John and Paul: A Beatles Love Story in Songs (Part Two)

Intelligence Squared

Arts, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1957 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were two ordinary teenagers who met in suburban Liverpool and decided to play rock and roll together. Twenty-three years later that friendship came to a tragic end when Lennon was murdered. But those 23 years changed the world. Lennon and McCartney became global stars, created a body of work that has never been matched in popular music, and arguably had more influence on our culture than any other figures in the past century. InMarch 2025 writer Ian Leslie came to Intelligence Squared to tell a new history of the world’s most influential creative relationship and explain why Lennon and McCartney were a combination of friends, rivals and collaborators. Drawing from his new book John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs, Leslie explored how both Beatles had the fabric of their world ruptured at a young age, and longed to make emotional connections – with each other, and with audiences. The pop song was a vessel into which they poured feelings of grief and euphoria and everything in between. When they couldn’t speak what they felt, they sang it. After the break-up of their group, they maintained a musical dialogue at a distance, in songs full of recrimination, regret, and affection. Leslie traced the twists and turns of the Lennon/McCartney relationship through the music it produced and the huge impact it still has on the world today. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events ... Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where Great Minds meet. I'm head of programming, Conor Boyle.
0:05.4	Today's episode is part two of our recent live event, which recently took place at London's
0:09.8	Kielm Theatre with Ian Leslie and Tom Holland, about the world's most influential creative
0:14.7	relationship, Lennon and McCartney. This conversation is coming to you in two parts, and if you're
0:19.9	an Intelligence Squared member,
0:21.2	you can get access to the full conversation at free.
0:24.3	Head to Intelligencequare.com slash membership to find out more, or hit the IQ2 extra button on Apple.
0:31.9	Let's rejoin Ian Leslie now with more.
0:35.2	They both did words and they both did music and that was constantly confusing to people
0:39.2	and had to be explained a lot.
0:40.8	And the sense that they're doing that is obviously the basis of their relationship.
0:45.4	Yeah.
0:45.7	Which is why you fix on one song in particular as being potentially quite destructive of that, which is yesterday.
0:57.0	Yes.
0:57.3	And we talked about the effect it has on Paul, which is basically, he says, I'm brilliant.
1:02.4	I can't. I really am a genius.
1:04.0	I'm amazing.
1:05.5	But you also, you're brilliant in the book in talking about the effect on John.
1:09.8	And later on in the book, you say that yesterday almost becomes a kind of synonym in John's mind for Paul. So just what is the impact of yesterday, which is, of course, written entirely by Paul and recorded entirely by Paul. What is the impact of it on John?
1:30.8	I think it triggers his insecurities about Paul leaving him, you know, essentially, leaving the partnership,
1:40.3	or changing the partnership, you know, or even leaving the group and becoming a solo star,
1:46.7	John was somebody who always worried and was deep about people leaving him, you know, since childhood
	...

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