“Come Together”: a performance of words and emotions from 60 Years of Lennon and McCartney
Lennon and McCartney made up the most famous songwriting partnership in pop music history, and this July marks 60 years since the two first met. In 1957 John Lennon was 16 and Paul McCartney 15, and since they certainly had their ups and downs. The question for fans has always been, how did these differences affect their songs?
Dr Alexis Kirke presents “Come Together”, a mash up of performed poetry and ambient electronica, providing an unusual and innovative insight into their unique partnership. Performed by actor Rose Webber, the poem is a uniquely personal take on McCartney and Lennon. The underlying sonification uses data Kirke’s gathered to create a classical duet of emotionally-annotated words from 156 McCartney songs and 131 Lennon songs. It reflects the emotional responses to events that happened between the two in real life: from the jubilation of their early success and Beatle-mania, and the negativity that came with their split in 1970, to John Lennon’s tragic assassination in 1980.