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A review by jessicaistired
Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman
3.0
First, I will say, this book is an entertaining enough way to pass the time, but it would be wise to read more McCartney biographies to form a better, more rounded picture of his life. Phil has a huge boner for John Lennon; he even confirms it in his prologue. He once said that John was 3/4th of the Beatles which is a completely asinine thing to say. This book is his attempt to “make it up” to Paul for completely trashing him in his earlier book, Shout!, for ridiculous reasons that he tries to rationalize and explain in the prologue. With that he over compensates a bit throughout the whole book. I assume to garner more sales from McCartney fans. I’m a huge Paul fan myself, but I know the man is human and has flaws. I’d like to know everything about his life, even the bad.
Phil even went so far as to portray John in a not so flattering light when next to Paul, writing about some of John’s most negative and dark traits, conversations, and actions. The positive things are rare, and be prepared for many subtle, passive aggressive jabs at George, Linda, and Ringo (the few times he actually mentions him).
One of the many things that rubbed me the wrong way, was when he was speaking about the Tug Of War recording session with Carl Perkins. He mentioned the laugh at the end of the track, Get It, that came from Carl that was left in; he made a snide comment about Carl “not getting it [the album]”, implying that Carl didn’t even get why he was there and the track was rubbish. Admittedly, it’s not one of the stronger ones on the album, but Paul has even told the story of that session where he suddenly repeated a joke Carl had told him earlier upon meeting him, and it caught him off guard causing the genuine laughter. Phil’s own bias of the album and song caused him to completely ignore that fun moment and dirty it with a snide remark. I would take everything you read in this book with a grain of salt.
The book is very rushed after Linda’s death and Nancy is more of an afterthought at the end. The interviews with family and friends are an interesting take, but there isn’t a huge amount of new information that hasn’t been already told in some way or another, and he does jump around a lot. The pacing can be odd, and many times it feels like he’s still trying to focus more on John.
One last thing, I really don’t need to repeatedly read your passive aggressive comments about Paul and Linda not being vegetarians yet until they actually are, Phil. I know they didn’t come out of the womb as vegetarians, and it’s a pretty normal thing that most people don’t stop eating meat until they have some sort of realization, epiphany, or they see/learn something that causes them to stop. Unless they’re born with a taste aversion to it. I don’t need to know about every single time either of them ate meat before they became vegetarians. Good. God. Man. Stop.
Phil even went so far as to portray John in a not so flattering light when next to Paul, writing about some of John’s most negative and dark traits, conversations, and actions. The positive things are rare, and be prepared for many subtle, passive aggressive jabs at George, Linda, and Ringo (the few times he actually mentions him).
One of the many things that rubbed me the wrong way, was when he was speaking about the Tug Of War recording session with Carl Perkins. He mentioned the laugh at the end of the track, Get It, that came from Carl that was left in; he made a snide comment about Carl “not getting it [the album]”, implying that Carl didn’t even get why he was there and the track was rubbish. Admittedly, it’s not one of the stronger ones on the album, but Paul has even told the story of that session where he suddenly repeated a joke Carl had told him earlier upon meeting him, and it caught him off guard causing the genuine laughter. Phil’s own bias of the album and song caused him to completely ignore that fun moment and dirty it with a snide remark. I would take everything you read in this book with a grain of salt.
The book is very rushed after Linda’s death and Nancy is more of an afterthought at the end. The interviews with family and friends are an interesting take, but there isn’t a huge amount of new information that hasn’t been already told in some way or another, and he does jump around a lot. The pacing can be odd, and many times it feels like he’s still trying to focus more on John.
One last thing, I really don’t need to repeatedly read your passive aggressive comments about Paul and Linda not being vegetarians yet until they actually are, Phil. I know they didn’t come out of the womb as vegetarians, and it’s a pretty normal thing that most people don’t stop eating meat until they have some sort of realization, epiphany, or they see/learn something that causes them to stop. Unless they’re born with a taste aversion to it. I don’t need to know about every single time either of them ate meat before they became vegetarians. Good. God. Man. Stop.