DM's Beatles forums

Beatles forums => Books, Magazines, Articles => Topic started by: fanofthefab4 on January 24, 2016, 01:06:30 AM

Title: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on January 24, 2016, 01:06:30 AM
New Philip Norman Paul McCartney biography,Paul McCartney:The Life is coming out in the US in May and in the UK in June.



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-McCartney-Biography-Philip-Norman/dp/0297870769 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paul-McCartney-Biography-Philip-Norman/dp/0297870769)
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on January 24, 2016, 02:11:59 AM


Lots of pages on which to record his vitriol, I'm sure. Norman is so clearly anti-Paul. Thanks for the heads-up, though!
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: fanofthefab4 on January 24, 2016, 06:29:48 AM
Well,please click on the highlighted link for the very good description of this book.It actually says that some of Paul's Wings songs are some of his greatest songs so after Philip so unjustly minimized Paul in Shout etc,it looks like he's finally giving him the credit he deserves.

I haven't read his John Lennon:The Life book, but I first read the excellent,empathetic book,Lennon by award winning music journalist and former Melody Maker editor Ray Coleman in 1985, a few years ago I got the updated version,and I still believe it's the most accurate and the most to be trusted.

 
Ray met John as an early Beatle in 1962,and he remained good friends with John right till the end,and he spent a lot of time with him and interviewed him over these 18 years.He does report John's bad sides and behavior,but he also knew and reports his good sides and qualities and he totally understands John and how he was psychologically damaged by the traumas in his childhood and teens and how he worked on himself and changed for the better especially during his last 5 years of his life.He says in the introduction,that to know John was to love him,Phillip Norman never really knew John and wasn't a friend!



Also if Philip Norman did such a ''good job'' on this John biography,then why do quite a few people say in reviewing it that John was a horrible insensitive person and that reading the book made them hate John!? Like this review on Barnes and Noble.com titled,A good Read But Drags, that says that John was a horrible insensitive person and that he made fun of black,gay,and mentally and physically disabled people(this was when John was a *very young psychologically messed up guy*!),and said he deserved to survive the bullets and be a brain damaged quadriplegic!



http://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/john-lennon-philip-norman/1100555558?ean=9780060754020#reviews-header (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/reviews/john-lennon-philip-norman/1100555558?ean=9780060754020#reviews-header) >:D :-X (puke) icon_mad



It's very obvious that Philip Norman writes a lot of sensationalism a lot that isn't even true to sell his books! He's probably going to do the same thing with his new Paul biography too unfortunately.
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on January 24, 2016, 03:19:36 PM
Also if Philip Norman did such a ''good job'' on this John biography,then why do quite a few people say in reviewing it that John was a horrible insensitive person and that reading the book made them hate John!?

Take a deep breath....I personally didn't think Norman did "such a 'good job'" on his John biography. It was good, but something that purports to be a reference-style biography (as opposed to personal memoirs), should not, IMO, be colored with one's personal opinion.
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: fanofthefab4 on January 24, 2016, 03:32:20 PM
 ??? Can you please explain what you meant?
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on January 24, 2016, 04:27:20 PM

In both John Lennon: The Life and Shout! Norman made his anti-Paul bias clearly evident. This seemed to me particularly evident in the Lennon book. I'll try to dig up some examples later today.

I wasn't trying to slam Philip Norman, although I my initial post made it sound like I was. (The word vitriol was a bit strong.) He's definitely an excellent researcher. I just didn't care for his clear anti-Paul bias. 

I have to run right now, but I'll try to post an example of what I meant in a bit!
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on January 24, 2016, 07:05:21 PM


Arrgggh; I can't find any of the specific examples I remember, even though John Lennon: The Life is meticulously indexed. I'll try again some other time, but right now I have to stop.

I didn't mean to stomp on your first post, fanofthefab4. I always appreciate heads-up about Beatles books. I'm just a bit soured on Philip Norman. I probably should have just kept my mouth shut.  :-\
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: fanofthefab4 on January 25, 2016, 09:23:49 PM
No need to apologize I'm thankful for someone responding to my post.But what about how he portrayed John as a horrible person and now many reviewers say they hate John and one of them said such a horrible thing?!
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on January 27, 2016, 11:17:45 PM
But what about how he portrayed John as a horrible person and now many reviewers say they hate John and one of them said such a horrible thing?!

