Count me out/in: Ray Coleman’s McCartney: Yesterday and Today

With the possible exception of Philip Norman’s 2016 Paul McCartney: The Life, there is no book in Beatles historiography which better exemplifies a jarring interpretive and narrative shift by a single author than Ray Coleman’s 1996 McCartney: Yesterday and Today. A semi-McCartney biography and in-depth examination of the history and legacy surrounding his song “Yesterday,” Coleman’s work is considerably less valuable for the limited amount of new evidence it reveals, and more for its stunning demonstration of authorial re-interpretation and hypocrisy. Examined absent of any authorial and historiographical context, Coleman’s McCartney is a largely lightweight, primarily complimentary, incomplete portrait of an artist and his signature song. Read in a vacuum, Coleman’s work would presumably be quickly read and, a few morsels of new information aside, just as quickly forgotten.

However, when evaluated as part of both Coleman’s contributions to and the overall arc of Beatles historiography, Yesterday and Today reveals the fundamental narrative shift occurring within the band’s story as the predominant Shout!-era version of both the breakup and Lennon/McCartney partnership began to crumble. It also prompts essential questions of how and why authors change their views on individuals and events. What motivates authorial re-interpretation by authors who have promoted singular narratives? What should motivate drastic authorial and evidentiary re-interpretation? And what tools does historiography provide to navigate and make sense of such jarring reversals?

Coleman’s work had already provided key primary and secondary sources for Beatles historians and fans. As an established journalist, Coleman gained access to the Beatles in the early days of their fame, and interviewed them often from 1963-1965. His personal interviews with them tapered off in the mid-60s, then experienced a resurgence in the band’s final years, primarily via interviews with Lennon.  Following Lennon’s 1980 murder, Coleman researched and then published the first major posthumous biography of the musician, Lennon: The Definitive Life. The 1984 work utilized a substantial number of primary sources, including interviews with Cynthia Lennon, Julian Lennon, Yoko Ono and Lennon assistant Eliot Mintz. It was also, at times, hagiographic. Riddled with methodological and interpretive errors, Coleman’s work fostered and supported a profound pro-Lennon/Ono partisanship. While these at times seemingly partisan-inspired errors are most evident in the work’s first edition, the credibility and accuracy of later re-editions, published in 1993 and 2000, are also affected. As the first major posthumous biography of Lennon, and containing valuable primary sources, Lennon: The Definitive Life ingrained itself in the band’s historiography. The Beatles Bibliography describes it as “very successful commercially.” (The Beatles Bibliography, 114) and, to this day, it appears in the bibliography’s of numerous Beatles books.

In the first two editions of Lennon: The Definitive Life, Coleman embraces every major element of the Shout! narrative. He blames McCartney for the Beatles breakup, argues that McCartney and Lennon were never close friends and “never had much in common,” (Coleman, Lennon, 1984, 384) repeatedly dismisses McCartney’s contributions to the Beatles and, despite direct contradictory primary source testimony from George Martin, denounces McCartney’s musical genius. His condemnation of McCartney did not go unnoticed: In their review of the book, The Beatles Bibliography succinctly and accurately encapsulates Coleman’s apparent views: “John was a genius and Paul a superficial idiot.” (The Beatles Bibliography, 115). McCartney himself was aware of his less than stellar portrayal in Coleman’s work: In a 1984 BBC interview with The Tube, the interviewer specifically identifies Coleman’s Lennon as contributing to the pro-Lennon push dominating Beatles historiography at the time; an assessment with which McCartney concurs. (Courtesy of amoralto): http://amoralto.tumblr.com/

INTERVIEWER: I’ve just been reading the Ray Coleman book—

PAUL: Mm. That’s the same kind of thing, you know—

INTERVIEWER: —and there’s a tendency because he’s dead he’s a genius, and you’re alive and so you’re not, a bit.

In the interview, McCartney himself attributes Coleman’s pro-Lennon/anti-McCartney interpretation to Lennon’s “very forceful personality,” as well as McCartney’s own “anti”-Lennon position in the band’s acrimonious split. He also dismissed designating himself, Lennon or any one individual as the band’s source of genius: “None of us was the genius. None of us.” (Televised Interview with Paul McCartney, The Tube, November 1984, London).

