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I felt much perkier today and played a tougher than usual game of tennis first thing, which invigorated rather than destroyed me. There's life in the late-middle-aged dog yet. (immediately dies).
I've been thinking about the Beatles a lot this week as I was listening to
"John and Paul- A Love Story in Songs" by Ian Leslie (who I am interviewing next week) and it's a book that really sends you back to the music. Another Beatles book? Surely it's all been said!
Some people want to fill the world with silly books about the Beatles.
And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know.
It's a really excellent read and the only bad thing I can say about it is that the audio book is read by my enemy Chris Addison.
He does a good job though, even at 1.5 speed. Catie is listening to it too, often without headphones and at 1x speed. Why is Chris Addison talking so slowly? is all I can think.
As you know, I am a big music buff, enjoying the work of the Beatles, solo Paul McCartney (not John Lennon who is an idiot), Paul Simon and Ice T. And the book also made me think about the Paul Simon song, "The Late, Great Johnny Ace". It's not one of his best ones, but has an interesting history. He sang it at the big Simon and Garfunkel reunion gig at Central Park and terrifyingly as he got to the bit about John Lennon a man ran on to stage saying he needed to talk to him. Give they were in spitting distance of where John Lennon died and he's singing about John Lennon, Simonmust have shit himself. But the interloper is tackled and after the briefest of pauses, Simon completes the song. Looking a bit annoyed that his new song has been spoiled. Or improved. Whichever way you look at it.
The thing I have always wondered about this song - and I can't find anything on the internet about it - is whether it's true that Paul Simon heard the news about Lennon's death from a stranger on the street. Then the two of them supposedly went to a bar and stayed to close the place, playing songs (I assume on the jukebox, but maybe Paul had his guitar with him).
Is any of that true?
Paul Simon doesn't seem like the most approachable guy and would his reaction to being told that Lennon had been shot by a random nutter really be to go to a bar with a random New Yorker? If I was Paul Simon, I'd have run to my house and locked myself in for at least a month. There might be a gunman looking for him.
I feel it might be artistic licence, for the sake of the song, but why make it up? If anything it makes Paul Simon look like he has no friends, so can only mourn with a stranger. And if it is true, who the Hell is the stranger? If I had been the one just to tell Paul Simon that John Lennon had died I'd be dining out on that story for the rest of my life. If Paul Simon had taken in the news and then said, "Man, I know I don't know you, but this is such bad news, I think we should go to a bar and have a drink," then I'd have been more shocked than he would later be by a man running on to his stage.
And I would certainly be letting people know about it. Imagine getting an evening sitting with Paul Simon, getting drunk, listening to John Lennon, maybe watching Paul Simon sing some of the songs, hearing all his stories about the times he had crossed paths with the Beatles. It would make me thank my lucky stars that someone had killed Lennon and I'd been the one to let Simon know.
Yet the stranger has never come forward to tell the story (as far as I can tell and I'd love to be corrected on this).
I bet the bloke who bumped into me in a newsagent in Shepherd's Bush and gave me the news that Richard Whiteley had died doesn't shut up about it. Every time I am on TV (so not that often) he'll nudge his partner and say "I told him that Richard Whiteley had died."
His partner will say, "Did he take you to a pub and drink til closing time, playing Countdown and telling you stories about how he was once on Whiteley's Edinburgh chatshow?"
And the bloke will say, "No, Herring is a prick. Not like Paul Simon. Whiteley hadn't even been murdered, so Herring had nothing to fear. He could have had a drink with me, then written a song about the whole thing, mentioning me and I could have gone online and said how great he was. Ungrateful prick. He just looked shocked and slightly sad and then bought his Twirl and left."
Actually I've just looked up the blog and though my memory is very much of being in a shop on the Uxbridge Road when I got this news,
I was apparently on the street.But who do you trust? The 38 year old me who the thing had just happened to, but who was attempting to hide his Twirl addiction or the 58 year old me remembering something from 20 years ago, when he struggles to recall what happened yesterday.
Anyway I seem to have strayed from the point. This is the best blog about the song "The Late Great Johnny Ace" that you will read today. At least the best one also mentioning Richard Whiteley.
There's a lot going on in the world and I like to keep my finger on the pulse.
And count yourself lucky. I almost wrote about changing the filter on my fridge-freezer. Maybe tomorrow.
