Something About The Beatles

201: The Break-Up and “John vs Paul” with Erin Weber

Written by

Us

in

,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:06:06 — 208.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

In which this returning SATB fave (The Beatles and The Historians) and I expand from previous discussions focusing on books to cover the media specifically around the time of the break-up, and how the nonsensical “John vs Paul – who was the greater genius?” discussion got fueled and put forth into the world. The role of Allen Klein in their break-up is also discussed, in this two-hour conversation that drills deep into the dynamic between these two and how the world viewed it.

Comments

16 responses to “201: The Break-Up and “John vs Paul” with Erin Weber”

  1. John Walker

    Another superb conversation with your consistently best guest.

    Reply
  2. Ron

    I found the episode on John Vs. Paul and the bias in rock media towards John’s side of the story and how there wasn’t enough written history giving equal weight to both sides of the story a little bizarre considering that in a 2 hour podcast 1 hour 55 minutes were given to debunking John and 5 minutes debunking Paul. Isn’t that the very definition of media bias? Love the show Robert, but the whole, I have to debunk everything John does and defend everything Paul does, well, very biased and fueling the very fire of the question you ask in the episode, where does this whole John vs. Paul thing come from? If you feel it necessary to get at the “truth” do so fairly. Personally, I think you have a much better show when you leave the politics of John vs. Paul out.

    Reply
    1. Us

      Alas, Ron – if the history wasn’t already so one-way biased, a show like this would not be necessary. Thanks for listening.

      Reply
      1. Guy D.

        I am just a Beatles dilettante that has not read much of the contemporary scholarship like Lewisohn, so my comments are more about the trajectory I see on your podcast and the comments responding to it. I sense what your doing is taking Lennon’s description of individual events, which formed the content of Team Lennon’s narrative that connects those events, and deconstructing those descriptions to say, “This is what Lennon said happened, but here is data to suggest it did not happen this way.”

        Following the evidence or individual bits of data certainly forms the foundation of historiography. But as cognitive science has increasingly shown, we as homo sapiens make sense of data through the illusions we create called narrative that expresses a relationship between the data. And of course narratives are comprised of culturally conditioned semiotics like language we assign to them. One of the metaphysical challenges of historiography is understanding that when we say “this is what really happened,” we are connecting the data into an illusory narrative so it makes sense based on the semiotics of our time. Otherwise the data appears chaotic. Perhaps the reactionary response you are seeing to this negation of the Team Lennon narrative, in some cases at least, is resulting from a sense of disconnected data that has not formed a new, comprehensive narrative in place of the original. In fact, what is happening right now in revising the Beatles narrative reminds me of the dialectical process described by Hegel (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). The original thesis – Yay John, Boo Paul – was biased and excluded so much data. Thus like you said, the antithesis or negation – Yay Paul, Boo John – is necessary. According to Hegel, the antithesis contradicts the thesis.

        But perhaps the feeling of disorganized data in the negation results from the necessary excesses of negation that that may omit other bits of data, thus functioning as an incomplete narrative. Clearly, John played some role in the Beatles’ greatness and the cultural response to him. Yes, he bullshitted his role for years, but that does not mean he played a minimal role or lacked talent. Were not fans already responding to John prior to the break-up? And was it not sometimes just the music, or the spirit he brought to the music, that touched them in the 60s?

        Likewise, as the data suggests, John was a very sick, obnoxious, and difficult human being to interact with. Exposing his errors is certainly part of the negation process; by today’s standards of morality he fails the test. But as is true of any period of historiography, the moral semiotic zeitgeist of the historian tends to frame the semiotics of the historian when narrating the story of history, which may unconsciously bias interpretation of the data in the other direction. Clearly this was at play in creation of the Team Lennon narrative, but perhaps we should reflect on that tendency now during the current negation process as well. It’s the laudable but elusive goal of objectivity.

        Furthermore, perhaps the Lennon mythology, or more importantly the media and cultural responses to Lennon, began prior to the narrative construction by Team Lennon and was present early on. It seems the interaction of fans/culture with the media representation of the Beatles already manufactured a narrative of not only Lennon but also the group as a whole, like an Elvis 2.0. As Marshall Mcluhan said of the strange invasion of mass media in the 1960’s, “the medium is the message.” Certainly, Brian Epstein quite adroitly exploited the medium to create the Beatles message.