Hmm....Most of the reviews I read on that link you supplied were quite positive, and the other ones had only stars (i.e., no text). I would disagree that Norman portrayed John as a horrible person. As for that one reviewer you mentioned, someone who makes a comment like that is just ignorant, and I would take anything he or she says with a zillion grains of salt, or dismiss it entirely.

Have you read the book? I thought it was quite good, and unless I missed something (always a possibility!), his portrayal of John was not negative.

Some of these online reviews are so subjective you wonder if all the people read the same book!
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Moogmodule on January 27, 2016, 11:55:20 PM
This thread has actually inspired me to read Norman's Lennon bio while on holiday.

So far I can't see anything too negative. He balances things out ok. My main complaint is there's so little new after reading other Beatle books.

 The only new info I've got so far is that Mimi had an affair with her young lodger after her husband died. And that she was reportedly still a virgin when she did so. More gossip than anything although it might provide some psychological insight into her. Buggered if I know what it is though.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on February 19, 2016, 11:44:21 PM
Hi thank you both for your replies. :)


But my point is,is that Ray Coleman,unlike Philip Norman actually *knew* John very well for 18 years and he interviewed him throughout all of those years.Ray is often inaccurately accused of only portraying John in a good way in his great book,Lennon but this is totally false he did report the messed up bad things John did and what he was like as a very young guy, the big difference is,is that he really understood and empathized with John as a very psychologically disturbed,damaged,hurting person from all of the traumas he had experienced as a young child and a teenager.It's an explanation not an excuse.John was an extremely talented song composer,a great singer with a rare beautiful strong singing voice,brilliant intellectually,and as Eric Clapton said in this 1977 interview,a pretty good guitar player himself,http://www.superseventies.com/ssericclapton.html but he wasn't mentaly that strong of a person and he was too sensitive and that's why he took everything as hard as he did and ended up that psychologically messed up as a young guy.



The many people who gave Philip Norman's John biography good and great reviews agree with his portrayal of him as a horrible person,quite a few say this on Amazon.com and Good Reads.


Thanks to Yoko John became a much more psychologically together and happier person,and an outspoken feminist and nurturing house husband and father to Yoko and Sean.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on February 19, 2016, 11:50:17 PM
Did Philip Norman include in his book, all or even any of these brave pro-feminist things John did and said?

 

John Lennon is a great example of people can change and are not fixed to be a certain way as a man or a woman.Yoko changed John into a much better person as a pro-feminist man and the feminist changes *are* for the better, and many pro-feminist men have recognized this too! They say it has freed them and allowed them to develop and express more of all of the shared common *human* traits,emotions,behaviors,abilities and reduce and prevent male violence against women and children etc. Definitions of "masculine" and "feminine" differ across time periods, and in different societies.
 


John Lennon is a great example of how feminism changing limited artificial gender definitions and roles,changed him for the much better. John as a child and teenager had a lot of traumas that permanently psychologically damaged him,but because of his and Yoko's beautiful loving relationship,and as he said she was a feminist before he met her,(and he said that because she was a feminist before he met her,they were going to have to have a 50/50 equal relationship which he never had before) he went in to primal scream therapy and Yoko went with him and he dealt with all of his pain and anger for the very first time at age 29.
 


 When John was a young guy,he was often drunk getting into fist fights with men,hitting women,and womanizing including cheating on his girlfriends and then his first wife Cynthia.Of course Paul,George and Ringo did the same with all of the groupies all 4 of them had while touring from 1963-1966. I hadn't watched these Mike Douglas shows in years until December 2010 when it was the 30th anniversary of John's tragic crazy murder.


