#Philip Norman

[paulandjohn]

*credit goes to the tumblr user who made the post

[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

[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.

[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???

[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.

[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

[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.

[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"

[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.

[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

[heartsinthebasement]

‘When the Land Rover brought us from Rye station, Paul and Linda met us on horseback,’ he recalls. ‘I thought I’d never seen such an amazingly beautiful couple… []… As was often his way, he immediately treated Cox like the most intimate friend, suggesting they take a walk around the garden on their own.

‘He talked about John a lot – but the strange thing was that it was in the present tense, “John says this” or “John thinks that”. At one point, he asked me, “Have you ever thought what power the Beatles could have had if we’d been evil . . . if we’d gone over to the dark side?” Hearing something like that after only knowing him for about five minutes sort of freaked me out.’

Peter Cox, 1988, quoted in Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman

Now, with someone like me, I cover up what’s wrong. I’m just not the kind of character who could admit everything that’s wrong.

Paul McCartney, Interview for Music Express, April/May 1982

I know Paul was talking in a different context than John’s death in the second one, but I feel like thee quotes point to something fundamental about Paul. It takes him a long time admit anything is wrong, which means it also takes him an extremely long time to process whatever it was that has gone wrong, in order to be able to move on or accept. At least, without therapy.

And, since doing some reading and getting something of a view on the Beatles’ history these past few months, I just think so much of the Lennon/McCartney story is bound up with grief, and the ability —inability, rather— to process their own losses.

Perhaps that odd dark side quote was something to do with that too? They endured a lot.

[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.

[muzaktomyears]

As Ringo Starr observed, “There was the love-and-beads personality and the bag of anger.” The first really did blossom in India, whether it meant putting in the hours to learn the sitar under the great Ravi Shankar or finding tranquillity in Rishikesh in the company of the Maharishi. The problem with the spiritual pursuit is that it can be mistaken for a quick road to enlightenment, particularly among Westerners discovering Eastern traditions, and Harrison proved to be no more rapidly enlightened than the next would-be yogi. The Beatles’ press officer Derek Taylor recalled a transatlantic flight on which Harrison was chanting his mantra. When a concerned flight attendant asked if everything was all right, he snapped: “F*** off. Can’t you see I’m meditating?”

quote from the Times review of Philip Norman's George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle

George Harrison by Philip Norman review — the tetchy, much mocked, reluctant Beatle

Harrison was a sensitive soul overshadowed by his bandmates but he blossomed musically after the Fab Four broke up. By Will Hodgkinson

If the title of Philip Norman’s biography makes you wonder why anyone would be reluctant to be a Beatle, the first few chapters provide the answer. Coming from a loving, supportive, working class family in Liverpool, George Harrison was 14 when an amiable Paul McCartney invited him to join a loosely congregated skiffle group called the Quarrymen. To which the group’s acid-tongued 17-year-old leader John Lennon responded: “Who’s that bloody kid who’s always hanging around?”

It didn’t help that Lennon’s guardian, Aunt Mimi, a frightful snob, took in Harrison’s teddy boy gear, Scouse accent and sticky-out ears and dismissed him as exactly the kind of riff-raff her nephew should not be hanging around with. As Lennon recalled, “He came round to [Aunt Mimi’s house] one day and asked me to go to the pictures with him. I pretended I was too busy.”

Did it get better for that bloody kid once he was officially a Beatle? No, it did not. So quiet that one early associate remembered him as “the Invisible Man”, Harrison was routinely subjected to all manner of indignities — he lost his virginity in a Hamburg bunk bed while John, Paul and the band’s original drummer Pete Best looked on; and when he vomited on the floor of a Hamburg flat in a drunken stupor one night, the other Beatles christened his puke of shame “the Thing” and decorated it with matchsticks.

Given this early treatment, you can see why it was so hard for Harrison to be taken seriously by his tormentors in the years to come. It meant that however good his songs were — and few can argue that Isn’t It a Pity and All Things Must Pass are not profound, moving highlights of the hippie era — Harrison was forever struggling to get them onto Beatles records.

