that if you know your Beatles trivia you'll think that Paul completely hogged the mic for two-thirds of the show-

Although I’ve come to a place where I’m more surprised to find a Lewisohn quote that turns out to be accurate than I am one that’s butchered, I have tended to believe that he is trustworthy on things like dates and songs performed. I’ve felt like that’s probably his anchor, and that he shapes the rest of his narrative around that.

But perhaps the habit of taking license cannot help but spread into other areas, because I am discovering that neither dates nor song lists turn out to be sacred with Mark Lewisohn.

As far as dates, that is part of a bigger piece that has been tangling me up for a few weeks, but his version of “the Beatmakers” performance shows that Mark Lewisohn will write what he wants, and that he has zero compunction in changing history to suit himself, regardless of subject.

In Chapter 22: “Right then, Brian — Manage Us,” a primary theme is that every promoter was done with the Beatles when Brian Epstein came along. Brian Kelly, especially, is given the role of being fed up with them, and Lewisohn uses “the Beatmakers” performance—Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Beatles going on stage together—as an example of how bad everything was just before Brian stepped in. (I do believe that Brian was a godsend, but that doesn’t mean that Lewisohn’s narrative is supported in every area, and in some places he stretches a lot more than in others. This is definitely one of those areas.)

Here’s the story: before going to the Litherland Town Hall performance, Bob Wooler had been drinking, maybe with the Beatles, and in Lewisohn’s version, Gerry seeing that they were all drunk sent “Gerry Marsden scuttling to the pub around the corner.” Every telling I’ve seen, one way or another, is in agreement that Gerry Marsden as well as Wooler had been drinking, and that the Pacemakers and the Beatles all played together with Wooler introducing them as “the Beatmakers.” Lewisohn adds some highly unlikely Preludin into the mix—“John, pissed and pilled…”—but I’m not going to take that on here.

Along with the chance to tell a riotously colorful story—one that in Lewisohn’s telling goes much farther than any of the source materials I’ve found—the main point of the tale is for Wooler to give us the climax of the—(all unsourced, other than this single, butchered Wooler quote)—frustration Lewisohn tells us promoter Brian Kelly was feeling: “Brian Kelly was fraught with anxiety over it. It was only a short episode and a bit of a shambles.”

The quote by Wooler that Lewisohn uses to try to prove his point, and the one and only reference he gives to support any of his “Brian Kelly fed up/Epstein must save Beatles” narrative is a modification of one of those Lewisohn monsters I call a “donut.” (There’s a hole in the middle. However in this case, as in many others, he also adds words that were never spoken.)

THE ACTUAL WOOLER QUOTE:

“Brian Kelly was fraught with anxiety over it, but the audience liked it. It was a bit of a shambles really, so I lowered the curtain on the proceedings.”

LEWISOHN’S REWRITE:

“Brian Kelly was fraught with anxiety over it. It was only a short episode and a bit of a shambles.”

And while I am very interested in what Lewisohn is using for his Brian-Epstein-saved-the-Beatles-but-Paul-tried-to-thwart-him narrative, I felt the need to pause to look at Lewisohn’s massive and nonsensical alterations to this performance, especially in the songs the improvised combo-band played. (And yet how very authoritatively Lewisohn does it.)

The whole section has problems, but let us deal with the songs.

Mark Lewisohn says they “thundered through four numbers”—

The Beatmakers thundered through four numbers—“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “What’d I Say” (extended mix), “Red Sails in the Sunset” and the new Ray Charles record “Hit the Road Jack”—during which John, pissed and pilled, slid from the piano and slumped on the stage.

—‘Tune In,’ Lewisohn – Chapter 22 (Emphasis mine.)

Sticking to the songs, the page referenced in the footnote first quotes Bob Wooler:

“They did a few numbers like ‘Hit The Road Jack’, swopping instruments and the like.”

—FOOTNOTE 9: ‘The Best of Fellas’ – Bob Wooler (Emphasis mine)

Then the next paragraph quotes Gerry Marsden, and I’m going to add boldface to the songs he says they played:

“It worked very well as we all knew the same songs and all played the same songs. Paul, John and I took turns on the piano and Les played the sax. We did ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Great Balls Of Fire’, ‘Pretend’, ‘Blueberry Hill’, ‘I’m Walkin'’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, probably some others too.”

