Come Together: Lennon and McCartney in the Seventies

by Richard White

Although it wasn't made official until an announcement from Paul McCartney in 1970, The Beatles--the most influential rock band of the 20th century--spent most of the late 1960s breaking up. The split was marked my animosity and acrimony, with pointed conflict, in particular, between the groups two most prolific songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Lennon left the band in 1969, and the '70s were marked by public feuding as the band members embarked on solo careers. Beatles fans know the '70s as a bitter time, with Lennon and McCartney making pointed and hurtful comments about each other, both in recorded songs (Lennon's "How Do You Sleep," is particularly nasty) and public comments. Lawsuits proliferated, as did an explosive correspondence between McCartney and his wife Linda, and Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. But most fans don't know that McCartney and Lennon nearly renewed their creative alliance in the aftermath of the Beatles breakup, and were close to putting aside their difference and reuniting. Come Together is a compelling account of a crucial period in post-'60s Beatles history, providing a new look at the Lennon-McCartney relationship from an entirely new perspective, emphasizing the efforts these larger-than-life rock stars made to overcome their enmity. It also offers fresh insight on the musical ambitions and personal motivations for renewing a creative alliance that so nearly happened but was thwarted by circumstances beyond their control.

Genres: Music, Biography

310 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2016

About the author

Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and lives near Palo Alto, California.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing to get information about the former Beatles not only making up, but coming so close to a possible reunion before both the reuniting of John with Yoko and Lennon's unfortunate murder in 1980.
The book does focus on the solo albums that Lennon and McCartney created in the 1970's and the most detailed account of the two meeting up in LA and in NYC and a possible meeting in the studio in New Orleans while Paul was making the "Venus and Mars" album.
A bit of repetition occurs in the reading by the author, but overall a decent read for all Beatles and Beatles solo fans.

[Alessio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really disappointing book. Poorly written

[Ralphz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A resounding "meh." It's supposed to be about Lennon and McCartney warming up and considering rejoining forces in the 1970s, but it's an unfocused, repetitive book that doesn't really deliver.

The overlong intro is more of a Chapter 1 starting with Lennon's first post-Beatles album, "Plastic Ono Band," then slides backwards into older Beatles history.

The remaining first half of the book is a big cheat, a long track-by-track review of the "Red" and "Blue" albums, which DID come out in the '70s, but that's not that you expect for this book, since it was all recorded in the '60s.

And for a book ostensibly about Lennon and McCartney, a great chunk is about George Harrison, and some about Ringo Starr. I think this betrays that the writer didn't really know what he wanted to do. Or how to stretch Len-Mac into a book-long idea.

And he obviously favors Lennon, sharing more of his story. He's dreamy-eyed and poetic about Lennon, while merely straightforward and factual about McCartney.

The book's worst crime: It repeats, it's redundant, it says the same thing again and again, and it repeats. I hope you get what I'm saying.

[Baard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. Lennon and McCartney kept in touch after the breakup, as this book shows. And they had a much better relationship than I thought after the acrimonious breakup.

[Gary Metras · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive in almost every chapter. The author's main focus is to try to prove that John wanted to work with Paul again and almost did. Richard White implies that Yoko, again, prevented John from rejoining Paul. Richard White says in his Introduction that he conducted many interviews with musicians, studio producers and engineers, and photographers who had worked with John and Paul, but he gives no dates for the interviews. His research is therefore a bit loose. He also overly relies upon the memories of May Pang, Yoko's secretary whom Yoko talked into having a year-plus long affair with John. May wrote her own book about John and it is unclear when White uses May's book or his interview with her as source material. So, for fans of The Beatles will find much to frustrate their search understanding them better through this book.

[Stephen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful. Doesn’t add anything - it’s disorganised and makes weird references to the Red and Blue albums. Forget it. There’s plenty of other substantive Beatle books.

[Liz Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued about the premise as I feel this time in the Fab’s lives cannot be discussed enough. Unfortunately as others have said, the writing is distractingly repetitive (I even had to stop and ask myself if it had been AI generated) and does not cite sources/dates of interviews.

I give it a 3 because despite all this I stuck it out and got to the end. There were some good tidbits there that I enjoyed having all in one place, specifically Paul and John’s quotations about each other. I borrowed the book from my library so I don’t feel too put out by the experience, and it is a nice light public transit book to peruse.

Pros: Good quotes, interesting compilation of various source material, I learned a lot about specific John songs/albums which I was previously unaware of, fueled my fandom and gave me a jumping off point for further reading

Cons: Dismissive of Paul/Wings, lionizes John, spends a disproportionate amount of time on songs from the 60s, goes on tangents about things which have no bearing on the central premise — poorly organized

But again — all in all, I read it and enjoyed many parts of it. Cheers to the author for writing!

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. There were some decent sections in this book, but overall it wasn't great. If I could take out sections and add more info about other things maybe it would have been better. For Example, the Beatles Red and Blue greatest hits albums were released in the early 70s...the author spends 50-70 pages going through a critical analysis of every song on those albums....WHY? There are snippets of what McCartney was up to...Band on the Run gets a mention and there is chapter discussing Paul's time in New Orleans recording Venus and Mars....but that was mentioned so the author could keep discussing how John REALLY thought about going to New Orleans to join in (until he got back with Yoko who squashed the idea).

This is essentially a John Lennon Biography, about his time with May Pang. It ignores most of Paul's work in the 70s...and really Paul is usually only mentioned where it pertains to Lennon. Hell, George Harrison is mentioned as much Paul and he's not even mentioned in the title.

[Jason Bourg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good review of the work of Paul and John and George in the early seventies. Some great insight into that time for someone that did not know that much going in, but i was hoping for more insight into their interaction. I guess in didn’t exist....or I guess it wasn’t that interesting. The time between the breakup of the Beatles and the death of John seemed more like a necessary hiatus from each other than a sincere dislike and forced separation. This book mostly left me mad at Mark David Chapman.

[David Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a jumble of facts which is hard to follow. I stopped reading after just a few pages. Either it was poorly written or poorly edited, I'm not sure which. (Probably mostly the latter.)

I’m sure it contains lots of interesting information, but I was unwilling to stumble through the dense, multi-layered prose in search of it. I find it much more interesting to listen to their music itself.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made the mistake of reading the reviews on Goodreads when I started this book, most of which were negative; and I think it helped taint my opinion of the book. Well I agree with the majority, this book just stunk. I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.

[Bill · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea---closed for good in the first chapter..........