Book Review – John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

Ever since I began reading books about my all-time favorite group, I have searched out those that didn’t exactly regurgitate the same stories. Or, if they did, they added something new or took a different approach to dissecting The Lads and their impact. Harder than it looks, as so many have taken on this subject with varying degrees of success and scope. 2025’s search came down to Ian Leslie‘s profound examination of the complex relationship between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

This piqued my interest since this gets to the core of the foursome that made music history, and into one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time. Chronicling their journey from their first meeting in 1957, and through the best and worst of times during the ’60s and ’70s, up through the death of John Lennon in 1980, which happens to hit its 45th anniversary this month. The author uses their songs to pierce their emotional connection and the challenge each faced in their creative duo.

It turned out to be a unique, but no less intense, narrative of the pair; one that would also describe the impact on The Beatles themselves, and on music then and now, along with their fans worldwide, in almost everything they did together and apart.

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

It goes without saying, but the majority of all of the past written work has looked at each of the group’s members from a musical and/or personal bent. How those who’ve experienced The Beatles, whether as wee lads who grew up with them¹, or those who later discovered their music via their grandparents, or maybe the first reactions of YouTubers, and sought to satiate their curiosity. And there’s been tons of factual material out there over the last six plus decades for John, Paul, George & Ringo.

Still, what makes John & Paul satisfying is its analytical, yet passionate probe of the two. A collaboration that went way beyond just their songwriting talents. The key here is that it was written by an author who specializes in Human Behavior². No doubt Ian Leslie, in researching through the wealth of material out there, including Peter Jackson’s 2021 three-part documentary miniseries Get Back, and the last Beatle song, 2023’s Now and Then, gleaned some remarkable understanding.

Thereby hangs the tale, the author’s approach with his tome³. Breaking new ground on a subject some would argue has been plowed way too often — from the last millennium to the current one. As he himself put it in the book’s Notes: “Since the Beatles lived so much of their lives in the public eye and since so many people have been fascinated by them for so long, there is a vast amount of available information about Lennon and McCartney, without a corresponding depth of insight.”

I’d say that’s been corrected with John & Paul.

Leslie’s approach went over familiar ground: from the Quarrymen through to Hamburg and the Cavern period, from Beatlemania to the Apple rooftop concert; including the important relationships involving Brian Epstein, George Martin, the girl friends and wives⁴, along with those of George and Ringo. All who had significance within the pair’s dynamic were ultimately the driving force of the group. And it’s the author’s perceptiveness and musical knowledge that are the book’s highlight.

Where it’s made fresh, it focuses on this key duo — “a group within the group” — that drew on each other in obvious and opposing ways. And by using their songs, each a chapter of the book, which marked not only their times, but their development as songwriters, the readers marched through their creative beginning and sad end. And if you’ve read Peter Doggett’s You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup⁵, you will anticipate where it’s heading, unfortunately.

Still, Leslie doesn’t leave it at that, and our understanding is given a double-consciousness⁶, as it were, of the partnership — perhaps, one more balanced in a post-John Lennon awareness of the two.

And it is through song, the principal interest that drew the world to them and has been in our heads for many since childhood, that the author gives a greater import. No small feat since Beatles’ tunes have been pored over for decades and have the unique trait of gaining richness and subtlety the more you listen to them. I found myself a bit mesmerized with the book as it offered another reason to relisten to those Leslie chose to spotlight in the context of joyous creativity, friendship, and loss.

No doubt, with the author beginning John & Paul with a prologue that centered many old enough to instantly recall where they were the day before December 9, 1980⁷, when Paul gained instant villainy with his uncomfortable reactions to the press, we’re locked in from the start. So much so, it brings Ernest Hemingway’s quote from Death in the Afternoon into play: “Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”

Yet, by the time most of the chapters are done, Leslie’s penetrating analysis of the pair’s creative alchemy has distilled, and we’ve returned to this stark time in the book with greater context. Like their songwriting, our own perspective will have grown in complexity, and John and Paul emerge more distinctively. Beyond Lennon, the rebellious and sardonic rocker, and McCartney, the boyish romantic, and pop song obsessed, the tabloids and fans would have you believe.

For me, I’d reach this by the mid-point with the three consecutive chapters detailing Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, and A Day in the Life that clarified the plateau they’d reached professionally and personally, like no other. There was no going back after this segment of time and effort. Plus, “They were so far inside of each other’s musical minds that it doesn’t matter.” The author nailed their frequent and complex identity swaps in the collaboration of the three to drive the point home.

Now, is this the greatest discourse on the subject of The Beatles? With its emphasis on the two primary leaders and songwriting core of the group, I’d say no. But it is a fascinating, and at times brilliant, analysis of Lennon and McCartney as a nonpareil duo who teamed to write some of the best songs of the millennium. Emphasizing the relationship, its challenges, and certainly its myths. Offering new meanings in their music and insights into the intensity of their bond and themselves via song.

As I’ve said before with other such works, this book will linger… and isn’t that why we read?

Audiobook

John & Paul was also released by Audible in audiobook format on the same day of publication of the book (April 8, 2025), but it seems the dint of digital is leaving physical media by the wayside as no Audio CD seems to have been released. Clocking in at a reasonably paced 14 hours and 10 minutes in length, it was narrated splendidly by Chris Addison. who many know by way of the British TV show, The Thick of It, a satire of the inner workings of modern British government.

Certainly, Chris Addison was a prime choice by the MacMillan Audio producers, as he is an engaging narrator and delivered an in-depth reading of the material. Indeed, his rendering of the quotes from the many interviews captured through the decades was done with care and subtlety. Especially those from Lennon & McCartney themselves, which could range from flip, rascally, insightful, and downright scathing. Addison’s performance was a delight in his delivery and ideal for the subject matter.

Besides the enthusiastic narrator, the audio edition had something the book doesn’t: a bonus chapter featuring an absorbing conversation between author Ian Leslie and podcaster Geoff Lloyd, which was another treat for Beatlemaniacs. Certainly, when they ponder the continued enthusiasm for everything the Beatles have done, and somehow continue to deliver to fans, old and new.

“In terms of scale and complexity of achievement, there’s very few people who come close to what John and Paul did,” says Leslie. “People say ‘Do we need more books about the Beatles?’ It’s only just begun, in my view.”

I’d say, “Hear, hear.”