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Anonymous asked:
Hello, just want to say that I’m addicted to your podcasts and keep up with the great work! Thank you so much~
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That means a lot to us, Listener! Thank you so much! đ

A Different Kind of Beatles Podcast
Anonymous asked:
Hello, just want to say that I’m addicted to your podcasts and keep up with the great work! Thank you so much~
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That means a lot to us, Listener! Thank you so much! đ
Anonymous asked:
Hey, really enjoying the podcast. Just out of curiosity is the next episode going to be out anytime in the near future? No pressure of course!
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Hi Listener, thank you so much! Weâre excited to hear that youâre enjoying our show. We are working on the next one at the moment, so keep your eyes peeled for a new one coming soon! đ
Anonymous asked:
Just want to say love the latest episode!!! Really thought provoking stuff. You two always give me something unexpected to mull over. Thanks for all the time and work you put into these, looking forward to whatever you come up with next!
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Thank you so much, Listener! We canât tell you how nice it is to read feedback like this! đ
Weâre currently working on our next episode in the series, where we will continue to tackle so many crucial events of the breakup!
Anonymous asked:
Do you have any opinions on music critic Robert Christgau? I guess heâs not important anymore, but reading his reviews of solo beatles, I find him frustrating. Even in his retrospective reviews he pans Paulâs early solo work. He negatively reviewed Georgeâs first solo stuff as well. Obvi this can be a matter of tastes, but he claims the beatles are his his top favorite artists yet he seems very âcentricâ to their solo work. Iâm just curious because I see his name pop up in old music critiques.
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We donât have much to say about him, but the words, âtotal doucheâ come to mind!
Everything you pinpoint about him is true. We also unanimously agree that he lost his right to comment on an artist ever again after he publicly suggested Paul shouldâve been shot.
Anonymous asked:
Hi. I love your podcast. Just have one comment on your interpretation of Come Together. Ono Sideboard isn’t about Yoko being on the “side”. In English houses, a sideboard is a small dresser to keep your best china. Adults also use them to keep valuables away from children. I was never allowed to go in my Grandma’s sideboard, I always wondered what was in there. John must have kept his valuables (his heart? his secrets? hopes? future plans?) for her to be his sideboard. That’s my interpretation.
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Thank you for that information! Thatâs a lovely interpretation which could be true!
Anonymous asked:
Hello, I’ve really been enjoying your podcast but as an Asian American woman it upset me to hear you (in 3.b) both be so dismissive to the possibility of a racist element in the reaction to Yoko in the 60s. Your gleeful and mocking disdain for Yoko in general left me feeling uncomfortable. But that it extends to the point you can not envision how challenging the world was for an Asian woman living in a very white, conventional England in the sixties is upsetting to say the least.
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Hi listener,
Thank you for this thoughtful ask on an important topic!
We deeply regret any implication that we donât believe Yoko faced special and unfair challenges due to race or nationality, because we are absolutely positive that Yoko faced racism, sexism and anti-Japanese sentiment in the 1960s (and probably still does today).
In 3.b we were specifically suggesting that the cause of the negative public reaction to Yoko was not solely about race, but mainly due to her behaviors, attitudes and artistic eccentricities such as her unconventional fashion sense, her jarring and very unusual singing style, her bizarre art and artistic âhappeningsâ (the nude album, the interviews in black bags, throwing acorns at their TV audience, etc). Yoko was a conceptual artist whose career was founded on shock value and making people uncomfortable, so from our POV it is disingenuous for John & Yoko to be surprised or offended when people react with shock and discomfort.
John and Yoko were weird, unconventional and provocative (which they embraced), and this alienated almost everyone virtually overnight, which is why we find it unhelpful to attribute her negative public reception to the single cause of racism. This is not to say we donât believe she experienced racism; of course she did! But both things can be true at once. She can experience racism and she can also be disliked for reasons having nothing to do with racism.
Similarly, we donât think the reaction to Linda, as touched on in this quote was based soley in anti-semitism. At the same time it would be absolutely insane to suggest that Linda had never experienced anti-semitism in her lifetime.
