John Lennon: The Life is a fine biography. I wrote about the book, and interviewed its author Philip Norman, for THE WORD in October 2008. The version below contains some extra material unused at the time.

It’s bloody enormous, for a start. I had intended to take my review copy away on holiday, until it arrived by courier in two huge A4 binders. I would literally have needed an extra suitcase. The author tells me it runs to about 300,000 words and that was after he’d cut 60,000. Can there still be so much to say about John Lennon? Or indeed about anyone?

I would pitch Philip Norman’s blockbuster somewhere in between its two best-known predecessors, namely Albert Goldman’s The Lives Of John Lennon (a book he calls “malevolent, risibly ignorant”) and Ray Coleman’s Lennon: The Definitive Biography (“an honourable attempt”). But I would place it above both of them – more accurate, more perceptive and far better-written. The great surprise for people like me, who have spent too many years reading about The Beatles, is the revelatory material that John Lennon: The Life actually contains. So, yes, there really is more to say.

The first eye-opener is John’s incestuous desire for his mother Julia – a flighty and spirited woman who left him, as a child, in the care of her sister Mimi. (She was killed in a car accident when John was a teenager.) He spoke to Yoko of this fixation repeatedly; he confided it to others and speaks of it in a 1979 audio-diary. At 14 he lay next to his mother during her afternoon rest and wondered how far she would let him go.

Then it’s suggested that he had a crush on Paul. “On the principle that bohemians should try everything,” writes Norman, John had contemplated an affair, “but had been deterred by Paul’s immovable heterosexuality.” Yoko, again, is party to this speculation. She recalls hearing people in the Apple office who called McCartney “John’s Princess”. One is never sure whether John really had those leanings – or just an intellectual curiosity and appetite for mischief. The same ambiguity surrounds his early Spanish holiday with The Beatles’ gay manager Brian Epstein. (Although, when a Liverpool DJ unwisely made a jibe, Lennon battered him savagely.)

Norman writes with a shrewd eye for the wider context. He’s especially good on the post-War, middle-class world of Lennon’s childhood. We follow John from semi-detached tranquillity to art-school and Hamburg, to the London Palladium and the world. We are necessarily in familiar territory for a lot of the time, thanks not least to the author’s own Beatle book, his estimable 1981 biography Shout!. Yet there is always an arresting new fact around the corner. Connoisseurs of trivia will enjoy learning that “eight days a week’ was not a Ringo-ism, but a quip by Paul’s taxi-driver on the way to a songwriting session with John. Nor had I known of John’s fling with the pop singer Alma Cogan – a woman whom poor Brian Epstein, ironically, had once considered marrying.

More startling, though, is the business of Norwegian Wood. This song was always read as a coded admission of adultery – but with whom? The journalist Maureen Cleave is often suggested – she was pretty and clever and Lennon adored her – but Norman’s evidence points elsewhere. When John moved to London with his wife Cynthia and their child Julian, they took a flat in South Kensington. It had been found for them by The Beatles’ photographer Robert Freeman, who lived downstairs with his beautiful wife, Sonny. Now, she was German but preferred to say she was Norwegian. The Freemans’ pad was fashionably wood-panelled. When Robert was out and Cynthia upstairs, John slipped down to see Sonny Freeman and they did, indeed, have an affair…

The book’s numerous sources include both Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney, The Beatles’ producer George Martin and their right-hand man Neil Aspinall. There are long-lost girlfriends from Liverpool and the “primal scream” therapist Arthur Janov. I even provided a few scraps myself. Documentary evidence comes from the private papers of Aunt Mimi and John’s autobiographical notes and tapes. A Lennon biographer always has the benefit of his songs, which are among the most candid ever written. And there are the ever-engaging public utterances: he was, says Norman, “perhaps the only celebrity in history who never did a dull or dishonest interview.”

What must it be like to write a Lennon book with Yoko looking over one shoulder and Paul over the other? The author had Yoko’s blessing for the project – though she’s apparently unhappy with the finished result – and Paul agreed to be interviewed also. The tone is scrupulously fair to both of them. Yoko appears to have been pulled reluctantly into Lennon’s orbit. She did not push her way forward to bag a Beatle. And McCartney has shown a forgiving side. I doubt whether he has forgotten Philip Norman’s Sunday Times attack from years ago, a parody poem that ended:-

O deified Scouse, with unmusical spouse

For the clichés and cloy you unload,

To an anodyne tune may they bury you soon

In the middlemost midst of the road.

