“Other than music and a pronounced suspicion of authority, John and Paul shared something else: they were walking wounded. Each, in his short life, had experienced jarring, alienating, soul-rending events that left permanent scars.”

Leslie claims that a major facet of Lennon and McCartney’s uncanny bond was their mutual encounters with loss. He uses language like “wounded,” “jarring,” “rending,” and “scars” to enact the intense experiences of sorrow the two experienced at a young age. Rather than tearing them apart, their parallel encounters with death and grief offered them a point of connection. This passage thus introduces Leslie’s theme of The Influence of Loss and Personal Experience on an Artist’s Identity.

“John and Paul will sing an opening phrase and the other will pick up on it, his face lighting up with a grin. There is a loose plan to make the album about the band’s musical roots, but the most important role of these run-throughs seems to be emotional. The songs remind them of what they have loved about playing together. The songs are sustenance.”

Leslie uses lyrical language to enact the emotionally resonant nature of Lennon and McCartney’s early music. He describes their physical responses to their music—noting how their faces changed as they work together—to convey the depth of their art. Additionally, Leslie uses anaphora—beginning the last two lines with “the songs”—to mimic the rhythm and playfulness of their early songs.

“The place must have felt exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Picking through crowds on the garishly lit Reeperbahn, they were in a city where they didn’t speak the language, a world away from families and schools; from friends working factory jobs or diligently preparing for careers in offices; from people who cared about them but who also surveilled and judged them. There was nobody to rag them for playing at being pop stars. They were pop stars.”

Leslie uses descriptive language, a narrative style, and elliptical sentence structures to reify the excitement that Lennon and McCartney experienced in Hamburg. Leslie is attempting to inhabit Lennon and McCartney’s youthful exhilaration at this time in their life and careers. He in turn immerses readers in this experience by presenting this string of vivid images. The passage carries the same verve and energy that Leslie imagines Lennon and McCartney experienced.

“Those who knew Lennon and McCartney marveled at how close they were. Bernie Boyle, a Cavern regular who did some work for the Beatles as a roadie, observed their eerie mental connection: ‘They were so tight it was like there was a telepathy between them: on stage, they’d look at each other and know instinctively what the other was thinking.’”

Leslie incorporates a quote from one of Lennon and McCartney’s acquaintances into his examination to authenticate his overarching claims about Lennon and McCartney’s relationship. Leslie argues that Lennon and McCartney shared an uncanny bond. Boyle’s words validate this notion and nuance Leslie’s authorial tone, reiterating the notion that Leslie isn’t the ultimate authority on the icons’ lives. Furthermore, Boyle’s description of Lennon and McCartney’s dynamic underscores The Complexity of Creative Partnerships.

“The musical genius of ‘She Loves You’ is easy to miss because its effect is so immediate. […] The landing is luxuriously carpeted: on that final ‘yeah’ the three singers unfurl a rich harmony that evokes the pre-rock-and roll era. In the first twelve seconds of the song we’re spun through at least three different eras of pop, and it all happens so fast that the only option is surrender.”

Leslie uses descriptive, lyrical language in his analysis of the Beatles’ songs. In this passage, he uses diction like “luxuriously,” “carpeted,” “unfurl,” “rich,” “spun,” and “surrender” to convey the all-encompassing effect that “She Loves You” can have on listeners. This rich and vivid language enacts the emotional resonance of the Beatles’ song while conjuring the mood of the group’s work.

“McCartney’s sense of himself was rooted in the home he grew up in and a childhood that teemed with aunts and uncles and cousins. Lennon didn’t have that kind of psychological ballast. […] Being with Paul in a hotel room, strumming a guitar, or hanging out with all the Beatles—that was a kind of home.”

Leslie’s musings on Lennon and McCartney’s definitions of home and family reiterate the influence of loss and personal experience on an artist’s identity. Although Lennon and McCartney had divergent concepts of home, their pasts similarly dictated how they saw themselves as they came of age. This passage particularly suggests that Lennon was so reliant on McCartney because McCartney offered him the comfort and stability he’d never received as a child.

“‘Ticket to Ride’ glints with meanings; you can walk around it forever and see different shafts of light bouncing off its surfaces. It’s about a breakup, viewed through a haze of pot smoke. It’s about a generational shift in the balance of power between men and women. It’s about a shift in the balance of power between John and Paul, as John comes to suspect that Paul doesn’t rely on him quite as much as he relies on Paul.”

Leslie’s use of vivid language and anaphora in his description of “Ticket to Ride” evokes his deep emotional connection to the song. With the exception of the passage’s first sentence, all of the lines begin with the phrase “It’s about,” lending the passage a musical rhythm that mirrors that of the song he’s describing. Furthermore, his use of diction like “glints,” “shafts,” and “bouncing” evokes the same animacy of the song. He also uses metaphors like “a haze of pot smoke,” which evokes the mood of the cultural era when the song was written.

