The Lives of John Lennon (Paperback)

Such was the hatred for Goldman following its publication that he was virtually excommunicated from the music and publishing world. The case for the prosecution having now been drawn up in detail, the defence (backed by the rock establishment's heavyweights) went into action; McCartney called it a piece of trash (although it s unlikely that he read it). Elliot Mintz (Yoko Ono s Spin Doctor), then produced a rebuttal using evidence (at first convincing) that two of the sources were unreliable as they axes to grind, having fallen out of favour with John and Yoko.

Fourteen years on, maybe it is time for a reappraisal of this Satanic Verses of rock biography. Criticisms of the book have been well documented and are not without substance. It is often factually incorrect, the authoratorial tone appears excessively one-sided in his portrayal of both John and Yoko. Sometimes it is not clear if it is supposed to be read as a black comedy (although if it is, it succeeds; some of the passages are hilarious)and it is hard to imagine two living people that are alternatively, so twisted and so Maciavellian as the John and Yoko that are portrayed here.

However, there are many reasons why this book should be read. Unlike, say Ray Coleman s semi-official biography of Lennon, Goldman did not just take what John and Yoko said in public at face value. Nor did he rely on the co-operation and support of those who had a vested in keeping the Lennon image in the saintly realms (partly because he was denied access by those people). Instead, he drew on 1,200 interviews of various friends, helpers, musicians and aids who had known Lennon at certain stages of his life. Most of what is said in the book is attributed to one of these sources.

The book deals with huge chunks of Lennon s life that have otherwise been left uninvestigated (or conveniently ignored, as they deal with the less than godlike side of Lennon and Ono ) by biographers; the attempts to retrieve Kyoko, his meetings with Jerry Rubin, the lost weekend and Yoko s growing infatuation with numerology and acquisition of wealth.

On the music, Goldman is keen to give Lennon his praise where he feels it is due. For example, of Working Class Hero he writes, "What makes the song so radical is not its politics but rather the singer's determination to smash through politics in order to come to grips with the unchanging human condition".

Elsewhere he is sometimes rather too intent on dissecting in order to make a point. Nevertheless he is also often poignantly accurate as is comments on the Imagine film sequence show;

"..there is one momentary gaffe when John, seated in his lavish mansion, sings the joy of owning nothing, but as the room grows brighter and brighter, the effect of emergence from the gloom of the present into the light of a utopian future is gracefully conveyed".

By far the most exploratory (and entertaining) work on Lennon, The Lives Of John Lennon is a devils advocate of a book. John was not around to defend himself over its allegations and neither is Goldman here to answer any more of his hate-mail. Before his death he replied to a damning review in the New York Times and its assertion that he had deliberately set out to give Lennon a literary second assignation.

He fiercely condemned this, stressing that when he started he was a Lennon fan but when he started delving, he became appalled by what he was finding.

After Goldman filed his prosecution papers he was soon to be the one to stand on trial in the defence box. Now it is time for the case to be reopened. Let the debate continue.

So let me deal with a few points.

'Our John' trashed his own reputation repeatedly in interviews as he admitted to hitting women and massive LSD use. Ray Coleman's book, good as it was, didn't go into hardly any detail about drugs and seemed to suggest Lennon gave up everything by the mid 70's. So could he suggest why John looked so painfully thin at the end of his life? and why his nostrils were caving in more and more ( a very large clue to cocaine use). I think Goldman does overdo it though as he does on other points. He says Lennon was so weak from drug use by 1978 he could barely hold a guitar and he also suggests the Beatles were taking cocaine/heroin cocktails during Sgt Pepper. He also suggests Lennon was in a trance during Pepper and would snap out of it with an outburst. Where did these ideas come from? And how was Pepper so good and cohesive under these circumstances?

As far as sex goes, Pete Shotton's affectionate book revealed a lot about the Spanish holiday but again Goldman went over the top. On the Bob WOoler episode, Goldman suggests he nearly killed him but i actually asked Wooler himself at the Liverpool convention one year and he told me the incident was overblown. Goldman actually doesn't mention the idea that John and Stu Sutcliffe may have been intimate, which is mentioned in Pauline Sutcliffe's book, but he suggests that John and Epstein were intimate for years. I wonder why Peter Brown didn't mention this in his 'sensational' book, published in 1982?
There are numerous points, i fully suggest reading this book with an open mind and making your own mind up.

Musically of course, we have all the Beatles songs and outtakes to listen to so we can judge the music and on this i believe Goldman is harsh. He criticizes Lennon's guitar playing and uses the Toronto concert in 1969 to judge his performing. Well as a guitarist of 15 years, i can tell you John was a good rhythm guitarist. He wasn't a viruoso guitarist as wasn't George Harrison but he used the guitar effectively to back someone up while he sang. If you see the video of the Toronto concert, Lennon and Clapton both look sick and in the grip of drug addiction (as well as the band having minimal rehearsal)so it's hardly fair to criticize his singing and say his singing had lost its power. why not judge on the 1972 Madison Square Garden concert, he seemed to have got his powerful voice back then. He also slags off 'Imagine' but can so many millions of people who adore that song be wrong?
I could write about numerous other things but if you compare this book and Ray COleman's, i think the truth is in the middle but more to Goldman's side.
Hope this helps