In the breakup series we are mainly focused on the dynamics within the group, and we believe their primary issue with Yoko seems to have been her disruptive and unwelcome presence within a creative space which for years had been the sole domain of the bandmates.
In any case, we sincerely apologize for upsetting you.
We never want to reduce Yoko to her sex or race, which we feel is both unfair to her and an impediment to a candid examination of her work (which we think has been absent from Beatles discourse). One of our biggest complaints is how Beatles authors only evaluate Yoko as an influence on John, and never allow her to stand or fall as an individual artist in her own right.
As for our occasional mocking of Yoko (which often includes John), we can assure you that has nothing to do with race either. Any disdain on our part is reserved for the self-aggrandizing tone with which John and Yoko often discuss themselves and their art.
We acknowledge that it can be difficult and challenging to be critical about a woman with such a controversial place in history, perhaps undervalued as an artist and subject to some unfair prejudices. We have tried to strike a balance in terms of being empathetic to Yoko as a person while simultaneously subjecting her to the same rigor we would any artist, including the Beatles – whom she famously considered herself to be as good or better than.
Thanks again for taking the time to write to us and share your reactions. We will continue to consider this important topic in the future.
Anonymous asked:
Hi! I’m listening to your episode about Klein for the second time and I must ask you⌠Do you think John knew about his bullying and what he said about Paul (“the reluctant virgin” and all that stuff)? I think he knew.
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We donât know. There is no evidence to suggest he did or didnât know.
However, based on what John said later, we suspect he would have been aware â however â he might not have seen it as bullying but rather Klein maneuvering to get his way (which was Johnâs way) and he might have rationalized that the end justifies the means.
Importantly, however, we think that John saw Paul as powerful and strong during the period, so he probably wasnât worried about Paul being hurt or bullied.
Anonymous asked:
I have now gone through all your podcasts. I’m so grateful for your perspectives! Question: We know John obsessed about Paul throughout the 70’s, he was remorseful and apologized in some of his song lyrics, Linda said Paul “was desperate to write with John again”, they had planned to do a reunion concert in England according to something John wrote in a document, etc. So WHY do you think the Beatles didn’t reform as early as the mid- 70’s, particularly after the exit of Allen Klein?
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Ahh, thatâs a million dollar question! We think John and Paul were probably the ones who wanted a reunion the most, but nevertheless they likely both had major reservations.
From our POV, Paul had the least to gain from a Beatles reunion in the mid 70s. Wings was a roaring success by that point. Paul had finally managed to establish an identity outside of the Beatles and, for the first time post-Beatles, was enjoying both commercial and critical success simultaneously. George and Ringo OTOH werenât doing great (after each had experienced much success in the early 70s). John was coming off a pair of successful solo albums (and a #1 with Elton John) but by 1975 he was coming up dry and making an oldies album to fulfill his contract. Paul was in a very strong position by 75-76.
This is just our take, but we believe that while John and Paul were both tempted to revive Lennon/McCartney, weâre skeptical that either was really into the idea of a re-formed Beatles. We think they were excited but nervous to work together again and wouldâve ultimately used George and Ringo as buffers (this is not to denigrate George or Ringo, this is just our impression of how John and Paul thought). Predictably enough, we donât think George was EVER enthusiastic about a Beatles reunion. Maybe if the other three applied enough peer pressure he wouldnât want to be left out, but we donât think he was ever eager to work with Paul again. Itâs totally reasonable that Harrison would be wary of a Beatles reunion where he would get wedged between Paul and John yet again.
Itâs no secret that the major rift was between John and Paul; they were the only pair of Beatles who never again worked together after the break-up. In 1975 John admitted (rather poignantly) that he and Paul âhad a harder timeâ coping with their rift than any of the others did.