“If John scorned old-fashioned ballads it was because they were tied to his own desperate need for love. If he tried to cut Paul down to size now and then, it was because he feared Paul might not need him anymore. There are reports of the two of them rowing loudly during this period. This was not so much a sign of the relationship’s deterioration as of its vitality, the best evidence for which is the music they made together over the years to come.”

Leslie uses a speculative tone as he investigates the meaning behind Lennon and McCartney’s relational tensions. He also uses the conditional tense (beginning the opening lines with “if”) to enact his thinking on the page. Leslie is examining specific episodes from Lennon and McCartney’s story as friends in order to better understand the complexity of creative partnerships. He in turn makes conjectures about their dynamic from these examinations—asserting that their conflicts were evidence of their love rather than their hatred for each other.

“We try to give people a feeling—they don’t have to understand the music if they can just feel the emotion. This is half the reason the fans don’t understand but they experience what we are trying to tell them. Lack of feeling in an emotional sense is responsible for the way some singers do our songs. […] Beatles are really the only people who can play Beatle music.”

Leslie incorporates Lennon’s reflections on the Beatles’ music to authenticate his claims about why Beatle music was so resonant. Lennon is claiming that the Beatles are “the only people who can play Beatle music” because they are the only ones who can infuse their songs with the appropriate emotion. This notion speaks to the Beatles’ overarching beliefs about the purpose of art and artistry, and to why their performances elicited such intense responses from their fans.

“Christianity will go,’ he said to Cleave. ‘It will vanish and shrink…We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary.’”

Lennon’s remarks on fame and Christianity, Jesus, and the Beatles set off an international cultural debate. Lennon’s words were regarded as incendiary and heretical, sealing the Beatles’ reputation as that of dissidents negatively impacting the youth culture. At the same time, Leslie incorporates Lennon’s words to convey The Psychological Dimensions of Fame, and the Beatles’ attempts to reconcile with life in the spotlight.

“I suspect Paul wrote ‘Penny Lane’ for John, and that those blue suburban skies are meant to invoke Weybridge. Paul is reminding John that however disconnected or lonely he might be feeling, the two of them would always be able to meet up in the middle of a roundabout.”

Leslie affects a speculative, reflective stance in his musings on the meaning of “Penny Lane.” His assessment of the song’s meaning authenticates his overarching thesis that Lennon and McCartney had a romantic relationship that originated in their childhood. The passage also underscores Leslie’s notion that Lennon and McCartney used their music to communicate complex ideas and feelings to each other.

“‘A Day in the Life’—that was something, I dug it. It was a good piece of work between Paul and me. I had the ‘I read the news today’ bit, and it turned Paul on. Now and then we really turn each other on with a bit of song, and he just said ‘yeah’—bang, bang, like that. It just sort of happened beautifully.”

The way Lennon describes his and McCartney’s work on “A Day in the Life” in this Rolling Stone interview conveys the ineffable nature of his and McCartney’s dynamic. Leslie incorporates this quotation to authenticate the complexity of creative partnerships. In particular, Lennon’s words reiterate the notion that what made Lennon and McCartney’s work so distinct was the inarticulable nature of their connection. Indeed, Lennon holds that the song “just sort of happened beautifully,” a phenomenon that Leslie believes applied to many of their songs.

“In an era when art and creativity are always being commandeered in the name of something else—commerce, politics, mental health—there is something enduringly subversive about insisting on music for music’s sake. The imagination, the Beatles seem to say, is irreducible to ends, impossible to corral. It may bring delight, it may bring horror. It will go where it will go.”

Leslie assumes a more omniscient stance in this passage in order to widen his central examinations. He is still musing on Lennon and McCartney’s relationship, but in this passage he’s exploring how their work impacted the culture at large. He makes ties to both the era when Lennon and McCartney were working and the contemporary era—thus underscoring the lasting significance of the Beatles’ work.

“You feel conned and humiliated, and your best friend doesn’t even notice. He leaves you high and dry with your broken dream, having never fallen for it in the first place. You feel foolish and lost, and very, very lonely.”

Leslie inhabits Lennon’s state of mind in the wake of the India trip in an attempt to understand what he was experiencing psychologically. He uses the second person point of view, a formal technique which also invites readers to imagine into Lennon’s internal experience then.

“If John wanted her there because he was in love and already felt dependent on her, he was also engaging in what couples therapists sometimes call ‘triangulation’; when one member of a couple draws a third party close in order (consciously or otherwise) to make their partner feel insecure. Perhaps John wanted Paul to know that he was capable of leaving the partnership before Paul left him.”

Leslie incorporates scientific and psychological terminology to capture the complicated nature of Lennon, McCartney, and Yoko Ono’s relationships. His reference to “triangulation” not only gestures to Leslie’s psychological and behavioral background but seeks to clarify his key figures’ inarticulable entanglement. In addition, the passage puts the onus on Lennon rather than on Ono—casting Lennon as the party responsible for putting Ono between himself and McCartney.

“He doesn’t say who ‘we’ is here, but the words of ‘Two of Us’ suggest who was on his mind. […] The music conjures up the people he and John once were—teenagers with guitars singing in Everly-style harmony. In rehearsals of ‘Two of Us’ at Twickenham they sing into the same microphone.”

