#Philip Norman

[undying-love]

"This Ted would get on the bus,' Paul remembered. 'I wouldn't stare at him too hard in case he hit me.' But now [at the fete] at last Paul could inspect the tough guy at leisure without fear of reprisals."

-Paul Mccartney: The Life, by Philip Norman

[paulandjohn]

*credit goes to the tumblr user who made the post

[torchlitinthedesert]

It’s weird how narratives stick around, even after they’ve been debunked. Philip Norman’s Shout!, hugely influential as the first “serious” Beatles bio, is now seen as biased. Norman himself has climbed down, admitting that as a John stan he was unfair to both Paul and George. (I don’t think he’s apologised to Ringo yet, but no doubt that will come when he needs the money and decides to do a Ringo biography.)

So when Norman writes Paul joining the Quarrymen, he’s bitchy about it: carefully deploying quotes to say that Paul was big-headed, he was catty, he bitched about how the others played, he was a Machiavellian plotter. When you compare it to interviews or memoirs from the surviving Quarrymen, it becomes clear that Norman was cherrypicking; they’ve got good and bad things to say about John, Paul, George, and each other, including plenty of positive memories of Paul. I’ve certainly seen posts debunking Norman by comparing sources (or just by giggling over his image of Paul as bossy baby diva.)

But that still frames the early days in Norman’s terms: it’s still asking Precisely How Annoying Was Teenaged Paul McCartney? The story you don’t get, and which is surprisingly rare in Beatle narratives, is this one: Paul joined the Quarrymen, and transformed its musical standards (not least by bringing in George). He joined a ramshackle skiffle group whose lead singer couldn’t tune his guitar and whose two guitarists could only play in banjo chords. Next thing you know, they’re the kind of band whose members will go on multi-bus odysseys across Liverpool in search of a new chord.

Acknowledging that isn’t belittling John. Just the opposite: it shows just how exciting and inspiring he must have been. Paul and George were music nerds, and Liverpool was full of baby skiffle and rock’n’roll groups. They had plenty of other options. But no, John’s was the band they wanted to join. John’s charisma was enough to make Paul rebel against family expectations, and George accept a leader who was quick and slapdash about things that George would devote long, hard hours to getting exactly right. Paul and George’s talent and dedication were enough to make John buckle down and rehearse. And they all thought it was worth it.

It also set up a pattern for how they would work together. Just as they’d sought out that B7 chord, George and Paul went right on exploring new sounds - Indian music for George, electronic music for Paul. And having found them, they offered them to John. So George’s sitar first appears in Norwegian Wood, Paul’s tape loops in Tomorrow Never Knows.

Later still, when John’s insecurities kicked in, he was uncomfortable with that. He insisted to interviewers that he’d written the Norwegian Wood riff, or complained that he should have stuck with his original idea of chanting monks for Tomorrow Never Knows. But again, it doesn’t devalue John to recognise the others’ contributions. It shows how he inspired them, how the Beatles worked as a unit, how they made each other better. (Can you imagine George offering the sitar to Paul first, or Paul suggesting the tape loops made their first appearance on a George song? I can’t.) Ignoring what Paul and George gave John is to ignore a big chunk of what made John special.

Anyway, I’m almost tempted to read Shout!, just to see how often Norman’s spite is a distraction tactic to stop you noticing Paul, George, or Ringo doing something important.

[omg-hellgirl]

“Neither of our boyfriends looked good on the beach,” Chrissie recalls. “Mick was terribly skinny and Charlie had a fat tummy and used to keep his socks on when he sunbathed. I remember Shirley saying ‘They don’t show up well in the sun. They look better in the evening.’ ”

Philip Norman, Mick Jagger.

[strawberrylane]

philip norman trying to explain john and paul’s relationship and failing.

[bambi-kinos]

I just finished Philip Norman's biography of John, and I was left with the impression that John was almost ridiculously insecure all throughout his life. I've only just begun a deep dive into the Beatles beginning six months ago. Would you say that Norman's portrayal of John's insecurities is accurate, or exaggerated?

First of all it should be understood that Philip Norman is a company man. He does not write biographies that are records of real events + his personal analysis/thoughts and feelings of the subject. Norman receives assignments from his publisher or sponsor, in this case Yoko Ono, and then he writes what he is told to write. Philip Norman is otherwise a very hateful person that is not capable of the critical, skeptical, but also sympathetic eye that is required of a good biographer. If you want an example of a good John biography then the closest you will get is The Making of John Lennon by Francis Kenny. Kenny examines John's life and beliefs in the historical context of Liverpool, where Kenny himself grew up, and then talks about how he believes this influenced John's direction in life.