The 1993 re-edition of Lennon inched away from some of its earlier, harshest anti-McCartney statements. (Such quasi-revisionism was not necessary regarding Coleman’s views on Harrison and Starr, as they are virtually non-entities in every edition. Ironically, for a biography which claims to be  “The Definitive Life” of John Lennon, Harrison and Starr receive less attention from Coleman than does the far less important figure of Mintz).

But, unlike the 2000 edition, in which Coleman backtracked to a more considerable and, at times, hypocritical extent, (see in particular Coleman’s declaration that McCartney’s close relationship with and deep understanding of Lennon’s personality make him a particularly credible source in denouncing Albert Goldman’s claims, (Coleman, Lennon, 2000, 17) contradicting previous editions of Coleman’s work, which had diminished the Lennon/McCartney friendship and McCartney’s own source credibility (Coleman, Lennon, 1984, 362) by painting him as a showbiz, artificial P.R. man) such revisions were relatively minor.

This ineffectual, half-hearted revisionism is part of what McCartney: Yesterday and Today so jarring. In the 1993 Lennon, Coleman was still explicitly denouncing the idea that McCartney was a musical genius. Three years later, in Yesterday and Today’s introduction, Coleman was not only repeatedly describing McCartney as a musical genius — “I believe Paul’s genius and creative muse stretches beyond the categories of music and art,” (Coleman, Yesterday and Today, x)  — but explicitly condemning those rock critics who had previously criticized McCartney for his supposed superficiality. (Ibid). That Coleman had himself flagrantly and repeatedly done so was conveniently, and utterly, ignored. Such a dramatic revision between the 1984 original edition and 1993 re-edition would have made sense, in that it would it presumably have been prompted by the wealth of essential primary sources which had been unavailable to Coleman when researching and writing the first edition but which had then emerged prior to the publication of the re-edition. Such an authorial pivot as Coleman exercises in the three short years between the second edition of Lennon and the publication of McCartney, however, seemingly indicates that Coleman’s rampant revisionism was not primarily based on new evidentiary analysis.

Like Lennon: The Definitive Life, McCartney: Yesterday and Today leans heavily on journalist-style interviews, as Coleman concentrates on the creation and legacy left by “Yesterday.” The book is dependent on the extensive, retrospective interviews granted by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, and George Martin; without these interviews, the book would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for Coleman to write. Granting favorable portrayals in exchange for access, either to individuals or archives, is common enough across history. Whether such favorable portrayals are explicitly or implicitly promised, or simply result from crucial, hard-won access for interviewers to historic and charismatic figures, is usually left to speculation.

That Paul and Linda McCartney granted Coleman such access is itself interesting, given the previously noted evidence indicating that McCartney was well aware of his contemptuous depiction in Coleman’s earlier work. In comparison, when Norman requested interviews with McCartney for his 2008 Lennon biography, McCartney refused to meet with Norman in person, but agreed to answer his questions via e-mail. Why McCartney was more willing to meet and interview extensively with Coleman, whose portrayal of him had been just as negative, and not Norman, is unknown. By reputation, (at least, according to his widow, who wrote the foreword to the 2000 edition) Coleman was an affable interviewer, and perhaps McCartney retained some small measure of goodwill towards the reporter; a legacy of Coleman’s 1963-65 era interviews. However, it should also be noted that McCartney’s Coleman-era interviews coincide with a notable increase in McCartney interviews within that same time period – particularly for Anthology, and Many Years from Now. As noted in The Beatles and the Historians, after largely allowing Lennon and Ono’s interviews to outnumber his, therefore ceding their version of events to become concretized, by the late 80s early 90s, McCartney was launching his own press offensive.

Regardless, in Yesterday and Today McCartney does reveal to Coleman small amounts of previously unavailable information. The book includes one of the, if not the, first admittances by McCartney that “Yesterday” was presumably, and wholly unconsciously, written about his mother Mary, who died when he was fourteen. It also includes one of McCartney’s rare references to the physical discipline practiced by his father, Jim; however, Coleman stresses that, “despite the occasional ‘wallop,’” Paul’s childhood, unlike John’s, was a happy, healthy one. (Coleman, 27). Coleman speculates that Epstein vetoed “Yesterday” as a single, not only because McCartney is the only Beatle on it, but also because of the predominantly “wary” relationship between Epstein and McCartney. (49). It offers a very one-sided (and, at least according to Northern Songs, Rupert Perry’s study of the legal and business history of the Lennon/McCartney song catalog, incorrect) version of how and why McCartney and Ono failed to purchase the Northern Songs catalog when it became available in the 1980s. It is also riddled with many of the same interpretive and methodological errors – failure to cite sources, provide a bibliography, apply critical source analysis, or account for contradictory evidence — that weakened Lennon’s accuracy and credibility.

