Paul McCartney: The Biography

By Philip Norman

(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25)

LET me take you back to February, 1967. The Beatles were in their pomp, having a few months earlier released Revolver, their most inspired album to date. Its much-anticipated successor, however, was still far from completion so, to assuage congenitally impatient fans, their producer, George Martin, often glibly dubbed the “fifth” Beatle, decided to put out what was then known as a double A-sided single, two potential hits for the price of one. On one side was John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields Forever while on the other was Paul McCartney’s Penny Lane. “The weight of brilliance and innovation packed on to one small 45 rpm disc,” writes Philip Norman, unable even at this juncture to temper his hyperventilation, “has never been surpassed and probably never will be.”

Be that as it may, the great British public, whose want of taste ought never to be underestimated, decided that “Lennon and McCartney’s galvanic effort” was not worth acquiring in sufficient numbers to top the pop charts. Instead, they preferred Engelbert Humperdinck’s lachrymose ballad, Release Me, which, now one comes to think of it, was a crime against culture.

It would be good to know what Paul McCartney thinks of such a slight, especially in a biography whose subtitle presumes definitiveness. But though its subject gave the author “tacit approval”, which encouraged many people to be interviewed about him, McCartney's own involvement was minimal. This is understandable, as Norman is at pains to point out. Beatle maniacs well remember his ill-informed, intemperate and misleading book, Shout!, published in 1981, which McCartney so disliked he let it be known that it should be re-titled with another word beginning with "Sh". In particular, he was said to be dismayed by Norman’s overestimation of Lennon’s contribution to the Beatles’ success and the gross undervaluing of his own talent.

This book is Norman’s attempt to redress the balance. Like an alcoholic who goes around apologising to those he may have hurt while in his cups, he is contrite to an embarrassing degree. Having done McCartney wrong, he would have us believe that he has had a volte-face. Thus the man who emerges from these 850-plus pages is the epitome of niceness and politeness, spreading harmony where others would sow discord, the restless driving force in the best band ever.

For what it’s worth, I agree with him. For me, it was apparent that while all around him, especially Lennon, were becoming increasingly unhinged and unfocused, not to mention indolent and drug-addled, it was McCartney, whose cuteness and courtesy and inextinguishable cheerfulness belied his steely ambition, who got things done. It was he, moreover, who strove – unsuccessfully as it transpired – to keep the Beatles together.

That’s not to say, of course, that from to time he did not test the forbearance of his fellow band members. It was Lennon, for example, who had to concede that McCartney, significantly two years his junior, “was always a couple of chords ahead, and his songs usually had more chords in them”. Meanwhile, recording Back In The USSR for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Starr fluffed “a tom-tom fill” and was rebuked by McCartney, who then showed the drummer how it ought to be done. Which, however diplomatically it’s portrayed, must have been tough to stomach. Nor was George Harrison, whose guitar playing was admired by the likes of Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and The Band, immune from criticism. Performing Taxman for Revolver, which he wrote, he was nevertheless criticised by McCartney for his guitar solo and had it finally wrested from him. The impression given is that McCartney, like Paul Simon, was not only a perfectionist but a control freak who would not tolerate sub-standard performances or less than total commitment to the cause.

His image, of course, was other. Whereas Lennon had a sarcastic, caustic tongue and could do a fair imitation of a Liverpudlian James Dean, McCartney was the kind of young man parents dream of their daughters bringing home. Of Irish-Scottish stock, he was raised in a loving home by a no-nonsense mother who died aged just 47 and a musical father whose biggest indulgence after his son’s success was to over-tip. Norman relates the familiar story – raucous nights at the Cavern, bed-hopping on the Reeperbahn, Decca’s rejection, Brian Epstein’s influence as manager, the transformation of the musical landscape, hit after hit, the Apple debâcle, marriage to Linda and Heather Mills – with broadsheet brio and a steady drip of head-scratching conclusions. No -ne since George Gershwin and Richard Rogers, he asserts, has possessed in such abundance McCartney’s ability to write an original melody. “Indeed,” Norman adds, “Paul belongs to an even tinier elect, like Louis Armstrong and the great jazz drummer Gene Krupa, who seem made of music more than of flesh and blood.”

Given a near lifetime’s worth of such puerile hymning, it is a miracle McCartney has not succumbed as so many of his peers did, dying – pace The Who – before they got old with a needle stuck in an arm. Now 73, he still tours, which, unlike the other three Beatles, he has always been keen to do. He continues to write and release albums which, unlike the dozen made between 1963 and 1970, make no more of a stir than a summer shower. He has recently married for a third time and has four children (including his step-daughter, Heather), all of whom appear to have forged lives independent of him. If nothing else, Norman’s biography demonstrates that it is possible to be a genius, to write songs like Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby and The Fool On The Hill, and still stay relatively normal. The sadness is that had the Beatles not imploded there might have been more in that vein. One such project mentioned here was for a film of Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, with Paul as Frodo Baggins, John as Gollum, George as Gandalf and Ringo as Frodo’s pal Sam. Stanley Kubrick no less was slated to direct and Lennon intimated he was ready to write a double album as a soundtrack. But for whatever reason, Paul was unconvinced and the idea lapsed. And, as ever in such matters, what he said went.