Why does the story of the Beatles and Lennon and McCartney still matter?
John & Paul: A Love Story in Song, Ian Leslie, Faber & Faber £25 Bella Caledonia, 4 April 2025 Gerry Hassan The Beatles story is one of the most enduring, beguiling and seemingly never-ending of our modern age. What else is there to be said? Ian Leslie thinks he has an answer in exploring the relationship, inner workings and chemistry between John Lennon and Paul McCartney - the central axis of the phenomenon that was the Beatles. This is a riveting, well-written account throwing new light on old stones – the band, John and Paul, songwriting and creativity, and the
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The Last Great British Story: The enduring story of the Beatles, how they changed Britain and what it means
The Last Great British Story: The enduring story of the Beatles Gerry Hassan Scottish National, 31 March 2024 One of the strange things about the Beatles phenomenon is that the further we are from the 1960s, the more fascinating, unique and important they become. Sixty years ago – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – produced new levels of excitement and exhilaration as “Beatlemania” reached a crescendo. The Beatles returned from their all-conquering trip to America – something no other British musical act had done before. “Can’t Buy Me Love” was released and topped the charts; in
The Beatles, ‘Get Back’ and the Britain of 1969 and the Present
The Beatles, ‘Get Back’ and the Britain of 1969 and the Present Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, 1 December 2021 The Beatles still fascinate, mesmerise and speak to us – a timeless phenomenon from post-war British society and another age and world. Peter Jackson’s opus ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ - released last week on Disney+, an eight-hour extravaganza of the band in three parts – shows their work and different personalities up close in an unprecedented fly in the wall film that drew from 56 hours of footage and 150 hours of audio tape. The result is spell-binding and transfixing, inviting
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How the Beatles Changed Britain and the World
How the Beatles Changed Britain and the World Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, October 6th 2012 It was fifty years ago yesterday that a popular revolution began in humble settings which had a seismic global impact that still affect the world today. This is the UK release on the Parlophone record label of the first ever single by the Beatles, ‘Love Me Do’. The Beatles changed so much: the image of Britain, music, culture, fashion, attitudes to class. They made Britain feel a better place and more dynamic, ‘swinging’ and ‘cool’ to people across the world. It is impossible to
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