Leslie delves into the meaning and significance of Lennon and McCartney’s song “Two of Us” to reiterate the complexity of creative partnerships. The song isn’t only lyrically interested in exploring Lennon and McCartney’s friendship; Leslie holds that it instrumentally and sonically enacts their deep affection for each other too.

“But this just shows how much of John and Paul’s music came from a level deep beneath conscious awareness. Paul wanted not to believe that his partnership with John and the other Beatles was ending, even as he sought the most graceful cadence to close this twelve-year song.”

Leslie’s analysis of the song “The End” offers insight into McCartney’s response to the Beatles’ breakup. The song appears on the group’s final album, which Leslie speculates is evidence that McCartney used the song to process the distance growing between him and Lennon specifically. The reference to the song’s “graceful cadence” likewise suggests that McCartney was trying to express his sadness without animosity.

“I was going through a bad time, what I suspect was almost a nervous breakdown. I remember lying awake at nights shaking, which has not happened to me since. One night I’d been asleep and awoke and I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow…I thought, Jesus, if I don’t do this I’ll suffocate. I remember hardly having the energy to pull myself up…I just couldn’t do anything.”

Leslie incorporates McCartney’s public reflections on his life post-Beatles to convey the influence of loss and personal experience on an artist’s identity. Since he was 15, McCartney learned to define himself according to his relationship with Lennon and his involvement with the Beatles. Their breakup caused him to experience what he identifies as “a nervous breakdown” because he was undergoing a crisis of identity.

“Plastic Ono Band takes aim at big themes, evident in its titles alone—Mother, Love, God—and paints a bleak, grandiose canvas. McCartney opens with ‘Lovely Linda,’ an expression of joy in new love. John sings about ‘Yoko and me’ like they’re the last survivors of a shipwreck, clinging to each other for safety.”

Leslie parallels Lennon and McCartney’s post-Beatles work on the page to explore how the Beatles’ split impacted them as individuals. While Lennon’s album Plastic Ono Band implied that Lennon was becoming more interrogative after the breakup, McCartney’s album McCartney implied that McCartney was trying to summon life’s goodness to withstand his heartbreak over the split. Furthermore, Leslie’s use of the shipwreck metaphor suggests that Lennon felt unmoored without the Beatles because the band was once such a defining aspect of his life.

“There is a trace of impatience, almost a taunt in that probing question ‘Are you afraid?’ which becomes, in the very last verse, ‘Are you a fool?’ The lyrics lend themselves to both readings: soft and tough; truce and ultimatum. ‘Dear Friend’ contains the mixed-up emotions of a breakup with someone you still care about deeply.”

Leslie closely analyzes McCartney’s song “Dear Friend” to explore McCartney’s state of mind in the wake of his and Lennon’s personal conflicts. He acknowledges the simultaneous “impatience” and “softness” of the song to capture the scope of McCartney’s emotional experience. Just as his relationship with Lennon wasn’t ever all good or all bad, his song to Lennon doesn’t acknowledge only one aspect of his emotionality.

“He said, ‘I’m starting all over again and working my way upward.’ He was trying to rediscover the musician inside the public persona: ‘A year ago, I used to wake up in the morning and think, I’m Paul McCartney. I’m a myth. And it scared the hell out of me.’”

Leslie leans on McCartney’s descriptions of his self-discovery journey to further explore the psychological dimensions of fame. Although McCartney established himself as an international pop star when he was in his early twenties, in the wake of the Beatles’ breakup he underwent a crisis of identity. He now had to ask himself who he was without his bandmates—a challenge that he admits terrified him. McCartney’s vulnerable tone in this quotation reiterates the vulnerability required to define oneself outside the context of one’s public persona.

“I think John drew Paul toward him in that moment because he didn’t want to face what was in front of him alone. He was thrilled by the crowd and terrified by its hunger. He was delighted by his solo success and anxious about whether he could repeat it. Everything that was exciting was also overwhelming. If he couldn’t look across the stage and see his friend, he could at least summon his presence.”

Leslie uses searching, curious language as he speculates about the significance of Lennon’s Madison Square Garden performance. The phrase “I think” establishes that Leslie doesn’t definitively know what Lennon was thinking when he performed one of McCartney’s songs at this event. However, Leslie’s reflective, sympathetic tone presents Lennon’s emotional experience in an accessible way. The passage humanizes Lennon and reiterates his and McCartney’s intense bond.

“John said, ‘I love him. Families—we certainly have our ups and downs and our quarrels. But when all’s said and done, I would do anything for him, and I think he would do anything for me.’”

Lennon remarked upon his and McCartney’s relationship just moments before his murder in 1980. Leslie incorporates Lennon’s words as a quasi-elegy to Lennon and McCartney’s relationship at large. While the two had their “ups and downs,” Lennon likens his and McCartney’s relationship to a familial relationship. He is honoring his friend and reiterating the indelible nature of their bond.