John & Paul: A Guest Post by Ian Leslie

Taking a microscope to the artistic balance built by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, this unique and wholesome look at the lyrical heart of The Beatles is exactly the nuanced examination that longtime fans will adore. Read on for an exclusive essay from Ian Leslie on writing John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs. 

I had no intention of writing a book about the Beatles. I had written books, but I wasn’t a music writer. I had no credentials in that field. I was just a fan, albeit one who had been thinking about this group more or less continually since he was a child. And, of course, there are already hundreds of books about them. What could I add?

During the lockdowns of 2020, I was lucky enough to have some time on my hands, and I used it to get something off my chest. I’d long had a feeling that Paul McCartney was misunderstood by the culture at large. I decided to write a long piece that would persuade people to think about him differently.

I thought of the essay as play rather than work, and I didn’t pitch it to a magazine. I just published it on my Substack, The Ruffian, hoping that two or three readers might agree with me. Within 24 hours, it was clear that the piece had gone insanely viral. It wasn’t just the scale of the response that amazed me, it was the emotional power of it. People were moved. Some of them cried.

At this point, I suddenly thought, Hey, maybe I could write a whole book about the Beatles. I didn’t want to just write the book of the blog post. In fact, I knew straightaway that if I was going to do this, it would be about the Lennon–McCartney relationship. I was fascinated and moved by their mysterious personal alchemy. I wanted other people to be fascinated and moved by it too.

An obvious thing then struck me: Of all the many Beatles books out there, none focused on this partnership — at least, no significant books for the general reader. It seemed like the universe wanted me to write one.

Rather than attempting to write a scholarly tome, I wanted this to be a personal book — my view rather than an official history. I would not pretend to turn up earthshaking revelations from the archives or carry out interviews with people who had already been interviewed a thousand times. I’d simply draw on the vast amount of published material already out there — words, pictures, music — and find the story I wanted to tell. (I was helped by the arrival of Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back, in 2021, effectively a new tranche of primary evidence not yet incorporated into Beatles literature.)

From a writing point of view, I set myself two big challenges. The first was structural: to weave three strands together — the factual narrative (the “what happened”); the relationship between John and Paul; and the evolution of the Beatles’ music. The second, linked challenge, was to write a book that seasoned Beatles fans would find fresh and Beatles novices would find accessible; a tricky balance to strike.

I wasn’t at all sure if I could pull it off. My strategy for coping with insecurity was to plunge headlong into the first draft. I told myself I had to keep going all the way to the end of the story without looking back. It took me about a year, and it was the most psychologically punishing, least rewarding part of the process. But then I was able to start making it better. Better, better, better…