        To conclude, maybe fans are yearning for a synthesis. A synthetic narrative, as illusory as a Yay John or even Yay Paul narrative is anyways according to cognitive science, may at least organize the data in a more comprehensive framework. Leaving data strewn about isolated from each other does not satisfy homo sapiens, nor does a narrative biased in the other direction that excludes other bits of data. The dialectical materialism of Karl Marx, for instance, which brought Hegel down from heaven to earth, sensed this was the direction of history; revolution negates bourgeois society into pieces, but it cannot remain in pieces and will inevitably re-organize from the chaos into a socialist society. Marx was much too optimistic about the specifics of the course of history, in my opinion, but I think he correctly identified with Hegel the human tendency toward synthesis. The negation in Beatles historiography right now is like a revolution, and eventually we may tend toward a synthetic Beatles narrative, which, of course, will be subject to starting the dialectic all over again as new data emerges and cultural hermeneutics evolve.

        Reply
        1. Us

          Thank you for that wonderfully detailed, nuanced and wise response.

          Reply
  3. RobW

    MS.Weber is absolutely one of your best guests I always look forward to hearing her here. She analysis the evidence and facts without bias which is needed when looking at The Beatles history!
    If there is one “villian” in the breakup of The Beatles it is certainly Allen Klein. Of course it is NOT close to the sole reason but it is a big one, Klein was a crook in the end but there is also no way McCartney’s in-laws as management on the other hand would ever have been acceptable to the other three.
    “Lennon Remembers” skews so many people view of the events that it is still an inaccurate overview of almost everything! Follow the evidence, your damn right! Thank you.

    Reply
  4. Marlon

    The comments about Lennon referencing Imagine’s melody as good as Yesterday were from Howard Smith.

    https://www.mojo4music.com/articles/668/john-lennon-was-haunted-by-yesterday-says-confidante

    Great show! I really enjoy when Ms. Weber is the guest.

    Reply
  5. RobW

    One more comment from me. This is such a brilliant episode with Erin Weber. I was 17 when Lennon Remembers came out and I was a big Lennon guy, he was always my favorite BUT even then I knew that interview was full of exaggeration and hyperbole on the part of Lennon. I mean when he says, ” George is 10 years younger tnan me or something” , that is so much bullshit . I mean I knew George was not even 3 years younger! So all you have to do is read this interview with the knowledge that he was raving! It was just obvious. Thanks.

    Reply
  6. Christopher Cruz

    Two hours of, “Bad John! Bad, bad John! T’aww, poor Paul!” The only ones who perpetuated any John vs. Paul debate were John and Paul themselves, mudslinging each other in the press from 1970 to ’71, and in song. Years later, after John is well dead and buried, Paul insists that Lennon-McCartney songwriting credits are reversed to McCartney-Lennon. Are you serious? This is not a defense of Allen Klein, because he was a sleaze, no doubt about it, but in everything I’ve ever read, I have never heard what the Eastmans would have brought to the table as the Beatles’ potential new management team. The only truly honest thing that was said here is that all four Beatles have been guilty of revisionism. Do you really believe, for instance, that all water had gone under the bridge during the “Anthology” period? In this episode, there seems to be an opinion that competition among recording artists is a negative thing. Do you not know that music is a competitive game? Everybody is fighting everybody else. Paul was also competing against whomever was on the charts at the time, as they were competing against him. As for George Martin saying that both Lennon and McCartney were equal in ability, you’re quoting something that was said by a music industry exec, so if you believe he was actually be genuine, I really don’t know what could be said for you. I will say that, had it been up to George Martin, it would have been “Paul McCartney & Backing Group”, but the Beatles’ band politics were such that that wouldn’t have been tolerated or allowed.

    Reply
    1. Us

      This is the problem with attempting to redress the imbalance of artistic weight in the narrative set in motion in 1970 (Lennon = The Beatles’ sole genius, expounded by Philip “John Lennon is 3/4 of the Beatles” Norman) and carried forth from 1981 onward by Lenono Inc: there will always be fans defensive on behalf of Lennon who will twist themselves in knots to maintain his supremacy as top Beatle (“Yeah, he was an asshole, but at least he admitted it and tried to correct his shortcomings!”). This conversation wasn’t about choosing sides – that’s the last thing this show seeks to do. Instead, it is about acknowledging that a particular narrative was put out into the world, unobstructed by a counter-narrative from Paul at the time, that is demonstrably false and that -for the sake of getting the history right – needs to be revised.

