No Paperback Writer: McCartney, Rejected!

I recently came across a humorous guest post by novelist Jon Gibbs on Nathan Bransford’s writing and publishing blog. It’s a well-executed, if somewhat predictable, tongue-in-cheek reject letter sent by a snarky literary agent to Paul McCartney as if The Beatles’ 1966 classic “Paperback Writer” had been an actual query letter.

This certainly appeals to the “publishing geek” in me, and no matter which side of the equation you might be on in the publishing formula, you can sympathize with the perspectives played out here. Or you you might simply enjoy it as a Beatles’ fan. Regardless, it’s worth a read. (Check it out here.)

And, to refresh your memory, here’s the original promo video the lads did for the song:



And, given the details of the referenced blog post, the full lyrics to the song might help, too:


Paperback Writer
(Lennon/McCartney) - but really Paul

Paper back writer (paperback writer)
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It’s based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

It’s the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn’t understand.
The son (The Sun? Nice double entendre!) is working for the Daily Mail,
It’s a steady job, but he wants to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer)

It’s a thousand pages, give or take a few,
I’ll be writing more in a week or two.
I can make it longer if you like the style,
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer,
Paperback writer.

Paperback writer (paperback writer) ...

ADDENDUM

While tracking down the original video above, I also came across another interesting rendition of the song. This one is a rawer version the band prerecorded on a stage set in England in place of an in-person appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in early 1966. It also includes the B-side to “Paperback Writer,” John Lennon’s “Rain” – further example of the songwriting duo’s potency during this period. (Who else was making singles with, in effect, two strong A-sides?)



I never noticed McCartney’s chipped tooth in this before now. Apparently, others noticed, too, leading to so many comments about it on YouTube that the video’s uploader got annoyed and disabled the comment capability. He does, however, explain that it was the result of a motor scooter accident. Obviously Paul (the cute one) had it fixed soon thereafter.

Storytelling Shape

In pursuit of “off-scale happiness” ...

... Kurt Vonnegut on the simple shapes of stories.

Read It in Books

Good for Bob Dylan, taking to the typewriter ... err, computer (maybe) ... to set the record straight regarding alleged censorship by the Chinese government during his recent concerts in the People’s Republic (which “people” is that exactly?). True to form, old Bob does a wonderful job of subtly skewering both the (lazy/sensationalistic) media, as well as a certain (unnamed) concert promoter.

But my favorite part of Bob’s rare personal note addressing the whole affair, published today on his website, is his concluding paragraph: characteristically sarcastic yet clearly written with a twinkle in his eye:

Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.

Read the Homer of Hibbing’s full note on the matter here.

Rock the Critics

A few month’s ago I blogged about Electronic Musician magazine’s new columnist, Steven Wilson, the knowledgeable, articulate and well-respected (if not wildly popular) founder of the British band Porcupine Tree and an emerging solo artist in his own right. Wilson had just begun writing the magazine’s monthly “In the Mix” column.

Now, only a few months later, Wilson has again caught my attention with something worthy of further comment and sharing. In his October column, he tackles the topic of rock criticism, i.e., writing about rock music, in another interesting and provocative column: “Everyone’s a Critic.”

In dissecting the state of music writing today, Wilson differentiates between real, informed, critical review and the endless noise afforded by our technology-endowed, anybody-and-everybody’s-a-publisher world. The singer/songwriter/producer recalls the history of rock writing and some of its high water marks, noting that “great music journalism is an art in its own right.”

Some of the most notable realizations of that art over the years can be found in the gonzo flare of Lester Bangs; the studied expertise of Robert Palmer, Robert Hilburn and Peter Guralnick; the literary allusions and aspirations of Nick Toshes and Greil Marcus; the insightful musicology of David Fricke, Timothy White, Bill Flanagan and Charles R. Cross; and the revelatory, along-for-the-party, rollercoaster rides of Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray ... to name just a few.

Who are today’s equivalents? Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis, who jointly do the nationally syndicated “Sound Opinions” weekly radio program and podcast through Chicago’s Public Radio station, and Alan Light are a few who come to mind. But I’m hard-pressed to readily come up with many others. That’s not to say that they aren’t out there; undoubtedly they are. But, like music itself today, finding the glorious among the god-awful is no small feat.

Now, as then, Frank Zappa’s famous quote all-too-often still rings true. It’s something to the effect that rock journalism is “people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.” Ever the sardonic wit, that Mr. Z.

The Vanishing Art of Listening

Recently, one of my favorite regular features in Electronic Musician magazine was discontinued. At first, I was a bit dismayed by the axing of Grammy-winning producer and engineer Nathaniel Kunkel’s monthly column. But, as interesting as it had been, I have to admit that Kunkel’s column had pretty much run its course after a few years. So I was delighted to see it replaced by a new monthly contribution from composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Steven Wilson.

Wilson is an innovative solo artist and leader of the modern English prog-rock band, Porcupine Tree. He’s hardly a household name, but he’s a respected musician who has achieved a modicum of commercial success and considerable artistic triumphs in his 15 or so years in music biz.

I knew from the few interviews with Wilson that I have read over the years that he is a thoughtful and articulate artist. His first few EM columns have bolstered that impression.

In his August column, Wilson argues that cheap convenience is trumping artistic aesthetics in modern music and, as a result, devaluing the experience itself. It’s quite ironic that as recording technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent decades, the quality of what most of us consume as music has regressed substantially.

As Wilson thoughtfully puts it: “Would you rather see the Mona Lisa in the flesh, or look at a thumbnail jpeg of it on your mobile phone? And if you’d only ever seen the virtual Mona Lisa, would you really feel honest saying you’d seen it at all?” Or, as applied to music, “If you’ve only experienced an album [you know, 10 or so purposefully sequenced songs] as compressed audio files [MP3s], have you really experienced it?”

Wilson says consumption of music primarily through compressed MP3s is analogous to making a photocopy of a genuine work of art and putting it in a crappy picture frame. The chasm in relative quality greatly undermines the nuance and beauty of the art.

FURTHER

• Check out Wilson’s first solo release, Insurgentes, or Porcupine Tree’s latest, The Incident, both of which I wrote about in my round-up of last year’s best releases.

Retype It

I’ve been reading Jann Wenner’s “oral biography” of Hunter S. Thompson’s life, Gonzo, which Little, Brown put out in 2007. While not drawing much on the Rolling Stone founder’s intimate experience of the Hurricane Hunter from their many years working together (perhaps he couldn’t remember many details given the … ahh … chemistry between the two), the book does contain some interesting anecdotes and reflections from people who knew the Gonzo journalist – going all the way back to his youthful days haunting Louisville’s Cherokee Park.

One of the remembrances that particularly struck me was from Porter Bibb (gotta love these old Southern names), a teenage friend of Thompson’s who recalled how the aspiring writer would methodically retype prose selections from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. While Bibb thought this was silly and pretentious, Thompson reasoned that it was a good way to get a sense of how it felt to write those sublime words.

Now that’s not something that I ever considered doing as a writer, but it makes sense to me. It seems like an effective exercise to get a feel for the particular nuance and flow of a master’s writing – from the writer’s perspective, as opposed to the reader’s. There is something to be said for the forced deceleration of writing out each word, rather than just reading it – seeing those words reveal themselves on the page as a result of the action of your fingers. It’s analogous to a musician tirelessly practicing the riffs of a favorite record – and, in so doing, honing skills and absorbing a style that, ultimately, are transmuted into something more personal and original.

And H.S.T. was certainly an original – in both prose and personality. That said, you can readily see the influences of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his writing – particularly the more (ironically) lucid writing of his heyday.