—FOOTNOTE 9: ‘The Best of Fellas’ – Gerry Marsden (Emphasis mine)

So, either they performed exactly four numbers, including an “extended mix” of Paul wailing ‘What’d I Say,’ —or— they performed at least eight numbers and “probably some others, too.”

“The Best of Fellas” version from Bob Wooler and Gerry Marsden that is referenced in the footnote makes sense in ways that Lewisohn’s rewriting doesn’t. Marsden begins by saying that they all knew the same numbers, and moreover what Lewisohn is telling us is that Paul took over the mic for three out of four numbers, and went so far in his spotlight-hogging selfishness as to sing an “extended version” of ‘What’d I Say.’ It’s a particularly egregious “if you know, you know” insertion that conjures up a very damning image of Paul in this otherwise “mutual mood of cooperativeness.” But not only is Lewisohn’s song list not supported, if Paul had hogged the spotlight that way it’s only reasonable to believe that Marsden would have remembered that, and certainly wouldn’t have described the collaboration in the way he did. And if Paul was hogging the mic and spotlight and had sung song after song where he was the lead, Marsden absolutely, positively, would not have rolled off a list of songs that didn’t include a single, solitary Paul song. That is simply beyond belief.

Gerry Marsden’s recollection also makes a lot of sense in that it’s natural that he would best remember the songs where he sang lead. And indeed, out of the seven songs he names, four are Pacemakers’ songs. (Including the one Wooler names and Lewisohn decides to agree with: “Hit the Road, Jack.”) And none of the songs anyone names are songs where Paul sings lead. Two are John songs and the other is a George song, which lends credence to Gerry Marsden’s “probably some others, too” comment, because it’s likely that there was at least one song where Paul was lead.) But in Lewisohn’s seemingly fabricated four-song list, other than “Hit the Road, Jack” they’re all Paul numbers. So not only does Lewisohn choose to have Paul singing an extended version of a scene-stealing “What’d I Say” but he slyly tells us that Paul basically hogged the microphone for seventy-five percent of the numbers (and even more of the time) that this “cooperative” was on stage together. Now, if you’re not a hardcore fan with a fair amount of knowledge this will probably slip past you, but if you’ve got a dog in this hunt, and especially if you already think Paul McCartney is a self-obsessed prima donna, you’ll get the picture Lewisohn is so deliberately painting. And I write deliberately very—well, deliberately—because if a writer makes the decision to veer away from the record and create a very specific, very limited, and very fictional song list for an anecdote about two groups deciding to get together and sing, and more than two-thirds of the songs chosen for the historical rewrite are Paul songs—and then that writer even goes to the trouble of telling readers that Paul sang an “extended mix” of one of those songs—then of course it’s deliberate. Lewisohn didn’t choose his reinvented song list at random out of a Bingo cage.

Here are the songs referenced in the footnote versus the songs that Lewisohn says they sang.

SOURCE MATERIAL SONG LIST/USUAL LEAD:

“Hit the Road Jack” ✓ /Gerry Marsden

“Roll Over Beethoven”/George

“Johnny B. Goode”/John

“Great Balls Of Fire”/Gerry (and Paul?)

“Pretend”/Gerry Marsden

“Blueberry Hill”/Gerry Marsden

“Sweet Little Sixteen”/John

“I’m Walkin'”/Gerry Marsden

LEWISOHN’S SONG LIST/USUAL LEAD:

“Hit the Road Jack” ✓ /Gerry Marsden

“Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”/Paul

“What’d I Say” (extended mix)/Paul

“Red Sails in the Sunset”/Paul

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P.S. If you haven't been reading all of @wingsoverlagos 's work, you absolutely have to. She's done so much and Lewisohn's inventions are so much worse than I realized.

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I’d love for you guys to have Mark Lewisohn on your show just to grill him. As someone who’s experienced workplace bullying and sexual assault, that he would go so far as to paint Klein as “heroic” when he said things like “reluctant virgin” is just so devastating to me. It makes me feel ill. I do NOT want this man to have a say in Beatles history. I love the Beatles. I don’t want that tainted by people who will paint over abuse just to feed their own self importance.

We vehemently agree, Listener!  Thank you for writing in.

Our list of grievances with Mark Lewisohn is long, but in a nutshell we believe his intent is to publicly “redeem” John Lennon and we have seen copious evidence that he will go to whatever lengths he has to in order to do this. 