Once you compare this and other sources to Phil Norman you start seeing what a mouthpiece he is. Yoko Ono wanted to tell a specific story about John and she ensured that happened. Norman does have occasional flashes of insight but then retreats into boomer jean jacket bullshit like when he desperately buries May Pang during the section on The Lost Weekend, because Yoko needed to minimize May's role as it made Yoko looks remarkably awful in comparison. John suffered immensely as a result of being partnered to Yoko and May Pang is a blatant demonstration of how quite literally anyone else would have been a better choice for him. The Norman biography was one of Yoko's desperate attempts to cover this up. It is only recently that the people who still love John have been able to start fighting back like May getting her documentary out.

When it comes to John Lennon himself: "insecure" is a good word for it, yes. John was fought over as a status marker from pretty much the moment he was born. His mother was unable or unwilling to invest in him and happily abandoned him for years at a time; his father was too cowardly to make a stand as a father and take care of him properly, preferring to run around in a perpetual midlife crisis for decades; his aunts including Mimi hated his mother Julia and only took John in as a way to get back at her since Julia was the golden child of their family; Mimi Smith had very mixed feelings about John that she often took out on him; and then John catapulted into the viper's nest that is the entertainment industry which is tailor made to destroy people like him. Pick any celebrity that has gone off the rails and self destructed in public and you will find someone with a similar upbringing that tried to find consolation by becoming a public figure.

John had a massive sucking hole in his chest after a life time of being used and betrayed and shuffled around as a chess piece by his own flesh and blood. It is not overstating the issue to say the only people in the entire world who loved John for being John were the other Beatles and Brian Epstein. That marked him and left him perpetually frightened and paranoid of everyone around him. It's no wonder John was a basket case.

Norman's portrayal of John is 'accurate' in that it at least it chronologically lays out the events of John's life. These are a matter of public record so it's hard to fuck that up. The primary issue with Norman is the same issue with pretty much all of John's biographies: Yoko Ono has her fist so far up the writer's ass that you can see her fingers moving every time a word goes down on a page. You can get a lot of interesting detail out of Norman (like Tim being a lost Persian that followed John home) but everything in John's life is framed through Yoko's lens. And she despises Paul and hates The Beatles. As far as I'm concerned Philip Norman's book is just another hit job against everyone who actually loved John (and notably Yoko was not one of those people.) Therefore I cannot recommend it to anyone.

The problem is that there is no real credible John biography yet. Maybe after Yoko passes away and Sean decides that he doesn't have to defend the indefensible anymore. When it does happen, Paul is going to have to step very firmly on the back of the author's neck to make sure that no Yoko worship happens inside the book and that John is portrayed fairly.

[kaiserkeller]

“Funnily enough, Paul has turned out the real black sheep of the whole trip. Everybody hates him and I only feel sorry for him.” — Stuart Sutcliffe in a letter to Rod Murray, late 1960.

Drawing by Klaus Voormann.

[muzaktomyears]

oh god he's not doing a Brian biog next is he???

[anotherkindofmindpod]

Sex, Death & Progressive Nostalgia: AKOM Talks w/ Dr. Richard Mills

SUMMARY: Dr. Richard Mills joins Phoebe and Daphne for a chit-chat about all things fandom: slash fiction, Beatle novels, murder, conspiracies, tribute bands, horny editors, biopics, superfan authors and anything else that pops up!

Listen HERE

[i-am-the-oyster]

Hi oyster could you tell me more about the apple executives calling Paul names like “Johns princess” ?and also I’m not sure if it was yoko who said this but I heard someone say that the other names were pretty mean and 100 times worse that “Johns princess”. Thank you !

Thanks for the question anon!

According Philip Norman* (in John Lennon: The Life) Yoko told him that she heard Apple staff calling Paul "John's princess". (Not Apple executives, I think that would be quite different.)

In fact, Paul's girlfriend Francie Schwartz called Paul John's princess in print in 1969. Francie was staff at Apple for a while, so I guess that proves that. (Though it doesn't say anything about how widespread it was.)

As to your second point: I know I've read that too, but I cannot remember where. Can anyone help us out with that?

* I only know this book from quotes on tumblr. I haven't read it, and don't intend to. This book is also the source for the rehearsal tape “with John's voice calling out 'Paul…Paul…' in a strangely subservient pleading way"

[and-i-like-youuu]

"John's fellow student Helen Anderson remembers him ushering Paul in, with George, their tag-along junior, usually following a little later. The three would go into the cafeteria for a cheap lunch of chips then take their guitars into an empty life-drawing room, which tended to be more spacious than the others. Helen, being extraordinarily beautiful, was among the very few they allowed to watch while they rehearsed. 'Paul would have a school notebook and he'd be scribbling down words,' she says. 'Those sessions could be intense because John was used to getting his way by being aggressive---but Paul would stand his ground. Paul seemed to make John come alive when they were together.”

Paul McCartney: The Life - Philip Norman.

