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mythserene · 7 months ago

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I got a message I figured I would try to answer out here because updating my less-informed, earlier Lewisohn musings has been on my To Do list for a while.

From anonymous:

I am enjoying your Lewisohn analysis. Do you think he has taken a bribe from the Lennon estate to play down J&Y’s heroin addiction? I can think of no other reason he would lie about this. He is obviously aware how stupid it makes him look.

Thank you for the question, anonymous. Back in October when I first started publicly posting about Mark Lewisohn I knew a lot less about him and hadn't been able to form any sort of picture about what happened between him and Paul/Apple. Or the ongoing and seemingly increasing enmity between he and Paul (+ the Beatles' families), or the anger that seems to be almost boiling over in Lewisohn these past few years.

And for what it's worth—as far as I can understand—even Yoko has locked Lewisohn out. Apple is a unified front on this one.

I do not think that anyone has gotten to Lewisohn to make him say these things, or even that he is aware that he looks stupid. I think that Beatles' fans are extremely straight-laced in the best way, and that the habit of trusting someone like Lewisohn dies hard. Until AKOM's Fine Tuning series I'm not aware of anyone ever putting forward a concerted challenge to even his most extreme narratives. The voluminous word count of the book and the simple fact of all those citations lulled most people into complacency. Until Fine Tuning no one had looked further, or if they did they were shy about stating it. People in the Beatles' community are afraid of criticizing Lewisohn, and I've heard that again and again these past few months. But AKOM went for it, made a persuasive case, and opened the floodgates. (And gave me an opportunity and an outlet for the problems I had been finding, and supported me. Phoebe and Daphne are the only reason you're reading this.)

Back to the question.

First of all, I think that Lewisohn genuinely idolizes John, and I think he is fanatically committed to the narrative of John-as-demigod. And I tend to think that he is now perhaps more committed to his telling of the Beatles' story than even to the beliefs that undergird his narrative. But the other half of the equation that the Solomon-like part of my mind failed to accept for a long time is just how much Mark Lewisohn seems to hate Paul McCartney. And I do not use that word lightly.

When AKOM started their Fine Tuning series I was half-excited and half-nervous. I am a citations freak. I like original sources and I basically mine books and podcasts to find sources and hunt them down. I also came into the Beatles without the background that most fans have. I didn't understand the John vs Paul fight in Beatles historiography. I loved John and Paul both, for different reasons, but mostly I loved them together. What initially caught me about Tune In were all the claims that were completely unsourced, and before long I began discovering more troubling issues, but after a while I forced myself to set it aside because I was just frustrating myself and it seemed like a waste of time to argue with Mark Lewisohn on my computer.

It was Shells and Barriers that made a new thought intrude and begin to become inescapable: Mark Lewisohn must genuinely detest Paul McCartney. This was the episode I most dreaded because, well, because I was ignorant of a lot. I expected it to be the most subjective, and I have a lot of empathy for John as I am an only child who lost both parents a month apart. It makes you feel like you have no tether at all. Like you're floating in space and that any breeze might carry you off. There's no cushion and you feel exposed.

But that episode did something that I was unable to do on my own—that I didn't have the breadth of knowledge to comprehend on my own—it filled in a lot of gaps that I was unaware of. And I simply could not fathom any reason for most of how Lewisohn framed Paul's childhood besides pure loathing. Daphne's word counts are pretty incredible, too. John is jealous twice, both times of Cynthia. (+a "Jealous Guy" mention.) The numbers that stood out to me right away and have stuck in my memory were Paul being "jealous" eight times and "envious" five times = thirteen. And even beyond Lewisohn making Paul out to be completely unmoved by his mother's death and painting the aftermath as safe and comforting, it's notable that Paul is only said to be "loved" four times in the entire book, and he is only said to be loved by John. (Stu is said to be loved nine times.) I realized when I listened to that episode that my picture of Paul's relationship with Mike had been refrigerated and flattened out by Tune In, all without me noticing it. Because Lewisohn doesn't hit you over the head with things, instead he subtly and slyly frames things in a careful and deceitful way, and that framing shapes the reader's opinions.