That includes, but is not limited to: 

Claiming that readers of his Tune In Series may consider Klein the “hero” of the Beatles break-up

Deliberately spreading the demonstrably false lie that John (and Yoko) did not have a significant heroin problem in the late 60s and early 70s (Lewisohn suggests Cold Turkey is just John playing make believe)

Displaying unapologetic favoritism by using glowing terms to portray John and Yoko as the world’s most perfect romance, as opposed to Paul and Linda, whose 29-year marriage he dismisses as “conventional” and motivated by appearances (namely Linda’s pregnancy, even though it was planned) and Green Card needs

Stating that he could tell from watching the infamous “it’s a drag” clip that Paul was kind of sad, but primarily annoyed at how much positive attention John was getting on the day of his murder

Apparently suggesting to an audience of his Power Point Show that Paul maybe stole a leg off Yoko’s bed (the bed she had delivered and built in the Beatles’ recording studio, mind you), a personal “theory” which is based on the fact that Paul later wrote a song called “Three Legs” (you know that song: “My dog, he got three legs, like the bed you inappropriately brought into Abbey Road 2 years ago which I secretly vandalized behind your back because I have nothing better to do, am certainly not busy writing the Beatles Swan Song and don’t have a fucking 7 year old at home or anything”)

This isn’t even to mention Tune In, which could be a whole separate post and episode. Suffice it to say, this book often reads less like a Beatles biography and more like John Lennon Fanfiction to us.

Lewisohn managed to distinguish himself by doing (some) research and unearthing some original documents. That he had some skill in research is not surprising given that he started his career in Beatledom as a researcher for Norman, on his book Shout — which Lewisohn still contends is a good book. Norman, on the other hand has evolved his opinion of his own work and thinks Shout was flawed, so has written a whole biography on Paul to make up for what he sees as the failure of Shout, which is his underestimation of Paul. Unfortunately, Lewisohn does not seem to have made this same journey. He pays lip service to John and Paul being equal, and then spends all of his time and energy trying to prove otherwise. Norman says that he has created a monster in Lewisohn. We take his point.

One of our biggest issues with Lewisohn is that he vigorously promotes himself as an unbiased truth teller, and his calm manner seems to telegraph this. But it is not true. The research that Lewisohn does and the spin that he applies to his findings are all heavily biased. As we mentioned in one of our episodes, he travelled to Gibraltar simply to experience where John and Yoko got married. Yet when Paul calls the May 9th meeting over management the metaphorical cracking of the Liberty Bell, Lewisohn doesn’t even bother to Google it so he can understand the metaphor.

What he chooses to research is also a form of bias. For example, we at AKOM are very interested in Paul’s relationship with Robert Fraser during the Beatle years — since Paul has commented that Fraser was one of the most important, influential people in his life. Paul McCartney was the concept artist behind Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Magical Mystery Tour film, the iconic Apple logo, and he co-designed the covers of the White Album and Abbey Road.  All of these are pretty defining moments in the Beatles’ career.  As Beatles fans, we’d like to know more about Paul’s art education and influences. But we would be shocked if Lewisohn dug into Fraser at all beyond his relationship as John and Yoko’s gallerist/curator (and heroin dealer, but since that isn’t a thing in Lewisohn’s world then maybe he will be ignored).

We think Lewisohn benefits massively from the fact that Beatles authorship was like the Wild West since its inception, when everyone with a connection to the Beatles (plus or minus a personal axe to grind) wrote a book about their experience. It was absolute chaos, with no rules, no checks and balances, uncredited sources, etc. Just an absolute shit show.  What Lewisohn did was bring some order to the chaos with some proper documentation. But again, what he chooses to dig into often reflects bias. And this certainly does not mean that he is intellectually or emotionally equipped to interpret his findings. Doing this takes social intelligence and insight, which is a very different skill. As a creator of myths, he is no better (and no more insightful or original) than many of the others who came before him; he worships John Lennon and freely admits it. He is not even close to being unbiased.  But in this dumpster fire of a fandom he has at least checked some boxes and done some digging.  The fact is, the bar has been so low for so long that Beatles fans don’t even know how to expect or want better.  But WE certainly expect better.  We expect some breakthrough, fresh thinking.  Not just Shout with Receipts.

