Issue 106 – April 2016
SINGING IN THE DARK By Stephen Guy
OPEN spaces can be inspirational in the creative process when natural surroundings coupled with solitude sometimes produce great work. Artists, poets and writers have long been moved by the great outdoors although this was not always the case. Wild mountainous regions or desolate moors were regarded by many as frightening, inhospitable places before the flowering of the Romantic Movement in the 18th century. Today we take for granted that Wordsworth would be uplifted by Lake District vistas and the Brontë sisters moved by the Yorkshire Moors. Thomas Gray was stirred to write an elegy in a country churchyard. John Constable was one of the first artists to paint in the open air, animated by the sweeping views of his native countryside. William Cowper’s discovery of some felled poplar trees prompted him to write one of his most popular poems. Open spaces anywhere can kindle thoughts of mortality and life in general. My local favourites include St James’s Gardens behind the Anglican Cathedral and some of our wonderful parks. Allerton Golf Course is crossed by well-trodden paths and has the advantages of a romantic ruin (Obelisk House) and Fletcher’s Farm. A young Paul McCartney used this area creatively when he took a regular one mile short-cut between his house in Forthlin Road and John Lennon’s in Menlove Avenue. Mark Lewisohn’s excellent new paperback The Beatles Tune In (Little, Brown £16.99) has 840-pages packed with fascinating detail about the Fab Four’s early days. He mentions two songs, later hits for Cilla Black and Peter and Gordon, from 1959. Love of the Loved: “Paul remembers coming up with this on the Zenith [guitar] and also late one night as he walked home to Allerton: either he’d taken a girl out or been at John’s and was braving the dark short-cut home over the golf course, in which case it may be from one of those times he played guitar and sang at the top of his voice into the scary pitch blackness.”
A World Without Love: “A song fragment conceived by Paul during a dark late-night walk home.” The path (pictured) emerges in sight of John’s home Mendips and remains virtually unchanged. Among the few changes is a new convent built on the site of a big house called Maryton Grange. n Learn more about the history of Liverpool at the Museum of Liverpool, Pier Head, open 10 am to 5 pm every day, admission free.
Win a pair of tickets to
LENNON: THROUGH A GLASS ONION See inside ...