I like the Beatles and James Bond so I dove into John Higgs’s new book on how the group and the spy impacted the British Psyche (and the rest of the world’s psyche, too!). Higgs delivers some facts I was not aware of. I knew Ian Fleming was a “difficult” man but apparently that didn’t scare some women off. Fleming had an affair with Lady O’Neill who wrote him after a liaison in Dublin in 1947: “I loved cooking for you and sleeping beside you and being whipped by you and I don’t think I have ever loved like this before…. I love being hurt by you and kissed afterwards.” (p.23)
Higgs alternates between writing about Fleming and the Beatles and manages to deliver some acute analysis in both cases. “Love Me Do” was the first of 22 Beatle singles. “Written in 1958 when McCartney was sixteen, it was one of the fist songs he had ever written back when he was playing truant from school…. The A-side showcased John Lennon demanding to be loved, while the B-side ‘P.S. I Love You,’ featured Paul promising to love–a template which immediately established the core personality software the Lennon-McCarthney partnership.” (p. 72)
By the time Ian Fleming died in 1964, he had sold over 30 million books and made James Bond a cultural icon. And the James Bond Effect influenced the Beatles. For example, “Five days after the premiere of Goldfinger, McCartney became the proud owner of an Aston Martin, just like Bond’s famous DBS. ‘I’d just seen the first James Bond film and was quite impressed by the car,’ he recalled…. This was the car McCarney was driving when he stared compose the song ‘Hey Jude’… In 2017 McCartney’s Aston Martin was sold at auction for 1,345,500 pounds.” (p. 123)
I highly recommend Love and Let Die to all fans of James Bond and the Beatles! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — 1
PART 1: INITIATE COUNTDOWN — 13
1945: There’s nobody to talk to when it’s raining –15
1952: All of his own darkness –22
1956: I would have liked to have seen the boys growing up — 37
1960: A notorious centre for prostitution — 48
1961: Unashamedly, for pleasure and money — 55
1962: Glutted with the overload of stuff — 63
PART 2: DETONATE — 69
1962: Bigger than the Beatles — 71
1962: Sean Connery (1930-2020) — 81
1963: There are truths in that dreaming — 89
1964: Ian Fleming (1908-1964) — 96
1964: A film with four long-haired schnooks — 104
1965: It would take too much else away — 111
1965: Not as good as James Bond — 120
1965: Greater than the sum of their parts — 126
1965: The things I do for England — 130
1967: What did he want to communicate? — 137
1967: Larger than reality — 146
1967: 007 (Shanty Town) — 157
1967: Welles was trying to put a voodoo mind-grip on him — 164
1968: On the banks of the River Ganges — 173
1968: Yoko and Billy — 189
1969: John, Paul and James get married — 200
1969: George Lazenby’s hair — 209
1969: Paul is dead — 219
PART 3: AFTERMATH — 225
1970: Answer: No — 227
1970: Mother/Love — 233
1970: The best — 241
1970: Phil and Allen — 249
1971: To deny that love was desirable — 257
1973: Christopher Lee (1922- 2015) — 263
1973: The problem is Bond — 271
1974: In the material world — 282
1977: Risking their lives for the audience’s entertainment — 297
1980: The no-mark — 306
1980: John Lennon (1950-1980) — 311
1981: For a true artist their life is their art — 324
PART 4: GROW UP, 007 — 333
1983: A symbol of real value to the Free World — 335
1984: Wacky Macca Thumbs Aloft –342
1995: Too much of a good time — 354
1999: Desmond Llewelyn (1914-2001) — 365
2001: George Harrison (1943-2000) — 371
2002: The fate of the pixels — 379
2003: Come on, Mr. Putin! — 388
2008: The death of Strawberry Fields — 401
2012: A golden thread of purpose — 408
2015: What is the new evil in the world? — 421
2021: Time to die — 434
2021: Ringo and Paul — 444
2022: James Bond will return — 453
Bibliography — 467
Notest and Sources — 473
Acknowledgements — 501
Index — 503