      You say Paul insisted that the credits be reversed after John was dead and buried? First of all, this was something Paul did on songs he wrote with no objection from John, during the latter’s lifetime (as listed on the Wings Over America album). Paul later approached Yoko to have the credits switched for all time on “Yesterday” – a song acknowledged by all to be Paul’s baby (and one John displayed a particular disdain for, repeatedly), and Yoko not only refused, but she further went on to characterize John as the Mozart to Paul’s Salieri. Perpetuating meaningless opinions like that (someone explain Yoko’s standing as rock critic to me) only serve to further erode whatever credibility on the subject she/they have in the first place. Last, if there was some kind of justification for removing Paul’s name completely from the 1969 joint credit on “Give Peace A Chance” that John gave him (commonly believed to be as thanks for making “Ballad of John and Yoko” possible), which is exactly what has happened in recent years, I have yet to hear it.

      RE the Eastmans: due diligence in 1969 would’ve revealed the red flags stuck to Klein and none on the Eastmans. They had a record of success with the clients they’d represented going back to the 1940s, minus the trail of lawsuits and litigation in plain sight – if that wasn’t good enough for the Beatles (not to mention the added incentive to do right by their new son-in-law), I don’t know what would have. Lee Eastman was certainly good enough for John Lennon in 1974, when he personally sorted out the tax issues John was enmeshed in that prevented him from signing the dissolution papers the same day Paul and George did. And if you have any evidence that Paul/MPL has suffered since 1970 under the guidance of the Eastmans (or any of their clients), let’s have it.

      I don’t know where you picked up the suggestion that competition between artists is a bad thing. When it involves a *creative* competition, such as what existed between John and Paul during the Beatles and for a time afterward, or between The Beatles and other artists, it is perfectly valid. When it is a personal mudslinging, it isn’t – it just debases the person delivering it; in this case, guess who? Paul never slagged John’s artistry or delivered a slandering like “How Do You Sleep.”

      So you think George Martin’s assessment of the two as equal geniuses is just industry logrolling? That you can’t see the forest for the trees reveals your own myopia. If this needs to be explained further, just do this: point out the works of sustained genius produced by either of them once they no longer collaborated. What is glaringly obvious is that 95% of what these guys will be remembered for are the songs jointly credited – created in partnership. For whatever flashes of brilliance they displayed from time to time on their own, I feel safe to say that the consensus is that – for both of them – the musical immortality they may have was at its zenith between 1963 and 1969.

      Reply
  7. william c

    I think it would be ideal to invite a therapist to the conversation around John Lennon’s persona. Why Beatle fans, authors and aficionados constantly praise, wonder and question why Lennon was such a “complex” individual that could do so much wrong to those close to him and yet still be praised.

    He was charming and that is a tool that is often used to manipulate people and groups in order to attain their attention, support and tolerance towards something positive or negative. Just look at the current president of the US.

    Lennon was very captivating, he was charming to his friends in the 1950s and hey put with him because manipulated them. This is very common strategy used by people who have strong insecurities. Remember, it’s a tool that can be applied for both good and bad.. but its a tool to manipulate so that can often be a blurred line.

    I only suggest this because in all the years of books and podcasts no one has bothered to actually invite an expert in human behavior to share their interpretations of such a polarizing character.

    No mystery to solve here, just a lack of information waiting to be shared.

    Reply
    1. Neal

      Excellent point. Sadly too many overlook what you suggest–something that has always surprised me. A rigorous and analytical review of Lennon from this pov would add much to the discussion.

      Reply
  8. Tim

    A great discussion and thoroughly entertaining as always with Erin.

    I thought the end of the discussion was the take away – its a fool’s errand to try and quantitatively or otherwise “rank” the contribution of John and Paul to the Beatles – there would be no Beatles without either one of them or for that matter all four (or more – B. Epstein and G. Martin come to mind).

    Reply
  9. Paul T

    Such intelligence and insight. Thx a lot for a great episode. The comment re some parts of the audio interview being a lot less harsh than appeared in black and white in the published Lennon Remembers is so true.

    Reply
  10. Kent

    I like your abrupt ending with John Lennon!

    Reply
  11. More Album Cover Outtakes | THE PRESS | Music Reviews

    […] Well worth checking out is another superb conversation between Robert Rodriguez and Erin Weber on the best Beatles podcast: Something About the Beatles. The most current Episode 201: The Break-Up and “John vs Paul”: with Erin Weber. […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts