We had readings of this lyric/poem/short story in both the Saturday and Thursday classes over the last week – the link below will take you to the recorded version. In his great book about the Beatles, Revolution in the Head, the music critic Ian MacDonald called the song ‘imperishable popular art of its time’, which sounds about right to me. To think that Lennon was 26 and McCartney 25 at the time they wrote it.
And they were even younger when they recorded this, one of their other great ‘story’ songs.
Finally, putting Beatlemania aside for a moment but sticking to the theme of going places, during those poetry sessions I also mentioned Alan Riach, professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow Uni. I’ve come across this guide to Scotland’s literary places that he’s put together for VisitScotland; it’s well worth a look if you fancy some bookish tourism and can be downloaded for free here –
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