 
 Out of the 5 Mike Douglas shows that John and Yoko co-hosted for a week that was taped in January 1972 and aired in February,a young criminal lawyer Rena Uviller(she went on to become a Supreme Court Judge) who worked with juveniles was on, and she,Mike Douglas,John and Yoko were discussing the then very recent women's liberation movement. George Carlin was on too.
 


Rena said,she agrees with Yoko,that the idea of Women's lib is to liberate all of us,and she said ,I mean we could talk hours on the way men really suffer under the sex role definitions.Yoko agreed with what she said too. Rena said that men don't really realize they have only to gain from Women's Lib,and that she thinks that maybe with a little more propaganda we can convince them.
 


 John then said,yeah there is a lot to gain from it,just the fact that you can relax and not have to play that male role,he said we can do that,and he said that I can be weak,( but notice how then in a male dominated gender divided,gender stereotyped,sexist society,and even unfortunately still now in a lot of ways,the "female" role was defined as the weak one,and the male role as the strong one) I don't have to protect her all the time and play you know that super hero,I don't have to play that,she allows me to be weak sometimes and for me to cry,and for her to be the strong one,and for me to be the weak one. John then said,and it really is a great relief,after 28 years of trying to be tough,you know trying to show them,I don't give a da*n and I'm this and I'm that,to be able to relax.and just be able to say,OK I'm no tough guy forget it.
 


Rena then said,I think in some funny way,I think girls even as children,have a greater lattitude because a little girl can be sort of frilly and feminine or she can be a tomboy and it's acceptable,but a little boy if he's not tossing that football,there's a lot of pressure on him.John said,there's a lot of pressure,not to show emotion,and he said that there was a lot of pressure on me not to be an artist,to be a chemist and he said he discussed this on another Mike Douglas episode.



 Rena said that unfortunately some of the leaders in the Women's Liberation movement fall victim to being spokesmen,for Women's Lib, and yet at least in public personality they seem to really have a certain amount of contempt for the hair curled housewife and there is a kind of sneering contempt,and she said I think it's a measure of their own lack of liberation.And Yoko said it's snobbery,and Rena said yeah,they really don't like other women,but I'm sympathetic,and Mike Douglas then said a sexist woman-hating statement,saying,well women don't like other women period.Rena said,no see that's very unliberated and Yoko said, in response to what Mike Douglas said,that's not true,that's not true.And John said,you see they are brought up to compete with men.


 
 Yoko said that even though in Japan they say they don't have much of a woman problem and women already had some liberation,there is still a long way to go that she really agrees with Rena that so many female liberation movement people basically hate women,and we have to first start to understand women and love them whether they are housewives or not,and she said that snobbery is very bad and we have to somehow find out a way to co-existing with men,and she asked Rena don't you think so and she said most definitely. George Carlin said,that actually many successful women are acting out male roles just like a lot of blacks think they escaped are acting out white roles.John also said that he thinks that women have to try twice as hard as to make it as men,and he said you know they have to be on their toes much more than a man.

 
 
 On another Mike Douglas episode from the same week,former actress and acclaimed film maker Barbara Loden was on and Yoko had requested her as a guest.John asked her ,Did you have any problems working with the men,you know like giving them instructions and things like that and Barbara said,I did, but I think it was because I was afraid that they would not accept what  I said,and I wasn't quite that authoritative in my own self.John said it's certainly a brave thing to do,and Yoko said it is.
 


Mike Douglas asked Yoko if John's attitude had changed much towards her since The Female Liberation Movement,and at first Yoko says John's attitude from the beginning was the same,and that they met on that level.John then says,twice, I was a male chauvinist and Yoko says,yes he was a male chauvinist but,and then John says,Can I say how you taught me,and Yoko says yes.John says,How I did it in my head was,would I ask Paul or George,or would I treat them the way I would treat a woman? John then said,it's a very simple thing maybe it's fetch that or do that ,and I started thinking if I said that to them,they'd say come on get it yourself,and if you put your wife or your girl friend in the position of your best friend,and say now would I say that to him,then you know when you're treading on some delicate feelings.
 
