A Genteel Black Hole

Title: John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs
Author: Ian Leslie
Year: 2025
Country: UK

Format: E-book
Pages: 432
Read: 30 March – 13 April 2026
First reading

John Lennon and Paul McCartney met as teenagers in the late 1950s. Paul joined John’s skiffle band, The Quarrymen, and the pair started writing songs together. The Quarrymen gradually morphed into the Beatles, who shot to fame in the ’60s with an impressive run of hit singles and albums mostly written by John and Paul. Towards the end of the decade the band split; each Beatle went on to solo careers of varying success. In 1980, aged just 40, John Lennon was tragically murdered.

If you’re already a Beatles fan that story will sound pretty familiar, but this isn’t a biography of the Beatles as a whole: Ian Leslie focuses squarely on John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A Love Story in Songs is a portrait of their artistic partnership, a rare friendship that was perhaps deeper than a romance. And it’s all told through the music they made; each chapter is based around a specific song.

As a musician myself, I love the way Leslie writes about music. He rightly states that the meaning of a song lies somewhere beyond the literal meaning of the lyrics. The impact of the music—the pure sound of it—imbues the words with new, sometimes conflicting meanings. Music itself speaks to something deep inside for which there is no language, and it’s through this marriage of lyrical and sonic storytelling that the Beatles, and other musicians, truly touch our hearts.

Leslie’s previous books have been about human behaviour, and he brings great insight to his exploration of Lennon and McCartney’s friendship, friendly (and sometimes unfriendly) rivalry, and musical collaboration. He touches on the inherent vulnerability of creative collaboration, and both men’s inability to speak their profound love for one another. Only in song could they express that truth.

If you’d like to hear me talk at length about this book, and my love for the Beatles, I made a full video review on my youtube channel.