When it comes to elevating our understanding of The Beatles, Ian Leslie’s new book "John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs" is a mixed bag. On the one hand, Leslie provides elegant readings of a host of Lennon and McCartney classics. But on the other, he romanticizes the legendary songwriting duo’s friendship out of proportion with the immutable facts of history.
Don’t get me wrong: I share Leslie’s impulse to wax nostalgically about "the act you've known for all these years." There’s a symmetry, a kind of eternal beauty to their mythos that is irresistible. From Lennon and McCartney’s famous meeting at a July 1957 village fête to The Beatles’ recorded corpus itself—an incredible 12 studio albums committed to tape in just seven years—there is an inherent grace and power to their story.
