Behind every compelling story there is a psychological structure that the audience senses but may not explicitly acknowledge or be aware of. When I think of the songwriting team of Lennon and McCartney I think of such a structure.
Fundamentally we are talking about two men, each of whose creative energy arises from his formative experience as a young boy in working class Liverpool.
The young Paul McCartney was a happy child who felt loved by his mother and was eager to communicate that feeling of love and security to the entire world. For John Lennon it was very different.
John’s energy is that of a man who had lost his mother when still just a boy, and thereafter always felt slightly unmoored. His brooding and intense lyrics suggest a man searching for love but never quite sure that it exists.
I think it is the combination of those two complementary energies which creates the powerful psychological underpinning that audiences respond to in the brilliant songwriting of these two young geniuses. Between them, their themes run the gamut from love and security on the one hand to constant doubtful searching for love on the other.
In the human drama, there are few more compelling narratives than the two faces of our eternal search for love.