We think it’s significant that Lewisohn was deeply disliked by George Harrison, who lobbied to get him kicked him off the Anthology project. He was fired from Paul’s fan club magazine, and yet no one seems to think he might hold a grudge about that, too?  Lewisohn so distorted John and Paul’s relationship in Tune In that he believes he is the target of the lyrics in Paul’s song “Early Days.“  And he either thinks that’s flattering or funny, because Lewisohn seems to truly believe he knows John Lennon better than Paul McCartney does.  We find it almost tragic that Paul is so bothered by the way his experience and relationship is being portrayed by authors (perhaps Lewisohn) that he wrote a song about it. In it, he conveys his frustration and heartache about how everything is misconstrued and we find it absolutely outrageous that Lewisohn would not take this to heart.  Perhaps Lewisohn thinks Paul should listen to him for a change? And if he doesn’t like it, then tough, because Lewisohn knows better? We think Lewisohn should do some serious soul-searching about “Early Days” because if one of his main subjects is saying, “you are getting it wrong and it is breaking my heart”….maybe, just maybe, he should listen and rethink things.  Maybe apply a little creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and empathy. This is what his heroes did.

Meanwhile, Jean Jackets are SO BUSY complaining that Paul McCartney doesn’t like Lewisohn because he “tells the truth!” that they fail to notice that Lewisohn has become a mouthpiece for Yoko Ono.  He has already started white-washing John Lennon’s history, promoting John and Yoko as the true and only geniuses versus Paul as the craven, small-minded Lennon disciple who (through no virtue of his own) was born with the ability to write some nice tunes.  Lewisohn’s version of John, on the other hand, is ALWAYS a sexy, visionary genius on the right side of every issue.  He even went out of his way to recently trash Paul’s early 70’s albums, which -in addition to being obnoxious and we believe wrong (since we love them)- is totally outside his purview.

Lastly, to address your original point, Lewisohn’s claim that Klein may be viewed as the “hero” of his Beatles History reveals that he hasn’t shown sufficient empathy or interest in Paul’s experience.  This claim at best ignores and at worst condones the fact that Klein was an abusive monster to one of the two founding members of the Beatles.  As we discussed in Episode 4, Klein was a criminal who bullied Paul in his creative workspace, disrespected Paul in his own office in front of his own employees and actively pitted Lennon against McCartney for years.  It’s hard to imagine ANYONE who inflicted more damage on the Beatles and Lennon/McCartney than Allen Klein.  In addition to the wildly inappropriate “reluctant virgin” nickname, he verbally threatened to “own Paul’s ass” (to which Paul responded “he never got anywhere near my ass”). Klein was so disrespectful to Paul and Linda’s marriage he pitched the idea of procuring “a blonde with big tits” to parade in front of Paul to lure him away from Linda and destroy their relationship.  Let’s also never forget that Klein contributed lyrics to the song “How Do You Sleep.”  Allen Klein literally gave Paul nightmares.  Anyone who so much as pretends to care about Paul’s break-up era depression (including his alcohol abuse, his inability to get out of bed and his terrifying sleep paralysis) would not champion Allen Klein.

Yes, Klein is a human being and therefore has his own POV, same as anyone else.  But a Beatles biographer is beholden to four points of view only: John, Paul, George and Ringo.  And when an outsider is openly hostile to one of the Beatles and damaging long-term to all of the Beatles, it is beyond inappropriate to portray him as a hero.  This type of comment, made publicly to an audience of Beatles fans, invalidates and seeks to erase the real trauma inflicted on Paul McCartney by Allen Klein, and we think Lewisohn should apologize for his comments.

Instead, Lewisohn’s current buddy is Peter Brown, whose book, The Love You Make so offended and angered Paul and Linda that they literally burned their copy (and photographed it burning for good measure).  This information doesn’t appear to bother Lewisohn in the least. Why not?

George referred to Norman’s Shout as “Shit.” But Lewisohn thinks it’s a great book.  Why?

How any Beatles or Paul or even George fans tolerate Lewisohn is baffling to us; we don’t recognize a real human being in his version of Paul, and his version of John is a superhero rather than a man.  We suspect that fans have come to accept the traditional story and at least appreciate some properly-documented facts. 

But as we are constantly trying to demonstrate on our show, just because the story has always been told one way, doesn’t mean it’s right.  Because in the end, Mark Lewisohn has no special insight. He wasn’t there. He is a guy who bought into a narrative during the Shout era, and is cherry picking his findings to support it.You can find a discussion of Lewisohn here