Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney

Next up in Rob Sheffield's one-of-a-kind Dreaming the Beatles, which I've been reviewing here now about a chapter a month, because that's the way I like it, is an outstanding defense of Paul McCartney, as only Sheffield with his combination of depth, irreverence, and sheer style could do it.

The thing is - as you'll know from reading almost any one of my previous reviews here (see list at end of this review) - I don't think McCartney needs any defense.  I find people who don't like his music tone-deaf, jealous, or at best marching to a drummer so different from mine that I have nothing to say to them.  It's not that I love every song McCartney has written and recorded.  It's just that I love more of them then I do any other artist's.  It's not that I don't love Lennon just as much, and that I don't acknowledge that many of Lennon's songs, from when he was with the Beatles (like "Rain") and when he was on his own (like "Jealous Guy" or even "Whatever Gets You Through the Night") are easily as good as or even better than McCartney's best.   It's just I've gotten a little more, in sum, over the years, from McCartney's music than from Lennon's, and this was so even before the unacceptably tragic day when Lennon was murdered (my Loose Ends Saga concludes with a time-traveling plan to prevent that).

And it's not that I agree with every move McCartney has made outside of the studio, either.  On a personal level, I imagined that McCartney would contact me after my Vote for McCartney was published in The Village Voice in 1971 (my first published article).   That never happened (but I was thrilled when my son, Simon Vozick-Levinson, got to interview McCartney twice for Rolling Stone decades later).  But regarding McCartney's music - the worst I can say about it is some of his songs and recordings aren't as wonderful as others.  Which is why I think his career needs no defense.

Yet Sheffield's defense is both a pleasure to read and useful.  I confess to never having heard So Bad, a McCartney song which Sheffield enjoys.  I just listened to it on YouTube, and concur with Sheffield.  (He might have also mentioned two McCartney songs from a little later which are among my favorites - My Brave Face which he wrote with Elvis Costello, and Hope of Deliverance - by, hey, different strokes.)  And Sheffield's takes on various aspects of McCartney's life and career - ranging from quick notes like "he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star ever" to a magnificent, extended little essay on Paul McCartney and Cary Grant as two very similar expressions of working class Brits become famous in America - are genius.  (And just for good measure, I agree completely with Sheffield's praise for McCartney's concert in 2016 - my wife and I felt the same about his concert in Hempstead, NY this past Fall.)

All of which adds up to McCartney, though his admirability should be self-evident, is fortunate to have someone with Sheffield's pop-cultural sensitivity and analytic depth writing about him in this destined-to-be classic book.  McCartney doesn't need this defense but he more than deserves it.

And I'll be reviewing more of this book soon.

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" ...  20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 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

 
lots of Beatles in this time travel

Bill Keller and the New York Times: Heal Thyself

I saw Bill Keller, former editor of The New York Times (now one of its writers), on MSNBC a little while ago, roundly criticizing Rolling Stone for not checking out its sources more carefully before publication of its enormously important rape on college campus story, which has finally gotten America to pay some attention to this endemic and awful part of frat culture.

Rolling Stone no doubt should have checked its sources more throughly before going to press, and it could have handled its apology issued today a little better, and not blamed the source by saying Rolling Stone's "trust in her was misplaced".   When issuing an apology, it's best to just stay with what you didn't do right.

But Bill Keller of all people attacks Rolling Stone about this?  He was at The New York Times during the years of probably the worst journalistic travesty in history, when Jayson Blair regularly faked stories, plagiarized, made up sources, and in general made The New York Times a laughing stock, a sad position for the once "newspaper of record".

Further, where have The New York Times and Bill Keller been all these years in which rapes have taking place on campuses such as the University of Virginia?   Rather than getting on his high horse, Keller should encourage his own newspaper to do more reporting on this grievous problem.

And Rolling Stone, let us not forget, deserves eminent credit for breaking this story wide open, and bringing it to public scrutiny.   They erred, but on behalf of a noble and critically important goal, and deserve every decent person's thanks not attack for this.

Father and Son and Paul McCartney

Today's a great day for the Vozick-Levinsons.   Son Simon's pathbreaking interview with Sir Paul McCartney has just been published in Rolling Stone.  It contains such gems as McCartney reminiscing about "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" -

I have great memories of writing it with John. I read, occasionally, people say, "Oh, John wrote that one." I say, "Wait a minute, what was that afternoon I spent with him, then, looking at this poster?" 

If you've ever loved the Beatles, this interview is bound to bring a smile to your soul.

But I take a special pleasure and pride in this interview.  Turns out that my very first published article was "A Vote for McCartney," which appeared in the Village Voice in 1971.  The story of how I got it published is a story in itself.  I had read a scathing and lame review of McCartney's latest album - a post-Beatles album - by the dyspeptic Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau, and fired off a letter to the editor with my counter-arguments.   To Christgau's claim that McCartney's Ram was "a classic form/content mismatch," I systematically explained why that was manifestly not the case, and concluded that the mismatch is "apparently in the wires and components of Robert Christgau's stereo."

