It’s been more than two months since I’ve read a chapter and posted a review (really more my commentary than proper review, whatever exactly that is) of Rob Sheffield’s wonderful Dreaming the Beatles. The main reason, as I’ve said here before, is that I don’t want the dream to ever end. But you can’t put off the inevitable forever, and The Beatles Channel on Sirius XM Radio with DJs like Peter Asher, Dennis Elsas, Laura Cantrell, and Meg Griffin is pretty good consolation. I listen to the channel every day, still manage to hear a song I haven’t heard in decades once or twice a week, and am still learning new things about fame and music. (For some reason having nothing to do with this review, “Honey Pie” which I heard yesterday is still in my head today. So is “It’s Only Love,” but I know the reason for that, it’s one of the best love songs ever written and sung, even though Lennon said otherwise.)
And that’s as good a segue as I’ll give you for the first of the last three chapters in Dreaming the Beatles, this one about the immediate aftermath of John Lennon’s murder. Sheffield explores this by looking at the effect of that beyond-tragedy on Yoko and Paul, and relating this to his own experience as a widower, and how it immediately gave him a kinship with Yoko. Here we get another facet of Sheffield’s peerless writing - quiet and deeply effective and intensely personal when it needs to be.
Sheffield once passed Yoko on the street - not far from where the Science Fiction Shop used to be, which, as fate would have it, I just had occasion to write about a few weeks ago. Meetings like this have a science fictional aspect wherever they happen to occur. Rob and Yoko exchanged big smiles, even though he wasn’t sure at the time she was Yoko.
I said a few months ago on Twitter that I get tears in my eyes every time I hear John sing “Oh Yoko,” which I had just heard then on The Beatles Channel. There is a magic in New York City, and I’ll always love living here, but there is pain here, too, and always will be, because of what happened to John at The Dakota. I’ve tried to change that reality in my science fiction - but, after all, that’s just fiction.
But Rob crossed paths with Yoko in reality, and that will live forever, too - like The Beatles, The Beatles Channel, and this book.
See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of x: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of x: "I'm in Love, with Marsha Cup" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 24 of 24: The Last Two
And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023
"Ian, Isaac, and John" and "Saving Lennon" in this antho
No comments:
Post a Comment