[undying-love]

"John was to be posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Paul was to give the induction address. This took the form of an open letter to his old soul-mate and arch-competitor, recalling their first meeting at Woolton fete [...], the 'little look' they'd exchanged before singing 'I'd love to turn you on' in 'A Day in the Life', knowing the consequences but not caring. The woman who'd come between them received only the briefest, most tactful mention. One day, 'a girl named Yoko Ono' had appeared, soliciting a Lennon and McCartney manuscript. 'I told her to go and see John,' Paul said, adding with masterly understatement: 'And she did.'

-Paul McCartney: The Life, by Philip Norman

[harrisonarchive]

Did you read the new Norman George bio? Thoughts?

Hi, anon,

No, I haven't read the book; I've steered clear of Norman, not least of all because of his terrible obituary for George in 2001. Also, I've heard others have read it and said there's really nothing new in there that isn't already in other biographies, only with the addition of the usual Norman type of tone... and I've heeded George's annotation and opinion of Norman's previous books:

Q: “Philip Norman suggests that you learned the sitar because you were desperate to have some identity within The Beatles.” George: “That Philip Norman wrote that book because he was desperate to have an identity is probably closer to the truth..." - more in an older post

Thanks for asking. With pretty much all biographies, I feel none are as in-depth or insightful as interviews with George and with those who knew him. Have you read it, anon? How about anyone else out there? Feel free to comment on this post.

[torchlitinthedesert]

“From hate figure to major artist: how the world learned to love Yoko Ono”, Daily Telegraph, 10 February 2024

A Yoko Ono retrospective opens at London’s Tate Modern this week, so there are features and reviews starting to come out. This one is very much about JohnandYoko, which is a shame when it’s promoting the exhibition, but interesting for how it frames Yoko’s reputation for a Boomer audience (it’s the Daily Telegraph, which skews old and right-wing). The through line is Yoko’s journey from hate figure to cuddly senior icon - with some nods to shifts in John’s reputation too, and more openness to conceptual art.

Anyway, it includes this amazing bit about Philip Norman, and the time Yoko withdrew cooperation for his John bio:

Norman struck up a relationship with Ono and she gave him a series of interviews for his Bible-length biog­raphy John Lennon: The Life (2008). Ono had given her co-operation on the condition that she read the man­u­script for accuracy. He agreed, but was surprised to be told later that she was upset by the book and would not endorse it, because Norman had been “mean to John”.

“I’d written about John in the way Yoko had always talked about him, with a sort of exasperated fondness,” Norman later told me, clearly taken aback.

“She’d read the unedited manuscript, and initially the ­message came back from her that someone else had read it and it was really great.

“And then she said, could I pop over to have a cup of tea before I caught my plane back to London, and she would show me a page from John’s diary that I could use in the book.

“As I walked across Central Park, it popped into my mind, maybe she’s waiting with a lawyer; in fact, she was waiting with two lawyers, and another woman who I didn’t know… Yoko started to upbraid me for things I’d said about John in the book, and she said, ‘How could you say John masturbated?’ And this woman suddenly went, ‘Eugh!’ And I realised Yoko had a personal shudderer, someone who shuddered for her. But Yoko herself had told me the story of how John and Paul would sit around in the twilight calling out the names of sex idols of the time like Brigitte Bardot, and John would spoil it by shouting out names like Winston Churchill.”

Yoko and her personal shudderer! 🤩 I don’t necessarily trust Norman on, well, anything, but I deeply want this to be true.

[omg-hellgirl]

“Sometimes when they played to only about nine people, Brian would literally be in tears,” Cleo recalls. “But Mick was always the optimistic one, who said they had to keep going and they’d win everyone over in the end.”

Philip Norman, Mick Jagger.

[pleasantlyinsincere]

Philip Norman in conversation on SATB (ep. 54/2016) about the possibility of him writing a George bio. So who is looking forward to read his book of little substance on someone unpleasant, grim and humorless who offers little to explore but some rubbed off magic?

RR: Do you see yourself doing a George book in the future? PN: I don't, no, I don't. I just don't think there is the same substance. George did write some very good songs but he didn't write that many. And I think it was because John and Paul's magic rubbed off on George eventually. And there is something about him that is kind of a bit grim and humorless and I just don't think I could go through what you have to go through to write one of these books. I don't think I could do that for a George Harrison biography. RR: To me, what makes it so compelling is the fact that by all accounts he had such a wonderfully supportive childhood. [...] But the bitterness manifested itself very early on. And for a guy who was chasing most of his life this peace of mind, seeing beyond earthly plane of existence he could be incredibly petty and mean-spirited. It was like a very strong division into the two sides of him that everybody who revered him spoke of. [...] It just seems ripe for exploration by somebody. PN: I think so but then what are you going to explore? I mean there is no point to write a book that denigrates the subject and decides the subject is unpleasant. Like the late Albert Goldman used to do. You have to love your subject. Even if your subject is a monster - and neither John or Paul was a monster - you have to love your monster. I just cannot see basing a major biography on George, important though he was and huge though his fan base still is, undoubtedly.