He must have felt his moment had come when All Things Must Pass, his triple album released in November 1970 in the wake of the Beatles falling apart, stamped all over the others’ solo efforts by going straight to No 1. Yet, like an older brother who knows how to twist the knife, Lennon even cut that down. “Every time I put the radio on, it’s ‘Oh my Lord,’” Lennon said of My Sweet Lord. “I’m beginning to think there must be a God.” Lennon appraised Harrison’s signature spiritual singalong with a demeaning “all right”, claiming that Harrison only ever managed to bash out a tune in the first place because “he was working with two f***ing brilliant songwriters and he learned a lot from us”.

Norman has fashioned an authoritative portrait of Harrison that leaves you liking and feeling sympathy for his subject while being fully aware of the tetchiness — quite common among people aiming for a higher state of consciousness, funnily enough — that was never far away.

As Ringo Starr observed, “There was the love-and-beads personality and the bag of anger.” The first really did blossom in India, whether it meant putting in the hours to learn the sitar under the great Ravi Shankar or finding tranquillity in Rishikesh in the company of the Maharishi. The problem with the spiritual pursuit is that it can be mistaken for a quick road to enlightenment, particularly among Westerners discovering Eastern traditions, and Harrison proved to be no more rapidly enlightened than the next would-be yogi. The Beatles’ press officer Derek Taylor recalled a transatlantic flight on which Harrison was chanting his mantra. When a concerned flight attendant asked if everything was all right, he snapped: “F*** off. Can’t you see I’m meditating?”

One person who did understand Harrison was his first wife, Pattie Boyd. She lived with him in a gothic mansion near Henley called Friar Park, filled with Hare Krishnas and rockers, leading her to ask Harrison’s assistant Chris O’Dell, “What’s he got in his hands today, the prayer beads or the cocaine?” Boyd made up a third of the most famous love triangle in rock history, with Eric Clapton not only writing Layla about her, but also consulting the New Orleans musician Dr John, who he suspected of having voodoo powers, about casting a spell to make Boyd fall in love with him. After Harrison caught her canoodling with Clapton in the garden of Robert Stigwood’s house, Clapton announced, in the faux casual argot of the era, “I have to tell you, man, I’m in love with your wife.” Harrison dealt with it the only way an emotionally constipated former Beatle knew how: by challenging Clapton to a guitar duel.

All of this is imparted in an affectionate but detached tone, leading to an impression of a man who, although burdened with an apparent inability to lighten up, generally sought to do the right thing. His 1971 Concert for Bangladesh started the trend for charity rock endeavours and collected together everyone from Bob Dylan to Shankar in what Rolling Stone magazine called “a brief incandescent revival of all that was best in the Sixties”. He funded Monty Python’s Life of Brian by actually betting the house on it, negotiating a bank loan secured against Friar Park.

By the time he settled down with his second wife, Olivia, and their son, Dhani, he seemed to have arrived at some kind of actual peace rather than just the prayer bead-wearing sort. He reconciled with McCartney while working on the enormous Beatles Anthology project in the mid-Nineties and rediscovered his sense of humour too. In 1999, after a mentally ill intruder at Friar Park stabbed him repeatedly, Harrison announced that the intruder “certainly wasn’t auditioning for the Traveling Wilburys”.

Norman is something of a one-man Beatles industry. In 1981 he published the million-selling Shout! The True Story of the Beatles before continuing with biographies of Lennon and McCartney, but hopes of writing one on Harrison were dashed in November 2001 after a mean-spirited obituary he wrote ensured he would receive no cooperation from Olivia or Dhani.

In the event it doesn’t seem to have mattered too much, with Boyd in particular helping to fill out the story of a sensitive man and the part he played in late 20th-century life. Harrison doesn’t come across as a reluctant Beatle as such, more a normal guy who found himself in extraordinary circumstances and, lacking McCartney’s professionalism or Lennon’s cynicism, didn’t know how to handle it. The quiet Beatle, only 58 when he died, was simply trying to work it all out, just like the rest of us.

(source)