We believe that Paul âdesperatelyâ wanted to work together with John because (a) he desperately wanted to repair his relationship with John throughout the 70s, and (b) he genuinely enjoyed writing with him, although AGAIN, to be clear, Paul did great in the 70s, never had a dry spell, and didnât need John to succeed, artistically or commercially. A reunion with John would have also surely taken some air out of the How Do You Sleep debacle. While we doubt this was the primary reason Paul wanted to reconcile, we imagine it was a factor. And if John was truly sorry for HDYS, this wouldâve been a great way for him to demonstrate it. Publicly.
In the 70s, John made several references to Paulâs âenergyâ and we definitely think John missed the charge he got from Paul. However, we believe John ultimately carried too much emotional baggage about Paul for a light-hearted reunion. Primary amongst his reservations might be jealousy over Paulâs success and insecurity about his self-conscious âneedâ for Paul. But surely there were other reservations, not the least of which was their continued business/legal battles, resentment over reaction to each othersâ wives, internal fights within the band, etc. And of course, since Paul was infamously awarded the dishonor of Johnâs Ultimate Hurter, surely that was always looming in Johnâs mind as well. How would Paul hurt him again? Would Paulâs unique brand of insensitivity be more painful a second time around?
Yoko is often blamed for the fizzling of reunion plans in the mid-70s, and we agree she was probably a major contributing factor. May Pang confirms that after visiting the Dakota at a critical moment just before heading to New Orleans in early â75, Johnâs attitude towards collaborating with Paul abruptly changed from excited to sour. There is no doubt that Yoko was against John getting back together with Paul, likely for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps most critically because it was a threat to her creative reputation; if John and Paul reunited, it might be interpreted as a creative failure of JohnandYoko and the primacy and superiority of Lennon/McCartney, and there is no way she wanted that to happen. Yoko had invested a great deal of time and energy in creating and maintaining the Ballad of John and Yoko and wasnât about to let that unravel. We also suspect she probably did not want John to get too under Paulâs spell again as that would diminish her power over him. There are accounts of her maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure this didnât happen, so clearly she saw their reunion as a threat to her position with John.
Ultimately, however, we suspect it all boiled down to the same conundrum John faced in the late 60s: He could either commit to Yoko and permanently let go of Paul, or permanently break up with Yoko and commit to a professional partnership with Paul. The problem with the latter option was that a strictly-professional partnership might not only be painfully incomplete on an emotional level for John (after having been Paulâs sole creative partner and surrogate spouse in the 60s)⌠but of course now Paul had his own band, three kids and a wife. John wouldnât just be back where he left off in â68, he would be a much lower priority to Paul than he had been in â68 which put him in an even worse position. Therefore the emotional risk appears to have been too great for John.
All evidence points to the fact that Paulâs desire in the 70s was to maintain a friendship with John and explore rekindling their songwriting partnership. He seems to have had fewer reservations or concerns about doing so â perhaps because he had a functional band at the time, so was not dependent on this happening. It seems that he simply loved working with John and would have liked to have done it again as a way to reconnect, heal and spark the old magic. But he also required flexibility to perform with his band and focus on his family.
We are less convinced that John was willing or capable to view their partnership as something casual or flexible, with no strings attached. It was John himself who used the analogy of âone night standsâ with Elton and Bowie as opposed to his marriage with Paul. This isnât to say we think Paul loved John less or cared about their partnership less. Itâs clear that no one has ever replaced Lennon as a complete collaborative partner to Paul (despite Paulâs demonstrated ability to collaborate with many, many artists in many different capacities) and Paul himself has said as much. As always, we just think they had different personalities and different needs that were fairly consistent over time: Paul desired freedom and flexibility while John desired security and total commitment.
The only powers John did seem to retain were the power to seemingly ârejectâ Paul and/or deliberately hurt his feelings and to humiliate him in public. John flexed both these powers periodically until he died, presumably to make himself feel better in his weaker moments or because of residual resentments towards Paul (over any number of things).
TL;DR: Paul was open but too independent, John was open but too emotionally conflicted, George may or may not have been open but resented them both too much.
Anonymous asked:
“If Maxwell is a granny song, what the f*ck is Mean Mr. Mustard?” I think I love you.