 
 
 Mike Douglas said years later that after this week of John and Yoko co-hosting his show,many young people who had never watched his show before,(and his main audience was middle America and people older than their 20's and even mostly their 30's) told him they loved the show,and that it was great and his ratings went up high for those shows.Even if John didn't always live up to his feminist ideals and beliefs in his personal life,(although he did with Yoko because of her and this why and how he emotionally evolved into a caring,nurturing,house husband and father to Yoko and Sean),just the fact that he spoke out as a man in support of the feminist movement on a popular TV show back in early 1972 when most of the sexist male dominated woman-hating society looked down at it and considered it crazy which in some ways it's still unfortunately wrongly misunderstood(and it's really the male dominated,sexist,woman-hating society that has always been so wrong and crazy!),and the fact that John was (and still is) greatly admired and influential to many young people male and female,he did *a lot* to legitimize it and show it was rational,reasonable,needed and right!
 


 A  few months later he was performing Woman Is The Ni**er Of The World on The Dick Cavett Show and then months after that live in Madison Square Garden.In his very last radio interview done by Dave Sholin etc from RKO Radio just hours before he was tragically shot and killed, John said I'm more feminist now than I was when I sang Woman Is The N**ger,I was intellectually feminist then but now I feel as though at least I've put not my own money,but my body where my mouth is and I'm living up to my own preachings as it were.


 He also said what is this BS men are this way, women are that way,we're all human.He had also said that he comes from the macho school of pretense of course *all* men really are they are just too conditioned all of their lives to realize and admit it.And he said that men are trained to be like they are in the army,and that it's more like that in England but he knows it's this way over here too,he said that they are taught as boys and men don't react,don't feel,don't cry,and he said he thinks that's what screwed us all up and that he thinks it's time for a change.

 

 Barbara Graystark of Newsweek interviewed John September 1980 and part of what she said to John is,You've come a long way from the man who wrote at 23,''Women should be obscene rather than heard.'' And she asks John how did this happen? And John said that he was a working-class macho guy who was used to being served and Yoko didn't buy that. John then said that from the day he met Yoko,she demanded equal time,equal space,equal rights.  He said that he said to Yoko then,don't expect him to change in any way and don't impinge on his space. John said that Yoko said to him then she can't be here because there's no space where you are everything revolves around him and that she can't breath in that atmosphere. John then says in this interview that he's thankful to her for the(feminist) education.


http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1980.0929.beatles.html (http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1980.0929.beatles.html)

 

 

 

 


 
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on February 19, 2016, 11:56:19 PM
 
 Mike Douglas also said to John and Yoko,You're both so different,you had such different childhoods. John said,it's incredible isn't it? Yoko said,Yes! Mike asked,What do you think has attracted you to each other? Yoko said,We're very similar.John then said,She came from a Japanese upper-middle class family.Her parents were bankers and all that jazz,very straight.He said they were trying to get her off with an ambassador when she was 18.You know,now is the time you marry the ambassador and we get all settled. I come from a an upper-working class family in Liverpool,the other end of the world. John then said,we met but our minds are so similar,our ideas are so similar.It was incredible that we could be so alike from different environments,and I don't know what it is,but we're very similar in our heads.And we look alike too!


 Mike also asked John about his painful childhood,and how his father left him when he was 5,and John said how he only came back into his life when he was successful and famous(20 years later!),and John said he knew that I was living all those years in the same house with my auntie,but he never visited him.He said when he came back into his life all those years later,he looked after his father for the same amount of time he looked after him,about 4 years.



He also talked about how his beloved mother Julia,who encouraged his music by teaching him to play the banjo,got hit and killed by a car driven by an off duty drunk cop when John was only 17 and just getting to have a relationship with her after she had given him away to be raised by her older sister Mimi when he was 5.


And John also said,And in spite of all that,I still don't have a hate-the-pigs attitude or hate-cops attitude.He then said, I think everybody's human you know,but it was very hard for me at that time,and I really had a chip on my shoulder,and it still comes out now and then,because it's a strange life to lead .He then said,But in general ah,I've got my own family now ...I got Yoko and she made up for all that pain.