Of all the stories told within this teeming tale, few are as strange as that of Alfred Lennon, John’s wayward father. A rascally Scouse seaman, it’s true that he abandoned John in childhood, but not without a struggle to keep him. Later, as a penniless drifter, he sought the company of his Beatle son but never expected much. At 54 he eloped to Gretna Green with a teenage bride and they had two sons – Lennon’s little-known half-brothers. Unaware the superstar now wore a beard, he once took along that quintessentially 1970 gift, a bottle of aftershave. The visit enraged Lennon, who responded with brutal fury and threatened to have him killed – poor Alf was so shaken he filed a statement with a solicitor, in the event of his unnatural death.

It’s another instance of John’s propensity to extreme nastiness. His behaviour towards his first wife, Cynthia, has some repellent aspects too. Such stories, and they’re well-documented, make you question the posthumous sanctification of Lennon. The Man of Peace was, in a way, the classic idealist – he loved the human race in abstract, but could be a complete bastard with individuals, including his own family. He admits as much in one of his last-ever songs, I Don’t Wanna Face It: “You wanna save humanity / But it’s people that you just can’t stand.”

But there, in the humour and self-awareness, we catch a more endearing man as well. Quick, funny and frequently kind, Lennon never stopped learning, questioning and revising his ideas. Where he was headed, we can only guess. There was never much need to “expose” or “de-bunk” John Lennon – in his songs, from Cold Turkey to Jealous Guy, he always got there before you. Lennon: The Life may be a warts-and-all sort of book, but it’s also respectful and affectionate. In the end, it’s the portrait of a complex man, and it’s as big as it needs to be. This is the best Lennon book so far.

Philip Norman Q&A

Lennon’s biographer grew up in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. (He takes some pride in claiming the town’s ferry service as the inspiration for Ticket To Ride). As a young reporter on the Sunday Times his assignments included P.G. Wodehouse, Elizabeth Taylor and Colonel Gadaffi. As well as novels and plays he has written heavyweight biogs of Elton John, Buddy Holly and The Rolling Stones, but is probably best-known for his 1981 book Shout! The True Story Of The Beatles. Philip Norman sits this morning in the Groucho Club and ponders the epic voyage he took into the head of Winston O’Boogie. “I suddenly thought, He really deserves a book,” he says. “A real biography, as if he were John Keats or Mahatma Ghandi. Not a pop person but a major, towering presence in his century.”

How did you feel after finishing this book? Relieved? Bereaved?

The normal feeling when you finish a book is that I feel dead inside…. I would like to hide and go on to something else.

Was it difficult not to cut-and-paste yourself?

I had to make a vow not to do that, so I set myself this hellish task on three levels. Firstly to get new information, secondly to make the familiar new and thirdly not to plagiarise myself.

 Has writing this book changed your opinion of Lennon?

I began with the view from my book Shout! which was of a rebellious, lovable, quite screwed-up bloke. I ended with much more reverence for his music, his writing and his intellect, something he always took pains to hide. I realised he could not have written a song like Norwegian Wood if he did not have the mental self-discipline of Samuel Becket. He would never have admitted that, even though he read everything, ever since he was a small boy, thanks to his Aunt Mimi. So it led to more respect for his mental power and self-discipline, and also the fact he could write a tune as much as McCartney could, though he always thought he didn’t. Also, a lot more sympathy for how vulnerable he was, how easy it was to hurt this seemingly tough, cynical person.

What was Yoko’s involvement?

I went to see Yoko and said, “Can I do this?” She said “OK, you can do it,” and she would be available for interview. It would not be authorised, but otherwise I was free to go ahead. I’d met her in the Apple days, doing a piece for the Sunday Times, I’d spent the morning in the Apple office just watching John and Yoko be John and Yoko. I was allowed to do that. When I published my book Shout! she invited me over to the Dakota Building – this was only five months after John’s death. And over the years, every couple of years, I was back to interview her.

How did your view of Yoko evolve?

Though conceptual art is now a familiar concept in mainstream culture, in the 60s very few people understood it. Yoko was thought to be a charlatan seeking attention with these weird stunts, many of which are now recognised by people like Tracy Emin as being pioneering. Yoko was famous in her own sphere, and she didn’t want to leave that fame and be a mere appendage to a Beatle, so she was reluctant. She was Japanese, and in those days, even for someone from a powerful family as she was, there was still a way that a Japanese woman was with a husband. And it was not dominating. She is very funny, highly educated, very cultured, good to talk to. Very much like John in a strange way: you can see why they hit it off, both totally frank, unshockable. And as she told me what went on in their interior life I developed much more sympathy for her. The incredible racism that was in play in those days, she suffered unbelievable abuse. She was resilient. Growing up in the Second World War she had to be strong to look after her siblings in Japan. John wanted her in the Beatles, and she didn’t want to do that. She was pulled in.