That was about the gentlest criticism I offered of Christgau, and I had doubts that the Voice would even publish my letter.   I poured over the "Letters" section of every new issue, and had pretty much come to the conclusion of, oh well, at least I had gotten this out of my system ... until, one day, a Thursday, my phone started ringing.  At least three of my friends had seen my "article" in the Village Voice.  A check for $65 arrived in the mail the very next day - accounts payable departments rolled a lot better in those days - with a note from Diane Fischer, a Voice associate editor, saying she hoped it was "ok" that rather than publishing my letter as a letter, the Voice had published it as an article in its "My Turn" section!

That first published article not only set me on a career of writing, but teaching.  When I applied for my first teaching job at St. John's University in 1975 for a "Creative Journalism" course, I  brought with me "A Vote for McCartney" and two other articles I had subsequently published in the Village Voice. I was hired on the spot.

Reading the article from where we are now in 2013, I think I went too far in my criticisms of Lennon and Harrison.   But I was right-on about Christgau's tin ears, and about the transcendingly enduring beauty and power of Paul McCartney's lyrics and music.   And what a joy it is to see my son bring that point home today in the online pages of Rolling Stone.

#SFWApro

Lawrence O'Donnell's Disappointing Performance regarding the Rolling Stone Tsarnaev cover

With the media still in full discussion mode about Rolling Stone's Dzhokar Tsarnaev cover story and photo - a discussion which I think is a good thing - I have to note the surprisingly poor performance of Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC last night in a segment he did about this issue.

Angered by the apparent last-minute cancelation by Rolling Stone or Janet Reitman (who wrote the cover story) of Reitman's scheduled appearance on his show, O'Donnell proceeded to lambast not only the cover photo but the content of Reitman's article, declaring "If you miss this issue of Rolling Stone, you will miss nothing." He ostentatiously refused to show the controversial cover on his air.

I don't blame O'Donnell for being annoyed and even angry about the cancellation, which I think was not a good move by Rolling Stone or whoever said no to Reitman's being on the show.  It's always better to confront and engage your critics, rather than giving them the last word.

But this is now especially and manifestly the case for "The Last Word," the name of O'Donnell's MSNBC show.  Rather than presenting a reasoned critique, O'Donnell allowed his anger to cloud his judgement and demeaned himself and his show by making statements that are palpably false.  A pro like O'Donnell should have known and done better.

I happen to think that Reitman's article is an outstanding report - a story that encompasses the best in journalism in research and evocative writing. But even if I didn't have that opinion, I would be hard pressed to the point of being utterly unable to say I would "miss nothing" if I hadn't read the lengthy story  - even a quick reading provides a wealth of significant details in Tsarnaev's life which I and I'd wager most people hadn't seen before.

Further, O'Donnell's diatribe against the article and Rolling Stone empowers the most reactive and regressive elements of our society.   Rolling Stone has received death threats - will O'Donnell denounce those?   CVS, Stop & Shop, and other stores have pulled this issue of Rolling Stone from their shelves. Is that the kind of America we want, where media are pulled from shelves, where words are withheld, so people cannot decide on their own whether their contents are of value?

What I would have expected from O'Donnell, as combatant in many wars against censorship himself, is, yes, a critique of Rolling Stone and this article if that is what he believes, but a defense of its right to publish this article as it saw fit, and a call for people to read the article, look at the photo, and decide for themselves.

See also Why the Rolling Stone cover with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is Helpful

PS - And this excellent analysis - especially the final paragraph - by Ian Crouch in The New Yorker

Why the Rolling Stone cover with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is Helpful

I was briefly on WCBS-TV Channel 2 news this evening, talking about why I thought the Rolling Stone cover with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was helpful.   Actually, I was interviewed for about 10 minutes, but as often happens with television, only a few words made it into the newscast, which you can see below.   Here's the gist of the rest of what I had to say -

We live in a world, unfortunately, in which human monsters come in many forms.   I say unfortunately, because sometimes the person next door, who looks like us, may be a monster.   This means that we may be especially unlikely to see the monster coming - and to avoid the awful harm that ensues.

The Rolling Stone cover - in addition to its well-researched, thoughtful article - makes this point very well.   The MySpace photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shows what looks for all the world like what a kid his age wants to look like - try to look cool, trying to impress girls.   Blowing up innocent people at the Boston Marathon looks like it would be the last thing on his mind.  But that's what he apparently did, and that's why it's so important to call attention to this seeming disconnect between attractive image and deadly deed.

It's not as if magazines never put photos of terrible people on their covers.   Adolf Hitler was Time magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1938, followed in 1939 by Joseph Stalin.   Time put them there not because they were good or remotely admirable.  Time put them there because of the bad impact they were already having on their countries and the world.

The notion that Rolling Stone was trying to glorify Tsarnaev is about as logical as Time magazine was trying to glorify Hitler.   Rather, in both cases, the magazines were doing their job: bringing details of monsters to us, so we could better understand them, so we could perhaps recognize what they are in the future, before they commit their atrocities.