John's psychologist Dr. Arthur Janov told Mojo Magazine in 2000( parts of this interview is on a great UK John Lennon fan site,You Are The Plastic Ono Band) that John had as much pain as he had ever seen in his life,and he was a psychologist for at least 18 years when John and Yoko saw him in 1970! He said John was a very dedicated patient. He also said that John left therapy too early though and that they opened him up,but didn't get a chance to put him back together again and Dr. Janov told John he need to finish the therapy,he said because of the immigration services and he thought Nixon was after him,he said we have to get out of the country.John asked if he could send a therapist to Mexico with him,and Dr. Janov told him we can't do that because they had too many patients to take care of,and he said they cut the therapy off just as it started really,and we were just getting going. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob11.html (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob11.html)



 Also this great article by long time anti-sexist,anti-men's violence,anti-pornography former all star high school football player and author of the great,important 2006 book,The Macho Paradox:How Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, Jackson Katz.John Lennon on Fatherhood,Feminism,and Phony Tough Guy Posturing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-katz/john-lennon-on-fatherhood_b_800333.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-katz/john-lennon-on-fatherhood_b_800333.html)


 Also Cynthia Lennon is quoted in the great John Lennon biography Lennon,by award winning music journalist and former editor of The Melody Maker Magazine and good friend of John's for 18 years,Ray Coleman as saying somethings like she knew as soon as she saw John and Yoko together she knew that she lost him,and that it was a meeting of the minds and that she knew that they were right for each other.She also said that she told John before he started his relationship with Yoko that she sees and incredible similarity between him and Yoko and said to him that there is something about her that is just like you.She told him that he may say that she's this crazy avant garde artist  and that he's not interested in her,but that she can see more into John's future with Yoko then he can.
 

Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on February 19, 2016, 11:58:24 PM

In this January 1971 interview with Red Mole John says that Yoko was well into liberation before he met her and that she had to fight her way through a man's world and he said the art world is completely dominated by men and said so Yoko was full of revolutionary zeal when they met. Then John said there was never any question about it that they had to have a 50-50 relationship or there was no relationship and he said he was quick to learn and he said that Yoko did an article in Nova more than two years back in which she said Woman is the Ni**er of the world.A year later he co-wrote with Yoko the song Woman Is The N*gger of The World,and bravely performed it live on The Dick Cavett show and at Madison Square Garden in 1972 and the song was banned off a lot of radio stations.

 

John also says in this same interview that it's very subtle how you're taught male superiority.


 
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1971.0121.beatles.html (http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1971.0121.beatles.html)
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: fanofthefab4 on February 20, 2016, 06:34:59 AM
And to debunk that Yoko was ever ''ugly'',

 
 Yoko, is very intelligent,and a nice person for the most part who changed John from a sexist psychologically messed up very young guy who was getting drunk,and into fist fights with men,and hitting women sometimes,into a feminist nurturing house husband and father and gave him happiness for the first time in his life. Even Paul has said that he thinks John meeting Yoko was the best thing to happen to him for his personal happiness. 

http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1982.0400.beatles.html (http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1982.0400.beatles.html)



And  I have seen many pictures and video interviews of Yoko when she was younger and she looked very attractive and with no make up on,and Scavullo who was one of the best fashion and celebrity photographers took a glamorous beautiful black and white portrait of Yoko with eye make up on and her hair done fancy and it's on her biography on The All Music Guide online. And Yoko looks more attractive at almost 83 than a lot of young people! And she's always been very intelligent too.



She looks beautiful as a young woman here as quite a few people said with no make up on her Instagram page, https://www.instagram.com/p/zAeIgqjzuH/ (https://www.instagram.com/p/zAeIgqjzuH/)


 Also as quite a few people say here Yoko looked really beautiful here in 1981 accepting the grammy award for John and her album Double Fantasy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpdRp0vVWK4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpdRp0vVWK4)


Also I once spoke to a former radio DJ who was now a manager of a CD store,and he told me that he was the one who went to Yoko's New York apartment in 1983 to do a very long interview with her by another DJ who hosted a great popular 2 hour Breakfast With The Beatles Sunday radio show. I asked him what was Yoko like and he said that she was a very nice lady.
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Bingo Bongo on February 20, 2016, 07:42:22 PM
The only new info I've got so far is that Mimi had an affair with her young lodger after her husband died. And that she was reportedly still a virgin when she did so.