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Anonymous asked:
Hi! I just wanted to say that I adore the podcast and loved the new episode. I’d never thought about Come Together in any other way than the general hippie togetherness idea and laughed out loud during your discussion of a possible sexual meaning, unfortunately Come Together is in the background of one of the quarantine-themed adverts that’s on TV currently, and I’ve been thinking about ‘they’re all coming on his face, but not in a gay way’ everytime it comes on. Looking forward to part B!!
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Anonymous asked:
Have you all seen this? âExposing the Voice of Truth: A Psychological Profile of John Lennonâ? Would be interested in your thoughts. It is an academic paper about possible DSM-5 diagnoses for John, written by some English student at The College of New Jersey.
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Hi listener, we have seen this paper and gave it a read.
To us, itâs an effort by an undergraduate student to link Johnâs behaviors to the DSM-5 criteria of BPD. The author makes some faulty assumptions (like saying that Mimi was, âincapable of expressing compassionâ), and mentions Paul McCartney exactly once (and only in reference to a âGlass Onion,â song lyric). Itâs not the work of someone trained in the science and discipline of psychology. Itâs an armchair diagnosis, so itâs not something that we feel could be used to conclusively prove anything about Johnâs mental health. As far as armchair diagnoses go, itâs as good as any of them. đÂ
So while we do think John struggled with his mental health for his entire life, and that his struggles should be taken into account (and taken seriously) when studying his life and work, we donât think itâs a great idea to attempt to armchair diagnose him with any specific condition, especially by someone not trained in psychology or who didnât meet with John in a clinical setting.
Anonymous wrote:
Just want to say thanks for the great podcast. Has completely changed my view on Paul and the Beatles. Like, once you realize that Paul was disengaging possibly more than any of them, so many things start to click and make sense that didnât before. Itâs amazing how pervasive the narrative that he was desperately clinging to the band seems to be.
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Hi listener,
Weâre always thrilled when people have this kind of reaction to our show, so thank you for writing to us!
This narrative is so persistent and pervasive, isnât it? When we really examine the actual behavior of John and Paul at that time, and put it under a microscope, this narrative simply makes no sense.
Stay with us – we have a lot of interesting topics coming up!
– Thalia and the AKOM crew
Thank you, anons! đ
We are not afraid to call out Mark Lewisohn. He is simply a man who has written some books. He is subject to the same rigor and scrutiny as any other author. We donât believe popularity within the fandom should render him immune from criticism. Especially since we think he has failed spectacularly at being unbiased and impartial (which he originally claimed he was setting out to do).
– Thalia and the AKOM crew
Anonymous asked:
Just wanted to say I love your guysâ podcast and it is so extremely necessary. Iâm amazed at how well youâre keeping your cool if youâve read as many Beatles books as it seems like you have. Iâm trying to get through Phillip Normanâs Paul bio and I want to reach through the pages and bitch slap the author. Anywho, love ya, thanks for the stellar content đ
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Hello listener, and thank you so much for the kind comments! We really appreciate it and are glad youâre enjoying us. It is true that combing through most of the Beatles books out there is an exercise in patience! đ
Norman is a bit of a mixed bag depending on what metric weâre going by. There are things about his approach we find frustrating (a bit of misogyny here, a bit of editorializing there). But we do want to give him credit for being willing to revise his opinions on Paul as an artist and a human being, his marriage to Linda, and the Lennon-McCartney partnership as being that of two equals who had mutual respect and love for one another.
We have more coming soon, so stay tuned!
– Thalia and the AKOM crew
joanwasquizzical asked:
OMG Thank you so much. You have pretty much hit the nail on the head for what I think happened and articulated it SO WELL.
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Thanks, Joan (great url!). Weâve been studying them and considering all angles for a really long time. Itâs great to hear that our take is resonating!
– the AKOM crew
Anonymous asked:
“Of course this fandom loves to attribute Paulâs EVERY emotion to John Lennon⌔ I LOVE YOU
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And we love you too, listener! đ Thanks for tuning in!!!
– the AKOM crew