The case of bias in his writing about John and Paul's childhoods is not easy to make, especially in the ways I like to make a case—finding discreet objective evidence that can be straightforwardly disproved—but AKOM's overall case in that episode was devastating, and there were several details that stood out to me and have stuck with me. Jim hitting Paul until Paul basically threatened to hit back as a teenager and the unnoted redaction of that in a John quote Lewisohn uses is fairly indefensible, and the choice to leave out that Jim was suicidal after Mary's death and to instead paint a picture of a loving and nurturing extended family swooping in that almost sounds better than what the boys had had before losing their mum impressed me as almost malicious when patiently laid out. And then there were a lot of smaller details that struck me. Lewisohn describes Mike as "shattered irrevocably" by Mary's death, which is contrasted with Paul's callousness. (And the way the "shattered" sentence is written it also leaves the impression that Paul wasn't that close to his mum, although Lewisohn is careful not to say that in so many words.)

Jim broke the news to the boys. Mike, who was especially close to his mother, burst into tears, a core part of him shattered irrevocably. Paul's response was less expected and not at all what Jim or anyone else wanted to hear. ... Eight years later, Mike looked back with candor on these first few days ... "Paul made some flippant remark which sounded pretty callous at the time" ...

(Emphasis mine)

Then in a Frankenquote that is half author interview, Paul is quoted as saying about both he and John losing their mothers:

“We had a bond there that we never talked about—but each of us knew that had happened to the other ... I know he was shattered, but at that age you're not allowed to be devastated, and particularly as young boys, teenage boys, you just shrug it off.”

And Dusty Durband, Paul's English Master, was quoted in Chris Salewicz's 1986 biography of Paul describing him as “shattered.”

“Paul had a bad break, his mother had died. He did go through a bit of a rough patch then. I think it shattered him a lot. Maybe it made him turn to other things like practicing his guitar...”

It's like Lewisohn is screwing with Paul by keeping that adjective away from him and even teasing him by handing it to his brother, just out of Paul's reach. I hesitate to write that because it probably sounds as extreme as some of Lewisohn's conclusions, but my Lewisohn immersion has made it seem completely logical, and in fact, almost undeniable. It's a small detail that doesn't seem that important in isolation, but even with just the context of the rest of that AKOM episode it was a piece of evidence that my mind caught and held onto. Lewisohn, by his own testimony, is a Paul watcher. He obsessively listens to, watches, and reads McCartney interviews and is forever bringing them up on podcasts, waxing on about how he understands Paul McCartney like no one else. (This is invariably followed by an example that is freakishly twisted inside Lewisohn's mind to reveal some negative aspect of Paul's character.)

I don't think that Paul and Mark Lewisohn had some great falling out. Instead what I think occurred added up to a thousand paper cuts in Lewisohn's very thin skin. He felt humiliated by Paul one too many times, and he pushed every humiliation down into his gut, coated them in bile, and remembered them.

Last November there was a Lewisohn interview in a Spanish language magazine, Jot Down, where Lewisohn tells one of these little anecdotes. They're always couched in neutral language, and he usually says how whatever happened was understandable, but the theme is the same: some perceived slight by Paul that he had to swallow in silence. (The translation is 98% Google translate. I corrected three or four pronouns that it had mistranslated, but nothing else.)

“He didn't say goodbye to me, he didn't give me a hint of grace.”

