Jonathan Gould: A Fan’s Notes

Dear Jonathan Gould,
Whew you got a great agent, serialized in USA TODAY, man that’s EXPOSURE. Congratulations on all this, very handsomely produced and marketed product.
But most of all pat yourself on the back… there is so much hard work reflected in these pages, so many long library hours scouring newspaper microfilm and digesting the finer details of the ideas that were alive in the 1960s, very, VERY few people take the trouble to do not just the research the but THINKING to distill it all down into such an accessible approach to HUGE subject. Bravo, bravo, from one writer to another, you have really RAISED THE BAR for the rest of us.
I’ve been writing a long letter to you in my head but I mean to get this off today, so let me just go through quickly and single out some of my favorite passages so far, and I hope we can chat on the phone soon or something. I think your REVOLVER and SGT PEPPER interpretations are dead bull’s eyes, very savvy and insightful readings of those records. I, too, admire Ian MacDonald (although he didn’t seem to like TMW), but I think your interpretations extend and amplify what he and others did.
I love so much of your imagery amidst your descriptions: the “Profumo-era chorus girls” in “Taxman” (p. 350); how “when Paul adds a high harmony in the last verse [of “act Naturally”], he sounds like the good singer who lives inside the head of every bad singer” (p. 277). (I’m also surprised that, your being a drummer, you’re not a bigger Ringo fan…?)
And while I disagree with you about the arrangement of “Got to Get You Into My Life,” it’s an entirely persuasive argument. My push back would be: that guitar gathers all its effectiveness off its surprise attack amidst horns — the CONTRAST from between the way they DON’T emulate Booker T’s MGs, and the sudden resplendent power of that Les Paul (?).
I especially like this sentence: “Much of the expressive power of John’s singing on the Beatles’ early records came from the way the slightest acknowledgment of sensivity or vulnerability seemed like such an enormous CONCESSION coming from him…”
And when you point out that “Lucy” is the first woman’s name Lennon invokes in song, it literally made me stop, think, and concede this was an insight that had never occurred to me. And it’s very telling, too, not just how it relates to the name of his mother, but how the one of the very next women he DOES name directly is “Julia” herself.
I hope by now you’ve discovered Devin McKinney’s MAGIC CIRCLES, which Harvard brought out a few years back. He’s a decent chap and his book is full of wonderful connections, especially about how HELP! presages the death cults of later years…
Well that’s me just dashing things off to get something to you… all the best, it looks like Harmony’s doing a great job marketing this… let’s stay in touch! — TR