 ;D, that has to be the newest news I’ve head in the last 40 years!!!!!  ha2ha
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Normandie on February 21, 2016, 11:31:23 PM
;D, that has to be the newest news I’ve head in the last 40 years!!!!!  ha2ha

I raised my eyebrows back when I read that. How on earth would the author verify something like that? It seems highly unlikely Mimi would have told anyone, and I am drawing a blank on the lodger's name, but I can't believe he'd tell anyone either. It's not like they were teenagers who would chatter blithely about that sort of thing.
Title: Re: NEW PHILIP NORMAN PAUL MCCARTNEY BIOGRAPHY PAUL MCCARTNEY:THE LIFE COMING OUT IN
Post by: Moogmodule on February 22, 2016, 01:03:53 AM
I raised my eyebrows back when I read that. How on earth would the author verify something like that? It seems highly unlikely Mimi would have told anyone, and I am drawing a blank on the lodger's name, but I can't believe he'd tell anyone either. It's not like they were teenagers who would chatter blithely about that sort of thing.

That was my thought too. I can only presume it was the lodger. I suppose if you're a normal unheralded citizen and you get interviewed for a book like this you might be more willing to be frank and open then might otherwise be the case. Especially when decades have passed.

Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: KEROUAC on May 16, 2016, 02:53:39 PM
I haven't read this but I was surprised that McCartney would authorise a book by Norman after their previous history.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: KelMar on May 16, 2016, 05:36:02 PM
I picked it up at the library about a week ago because I was curious. I realized that I don't have time to commit to reading such a thing right now but from the few pages I did read it appears that the author was attempting to, er, smooth things over with Paul from the get go. He glowingly described Paul's superiortiy over the other three in the looks department back in the early days. It seemed a bit much and apropros of nothing, really.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: nimrod on February 16, 2017, 11:08:08 PM
I haven't read this but I was surprised that McCartney would authorise a book by Norman after their previous history.
I think Phillip Norman was surprised too  :o

I just got this for my cruise, I'll report back
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: Bulldog on March 29, 2019, 02:14:36 PM
'Shout' was the first Beatle book I read. As a 13 year old, it impressed me.

Norman's biggest anti McCartney bias was when he said John was three quarters of the Beatles. He also suggested Paul was lost during the White Album sessions due to John being more interested in Yoko than Paul's ideas.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: Bulldog on March 29, 2019, 02:20:02 PM
Says it was written with Paul's approval.

Not a big surprise. Elton John worked with Norman on his biography & Yoko worked with him on Lennon's.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: Normandie on March 29, 2019, 06:26:09 PM
I think Phillip Norman was surprised too  :o

I just got this for my cruise, I'll report back

I've been meaning to ask anyone if they've read this.

I saw the book in Barnes and Noble, but given Norman's clear anti-Paul bias I was reluctant to pick it up.

I look forward to your report, Kevin.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: Moogmodule on March 29, 2019, 10:19:57 PM
I haven’t ventured into it either. I heard Norman interviewed on a podcast and, though he seems to have walked back his anti Paul thing, he came across as a bit of a dick. If the good members here  review it well though I’ll give it a go.
Title: Re: New Philip Norman Paul McCartney Biography Paul McCartney:The Life Coming Out In
Post by: nimrod on March 29, 2019, 11:19:25 PM
I've been meaning to ask anyone if they've read this.

I saw the book in Barnes and Noble, but given Norman's clear anti-Paul bias I was reluctant to pick it up.

I look forward to your report, Kevin.

Blimey, its 2 yearrs since I read it, can hardly remember now, also forgot I said I would report back  :-[    its not anti Paul but its not anything that made me sit up and go "Wow" !! I think it was kinda hum-drum tbh.
I may re-visit it and let you know more.