Q. I remember a television program in which Paul was asked for a detail of his own life, and he answered "ask Mark Lewisohn." LEWISOHN: Yes. It was a little weird, sometimes. On one occasion, for example, I worked with George Martin on a television documentary about Sgt. Pepper. But he also kept working with Paul. So there we were, on Abbey Road interviewing McCartney with all the equipment, the television cameras and everything else. Then the director of the documentary tells me to let him know if Paul makes a mess with any information, so that I can ask him to repeat his answer with the correct information. I sat there, hoping that I didn't have to intervene. But Paul said he had the idea of making the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band flying back from the United States. And I knew that hadn't happened like that. Let's see, I wasn't there, but I know he had the idea coming back from Nairobi. In fact, he didn't fly to the United States until Sgt. Pepper was finished. And, on the return trip, he was already thinking about the Magical Mystery Tour. I usually let these details go, they're really not that important. Except if they are recording him for a documentary about the 25 years of Sgt. Pepper that was going to be broadcast on television. So, while the cameraman was changing the movie roll, I approached the director and said "Paul was coming back from Nairobi and not from the United States when he had the idea for the album, I don't know what you want to do about it." And the director goes and releases him, "Paul, Mark says you didn't understand it well. That you didn't have the idea when you were flying back from the United States." To which Paul stared at me and replied "Yes, I did." It was a very uncomfortable, difficult and embarrassing moment when I wanted the floor to swallow me. He didn't say goodbye to me, he didn't give me a hint of grace. And I had to learn when to say something and when not to. But, in that place, my job was to say something. I was paid to say something. So I said something, and he didn't like it. Nobody likes to be corrected.

Sorry, anonymous. I wrote far more than an answer because I used your question as an excuse to get on the record an addendum and some corrections to my earlier musings, but I do not think Lewisohn has any idea of how ridiculous he sounds. He is insulated from almost all criticism and is constantly praised as a sort of Beatles' god. He worships John and wants to shape the Beatles' story to redeem him, but I also think he believes in the story that he has shaped. I think he is lost and frustrated at being locked out by Apple—and actively thwarted by them—and that has made his criticisms of Paul much more public. It's as if his new job is just going on podcasts and taking pot shots at Paul McCartney. And for Mark Lewisohn it's clear that the Holy Grail is the breakup. He is intent on recasting Allen Klein as much more of a positive force than history has given him credit for, and Lewisohn has foreshadowed a parallel between Klein and Epstein by manipulating all the evidence about Paul and Brian. He is going to cast Paul as the bad guy and John as the hero. As always. And if John and Yoko are addicted to heroin that throws his whole rewrite into chaos. He simply cannot concede that there was a real issue. John cannot be fully human. He robs John of what makes John so magnificent.

So everyone else has to be wrong.

Just for fun before I go, another narrative Lewisohn was working on putting forward in this “John was actually right” case, was rehabilitating Magic Alex. “Get Back” seemingly thwarted this line of nonsense, but after bingeing the Nagras Lewisohn was seriously pushing the idea that Magic Alex had been slandered by history and that John's judgment about him had been vindicated. It takes listening to a lot of these interviews—something that I can only do in small doses—to begin to see the fuller picture that Lewisohn was wedded to, and Magic Alex is as much a part of that as the heroin comments are. They are all of a piece.

“And they just had to get mobile gear in. So, big deal.”

In the end, I think what Mark Lewisohn means by “right” is different than what “right” means to everyone else. “Right” to Mr. Lewisohn means warped quotes that tell a fabricated story of Paul McCartney not wanting Brian Epstein as his manager. “Right” means Magic Alex being a wizard, unfairly tarnished by the lesser Beatles. “Right” means Yoko being John's artistic savior, and of a heroin addiction dreamed up by bad actors who don't understand things the way he does. A myth perpetrated by those who cannot grasp the truth. And I genuinely believe that Mark Lewisohn revels in the power of being able to take Paul McCartney's own story away from him and use it to hurt him and to hurt his legacy. To use his power over the Beatles' story to wound Paul, the way he feels that Paul wounded him. In so many interviews when Lewisohn talks about Paul he seethes. (It's quite impressive.)

And I think the thought of Lewisohn's retelling slipping away or being supplanted is a very threatening idea in his mind. I think it scares him. I think he is holding onto a delusion of his own making, and he fears that he will not be able to finish his life's work of solidifying that warped tale into historical fact.

Nothing is Real - Lewisohn seethe quick mix

#mark lewisohn #lewisohn's motivation #i think it's revenge tbh #revenge and worship #leader lennon #beatles #tune in #akom #fine tuning #shells and barriers #daphne's spreadsheet #heroin would hurt the story #historiography #john lennon #paul mccartney #apple #Spotify

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