Coleman’s views – on McCartney’s artistry, personality, and relationship with Lennon – in Yesterday and Today were stark, virtually complete reversals of his previous interpretations provided in Lennon: the Definitive Life. Decades later, under similar circumstances, Norman was forced to issue an explicit authorial mea culpa, and provided varying and at times contradictory motivations for his sea change on McCartney. In 1996 Coleman not only failed to acknowledge his previous errors, fundamental interpretive shift and the motivations behind it; he also had the audacity to condemn some of his fellow authors for promoting the same flawed version of McCartney and the Beatles that Coleman himself had helped concretize into orthodoxy. The 2000 edition of Lennon: The Definitive Life, offers further revisions on McCartney’s musicianship, character and the Lennon/McCartney friendship and partnership (although, as previously noted, some of this revisionism suited Coleman’s purpose in using McCartney as a source to dismiss Goldman’s work). It also removes Coleman’s earlier, explicit anointing of Lennon as the band’s sole genius.

Lacking direct evidence from Coleman explaining this shift – lacking even acknowledgement that his interpretation had shifted – the motivations for such a drastic authorial re-interpretation are up for speculation. In addition to the aforementioned pattern of authors purposefully or subconsciously providing favorable portrayals in exchange for access, other, larger forces in Beatles historiography must also be accounted for. A wider view of Coleman’s work – including his biographies of other rock/pop figures, including Brian Epstein – could offer insight into whether Coleman’s habit of producing methodologically flawed, hagiographic portrayals was his modus operandi. (While I have read all the editions of the Lennon biography as well as the McCartney biography, I have not read any other of Coleman’s work, and cannot answer the question with any amount of authority). If such semi-hagiographies were Coleman’s standard methodological and interpretive approach, his swift and seismic reversals on McCartney, when writing a McCartney biography, would fall into a greater, overall pattern.

Additionally, by 1996, a fundamental sea-change was occurring in the bedrock of Beatles historiography. The essential The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions had been published 8 years earlier, and the primary sources it revealed had chipped away at the Lennon Remembers/Shout! versions of how the band functioned in the studio. In 1995 another crucial work, Revolution in the Head, was published. While Ian MacDonald’s musicological study suffers from some of its own issues, particularly regarding authorial speculation, MacDonald’s informed analysis flatly denounced the earlier, simplistic musical evaluations provided by Norman, Coleman and others, all of whom had dismissed McCartney’s contributions. 1995 had also witnessed the broadcast of the video version of The Beatles Anthology; another primary, if retrospective, source, which pushed back against the prevailing narratives of the 1970s and 1980s. By 2016, authors and Beatles authorities, including Adam Gopnik and Robert Rodriguez, were speculating that Norman’s pivot on McCartney was at least as motivated by Norman’s own efforts to regain some measure of credibility and impartiality on the musician – and therefore redeem his reputation as a Beatles authority – as it was based on a genuine change in perspective. One can speculate that Coleman may have realized, by the mid-90s, which way the narrative winds were blowing, and possibly wrote a favorable portrayal of McCartney in Yesterday and Today in an attempt to shore up his reputation as a Beatles authority.

Revisionism in and of itself is not a weakness or an interpretive flaw. To the contrary, evidence-based revisionism deepens historical understanding by introducing new sources, providing new perspectives, and examining old stories and individuals from new angles. The rub is not that Coleman pivoted away from a previously flawed interpretation. It’s that what evidence we have indicates that his stunning reversal was less motivated by an open-minded willingness to incorporate new evidence which contradicted his earlier interpretations – which, in itself, is a necessary and admirable quality for historians to have – and more as a desperate attempt to either gain access to McCartney and/or to implicitly distance himself from his earlier interpretations without bothering to explicitly denounce them … To plant himself, as the saying goes, “on the right side of history.”

 

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