But she finally withheld her endorsement?

What we had on paper allowed her to read the book for factual accuracy, which she did. And I had always written about John in a way that she liked, which was a reflection of how she talked about him – obviously very loving, but also rather knowing and humorous: “You’ll never guess what he did then…” He could be impossible but most of the time you couldn’t help loving him. But she did not like the totality of that, so she withdrew her endorsement.

Why, specifically?

To my surprise, for things she had told me in previous interviews, in a rather amused way. She said she thought I’d been mean to John. I don’t agree. I don’t believe you can write a biography if you hate the subject. You have to empathise and not just do an Albert Goldman and tear them apart. So that was upsetting.

Did Paul McCartney give you his co-operation?

He did and I was amazed. I thought with the post-John politics, if Yoko was helping me then McCartney would not. But he phoned me one day and he said “I can’t sit down and talk to you because you’ve written some things about me that were hard.” And they were. So I said, “I know, but there are certain things you could tell me, that only you know. Would you do it by email?” He said yes, and he always answered generously, in lots of detail. But I saved it for the important questions, such as “Were you a witness to John kicking Stuart [Sutcliffe] in the head?” And he has no memory of it. I don’t think you’d forget it if you’d seen it. And a minor thing: “Is it true that you and John, left- and right-handed as you were, could play each other’s guitars?” And he said yes: together they were ambidextrous, and in their personalities as well. John could finish a Paul song and vice versa. Or was John really drunk when he met you at the garden fete? “I don’t think he was, he might have had a drink, you know…” Do you remember John walking into the boardroom at Apple and saying he was Jesus Christ? No, it never happened.

Tell us about John’s sexual feelings for Julia, his mother.

It was right there to the end of his life. When I said to Yoko, “Did he often talk about Julia?” she said “Oh my God! You’ve no idea! He never stopped.” She was a very good listener, but she had to take in this stuff for years and the theme of Julia never really stopped. I can’t explain it, because I don’t imagine for a second that she would have given him a sexual come-on, it was just in his imagination. He would even talk about it, not just to Yoko, he told at least one journalist but it couldn’t be printed. It was so near the surface and he would admit it. He would tell you anything. If you asked the question seriously, he would answer it.

Do you think he had homo-erotic feelings for Paul?

They shared rooms and beds as teenage boys used to do and there was never anything overt. Yoko had a theory that there was some sub-conscious feeling that they were like a married couple, and he was betrayed by Paul. He did once say, according to Yoko, that Paul hurt him so terribly. You can’t really see why, McCartney didn’t do anything that bad. I think John was one of those people who, as in the famous speech by Oscar Wilde in the witness box, show there is a love between David and Jonathan, an intense platonic love between men. Other societies have recognised that this was possible. I think John was capable of that. He needed to have a sidekick, a blood brother. I just think it was that, this need to have brothers and be a brother.

The big musical revelation is the identity of John’s mystery girl in Norwegian Wood.

The folklore is that it was Maureen Cleave, an extremely proper woman: John would have liked her because she wrote like Richmal Compton, and she was incredibly cute. If you ever see the press conference with Bob Dylan, she sits next to him and the rest of the press are somewhere else, she sort of whispers in his ear and he adores her. So I can see there was a powerful… John liked clever young women.

I believe in this thing called Biographer’s Luck. I don’t think you can write a biography unless you believe in luck and I did have a lot. I had worked as a journalist with Dean Freeman, Sonny Freeman’s son, who is a well-known photographer and it just popped into my mind to wonder if his mother would have some memories. In those days she said she was Norwegian, John lived above her flat with Robert Freeman, it was wood-panelled, wood was the big thing at the time, they had an affair, under everyone’s noses. So the guilt and half-confession of the song seems to be fairly conclusive to me.

When did you meet The Beatles?

I first met them in Newcastle on what nobody then knew was the their last British tour; they came to the City Hall and I somehow got in. Now I know how pissed off they were with touring, particularly John. In fact when he got out of the car he was quite sardonic to the assembled press and myself. But in the subterranean dressing room at the City Hall they could not have been nicer. He and Ringo sat down to talk to me, McCartney came up. Only Harrison would not stop watching The Avengers – I saw this pale, discontented face floating in the twilight, in a polo neck. Then McCartney threw me his bass so I could see how light it was, and how cheap. He said, “It’s only 50 quid but I won’t change it cos I’m mean.” I asked if I could stay around and it was “Oh sure!” But then Neil Aspinall said “Get out.” “But they said…” “I don’t care what they said. Get out.” Which is what his job was.

