Paul created songs that felt as if they had always existed
I just finished Ian Leslie’s “John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs” and one passage stopped me cold.
“No song is more McCartneyesque than ‘Penny Lane’, just as ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is indubitably Lennonesque. Paul created songs that felt as if they had always existed; John channelled transmissions from another planet. Paul’s melodies feel like the purpose of music itself; John strains at the limits of chords and keys, trying to get past music into pure feeling or experience.”
That’s the whole book in four sentences. And once you read it, you hear every Beatles song differently.