Paperback Writer : comment

Somehow there seems to be more of Lennon than of McCartney in the lyric Paperback Writer.  The tragi-comedy that we recognise, the sad absurdity, is distinctively his.  I may be wrong, of course;  it was their combination most often that did it.  But here he is, the character of the song, the quietly desperate writer, whose effort is doomed from the start, like Sisyphus.  He has no concept that style has nothing to do with length;  he has plagiarised the story-line, not even knowing that (Edward) Lear didn't write novels.  The very character he writes of bears his own ambition to be a writer.  Desperately, he resorts to porn ("dirty story of a dirty man") to get into print.  He begs the publisher.   And we smile thinly, we who have been there, done that.  We who have ached for recognition.  We who have pushed that rock.