Summary
[Philip Norman]'s effort, for all of its new muckraking into [John Lennon]'s history, comes up empty in terms of contributing to John's life story or his development as an artist.
That the Lennon story is populated by sex and drugs hardly passes for revelation in a rock bio. Throughout his life, despite his deserved fame, Lennon could be and was insecure, angry, and cynical, short tempered and sour, although Norman gives him the lion's share of the credit for leading the group to artistic and popular success.Norman chooses to add little, perhaps because it's all been told before. But he does toss in a few tiny nuggets -- like the story that [Paul McCartney]'s original title for Yesterday was Scrambled Eggs and that Lennon loathed the song, possibly because it was a McCartney composition that immediately became a million-seller and went on to become the most recorded popular song of the 20th century.See the full content of this document
Extract
Labour of Love a Labour to Read
Biography doesn't add much to Lennon's story
John LennonThe LifeBy Philip NormanDoubleday Canada, 852 pages, $40In a recent interview, British novelist and biographer Ph...See the full content of this document
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