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
Does Higgs mention the line in “From Russia with Love” (I think it is) where James Bond likens something horrible to “listening to the Beatles without ear muffs”? Whenever I hear that, I roll my eyes and think, “Well, that didn’t age well.”
Deb, yes, Higgs does bring up the “ear muffs” remark. A lot of people in the Sixties thought The Beatles were a fad.
Fainting because of Brit Invasion bands was a fad, as was blanket excitement for BI bands…Beatles per se less so, but Bond was always for smug middle-agers and anyone else that would swing that way. (Then again, some US teens would champion the Four Seasons on that VeeJay album “pitting” them against each other…
George, if you keep coming up with non-fiction books that sound as interesting as this one, you’re going to convert me.
Michael, as you many have noticed, I alternate between fiction and non-fiction. Good books of both varieties vie for my reading time. Yes, I think you would enjoy LOVE AND LET DIE.
Another solid hit from the Kelley Roving Library of Temptation! Don’t think I would ever want to be friends with Ian Fleming, though.
Jerry, Higgs makes it clear that Ian Fleming–although talented–was a mean, mean man. Temptation is my business!
Roald Dahl, too. You’d think that British “public” schools and service in WW2 would…well, produce just what it did…
I have never read a Fleming novel and I doubt sixty years on, I would like one. But the Beatles are evermore, ear muffs or not.
Patti, Sean Connery added humor to his role as James Bond…something that was missing in Ian Fleming’s Bond books. I read one a decade ago and found Fleming’s book did not age well.
I started and stopped with YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, which was still being sold as New in a 60c Signet pb in 1978, so, what the hell. Then, reading it, a few years after seeing the less than enlightened film version, it was more What the hell?
Todd, I remember reading GOLDFINGER after seeing the movie version. The book was nothing like the movie. I preferred the movie and the Shirley Bassey theme song.
Patti, the best Bond book (my opinion only) was the first, CASINO ROYALE. It also happens to be the one with the least amount of action. The most entertaining Bond book was DR. NO, which was basically an out-and-out parody of the character, only to be outdone later by Harvard Lampoon’s ALLIGATOR (by Michael Frith and Chriostopher Cerf as “I*n Fl*m*ng”). And the best Beatles song is damned near evert one.
Jerry, I totally agree with you on CASINO ROYALE. I did learn that while “Yesterday” is classified as a Beatles song, it was all McCartney.
Well…a fair amount of the songs could be considered thus, and a few essentially all-Lennon and a very few all-Harrison…
Todd, Higgs believes “Yesterday” was the song that started the dissolution of The Beatles.
Sounds good. Will request it from my library.
Steve, trust me: you’ll find out a lot about The Beatles and Bond than you never knew!
The title reminds me that McCartney’s LIVE AND LET DIE is my favorite of the Bond themes, though I’ll confess that I like the Guns ‘N’ Roses cover even more than Paul’s original.
Michael, you’re right: Higgs cleverly inserted “Love” in the title to stress The Beatles Love Songs mixed with 007’s License to Kill.
It does sound good…except for the 500 pages thing. I read all the Bond books in the early ’60s and enjoyed them then, though even in my teens I was not impressed with Fleming’s writing. And yes, I’ve heard he was a mean SOB. The Beatles, on the other hand, have held up a lot better than he has.
Jeff, while Bond held up…Ian Fleming and his books have not. And, yes, Higgs documents a lot of Fleming’s “mean SOB” tendencies.
Though Lennon was confessing his own bad behavior, early on, too. Sigh.
Back in the day my Dad would buy me James Bond novels (which I still have) since it was hard for grade-school kids to buy them.
I didn’t have any trouble getting hold of Beatles records.
This looks good, George.
Beth, LOVE AND LET DIE will inform you about a lot of facts you didn’t know about Bond and The Beatles.
I watched maybe three of the Bond films – but didn’t read any of the novels, too far of from reality for me.
Of course I bought all the Beatles records but used them more as a kind of background music – if I wanted action I stsrted the Rolling Stones.
My friends (all students too like me) reacted similarly.
Rather OT:
I grew a beard and long hair after leaving school at 18 in 1962 – both got longer over the years but that was ok.And I kept them after getting a job in IT – often people would stare at me but when we started discussong difficult topics …
I worked for a specialised financial institute and had good contacts with the management hierarchy. Once a top manager asked me about my opinion on his sons who wanted to study maths and physics and I explained it to him – he was happy.
And then I was invited to a discussion with the IT people of the German National Bank and when I entered the room their IT boss whispered (but everbody could hear it):
Look at that Beatle!
I must have made a good expression in the discussion because later I was invited to give courses on Data Base Systems at the bank and my main customer’s IT boss invited me to accompany him and his subordinates to accompany them to the USA – as a paid business trip of two weeks duration!
From NYC to SFO, Silicon Valley and San Diego, Dallas and Boca Raton (where the IBM PC was being further developed and then back via Washington to NYC.
Sometimes people at IBM or other IT companies would look at me but when the discussions started it was ok – I was the guy among the German guests whose English was best …
Sometime
Wolf, although I liked The Beatles, I preferred The Rolling Stones. Both groups have their fans…
Bless you, George. You’re far from the only one.
Averaging, I’d still put the Beatles ahead, given particularly all those weak ’70s Stones albums (along with a few good ones).
Todd, The Beatles had a short career, The Rolling Stones are still producing music and touring.
As a band, about a decade for the Beatles (and, given the pressures they faced and created for themselves, not a bad run), while the Stones these years are a skeleton crew of what they were (sadly too literally) …I’d say the the quartet and the quintet (plus others at most times) have essentially endured similarly. inasmuch as few have forgotten the Beatles nor ignored their post-band careers.
Todd, The Rolling Stones kept making music that I wanted to listen to…and The Beatles stopped.
While the Stones were making those “weak” albums in the 70s, one of which was the great SOME GIRLS, the Beatles were gone, making solo albums. I don’t listen to the Beatles much any more but a lot of their stuff sounds like a relic of the 60s. The Stones best stuff sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday.
Michael, my listening to The Rolling Stones compared to The Beatles is 10 to 1.
Michael, you want to make the claim that BLACK AND BLUE and IT’S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL and LOVE YOU LIVE and GET YER YA-YAS OUT and GOAT’S HEAD SOUP are assemblies that will live forever, or at least as long as, say, AFTERMATH or BEGGAR’S BANQUET, you go right ahead. SOME GIRLS and the mostly ’70s recordings of TATTOO YOU are definitely good albums by me…which is why I cited a Few Good Ones. And the best work of both bands definitely sound very much of their time, to me, as does the weakest.