What other sources did you uncover?

Again, it was purely Biographer’s Luck. I happened one Sunday evening to switch on The Antiques Roadshow and a woman was showing an expert some letters. This woman was a Beatles fan, a young girl in the 1960s who decided to write to John’s Aunt Mimi, and she had started writing back. Very funny letters about what John was doing, how she’d been on tour with him. This was Mimi being like this brisk, Dickensian Betsy Trotwood: “Did you see John’s hair on TV last week? It was disgusting! We had a row.” Seeing those letters was sheer luck.

Aunt Mimi is terribly important, isn’t she? The one constant presence through his entire 40 years of life.

And the code of behaviour that she inculcated in him. Even at his most “Naughty John” he would still write thank-you notes, as she had taught him. Derek Taylor defined the characteristic of John that he most liked as grace. You might think John extremely graceless in many ways, but it was there, because of his aunt. But there were other aunts, also playing a powerful part, a circle of women. In fact, at the Cavern he once looked out and there were at least three aunts watching him. It was like P.G. Wodehouse.

And you have material from Dakota, like the taped autobiography he began in 1979.

Again the surprising thing was to find out how learned John was, and how much he read. And how many connections he made in that audio diary. There’s a reference not only to Truman Capote but also to E.M. Forster: Forster had said to people he always thought that when he got old his sexual urges would subside, but they were even worse when he was 90. And we know Capote had his own demons, so here is John making a direct line between himself and E.M. Forster through Truman Capote. Part of his motivation for the Lost Weekend is that he’s read Nigel Nicholson’s book about Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West. Really nothing escaped him.

You were also helped by Pauline, the widow of John’s father Alf?

Yes, Alf does this extraordinary thing of marrying this extremely attractive young woman, who is totally unfazed by the fact that Alf is older than her father. By whom she has two sons. She showed me that he was extremely well thought-of in his occupation at sea, he was very good at being a steward and head waiter, but a point comes when he decides he can’t be bothered and becomes an itinerant character washing up in hotels and so on. And Pauline was wonderful.

John’s treatment of his father looks particularly awful.

It’s a familiar syndrome, it happened with Elton John as well. The child of divorced parents goes with the mother and in the mother’s family the father is painted in the worst possible light. His father was a hapless character and he liked a drink, but he behaved on some important occasions very well, with honour. The business of him “not being around”, well, it was the Second World War when every man was away, and he was doing something dangerous and admirable.

Did John’s “primal scream” therapy, with Dr Janov, re-awaken the anger towards Alf?

I don’t know why it went so deep with John. His mother was always around, he was surrounded by attentive females. I can’t quite see why this awful pain and agony seems so deeply embedded, this horrible vulnerability, this inability to forget any pain he’d been caused. And I think Janov did unlock something extraordinary. People didn’t talk about their childhoods in those days, everything was buried. So a lot of rage came out.

Did you find it hard to sustain your interest in his later music?

The amazing thing to me was how good he was. There was a sort of flow that one had gone along with, to say that John’s solo career was erratic and misguided, but I thought his solo career was stupendous. I got more and more fascinated by his music. What I had to do was not only find new information, which was quite hard, but I had to revisit all of the known information and find new things to say. It is very hard to write about music itself but you have to do it. I found new things in his music that I had not known were there. I knew I had to make the creative art a very important part of the book. And I don’t think he ever slackened. On the White Album: he had to be serious, he couldn’t mess around, if he messed around then he did lose it. I think George Martin knew that as well, a lot of the White Album he was larking around and that was when he lost my interest, but only then.

Had John not died, would he still be a creative force?

I think there’s no doubt. And he would have come back to Britain. He was one of those people, like George Orwell, who could not help his incredible love of Britain and things British.

Was it important to give his story historical context?

It’s self-evidently necessary to relate the art to the times, and what is going on outside this bubble of The Beatles. But to do that and not go in Pseuds Corner is bloody difficult. The absolute exemplar, in my mind, of how to do it badly was a “Rock’n’Roll Years” kind of thing I heard by Alan Freeman. One of the lines was: “The year was 1962. In East Germany they were building a Wall… But that didn’t stop Bobby Vee having a hit with Take Good Care Of My Baby!”