Body Count by Francie Schwartz | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I haven’t read it. I will eventually, even though just tone of those two pages doesn’t make me want to rush out and buy it. I have read “The Beatles Bibliography’s” review of it, which is less than stellar: “Beatle fans should take issue with this travesty of a memoir, not simply because of Schwartz’s malevolent, almost venomous attacks on Paul, but because of the book’s self-serving and non-referential tone.”   

While I agree that Beatles fans have a tendency to dismiss the negative memoirs, such as Peter Brown’s, and that that has obscured a more accurate version of their story, that doesn’t change the fact that there are serious, serious issues with Francie’s overall credibility, impartiality, and honesty. (I’m putting all my chips on the table here: I’m a historian, and analyzing the credibility and accuracy of evidence is part of my job.) First, you have her agenda as a scorned woman, and the book evidently displays a great deal of vindictiveness. Second, the book was published in 1972, when Paul’s critical reputation was possibly at its nadir, and it was published by none other than Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone press, which very obviously chose John’s side in the John/Paul breakup era split. Third, a number of writers — including, disappointingly, Doggett — have recounted the “Jap Tart” episode as fact, but its not; its the unverified retrospective eyewitness testimony of a biased source. Does that mean we can dismiss it out of hand? No — its is entirely possible, given Paul’s state of mind at this time, that he wrote it, but I have never seen evidence from anyone else that this event occurred. During “Lennon Remembers,” John himself admits that his examples of the other Beatles treating Yoko badly come off as him being paranoid; if he had a clear example, such as this “Jap Tart” post-card, why didn’t he bring it up? Or Yoko? When discussing why she and John left Cavendish in Norman’s Paul bio, she doesn’t mention this incident at all. Why didn’t either of them ever bring up this incident in the ten years after it supposedly occurred? The Fifth issue is the nature of the source: Francie didn’t (so far as we know) write any of these instances down in her diary, or in a letter to her mother, which would make them more credible, as those would have been never intended for public consumption; she wrote them in a memoir, something she wanted people to buy, and there has been discussion that Wenner encouraged her to promote the sex and dissension in her work, because that’s what would sell.   

I want to stress that I’m not arguing that we should wipe out everything Francie says, or claims: I’m saying that there are significant reasons to doubt Francie’s credibility. John’s occasional physical abuse of women receives more attention in part because it is, unfortunately, a fact; Cynthia Lennon, Thelma Pickles, and May Pang all recount it, and John publicly admitted it. At this point, given the nature of the source, Francie’s accusations that Paul hit Jane are hearsay — a second hand statement that can’t be proven. And given what we know of Jane, her tolerating Paul hitting her seems out of character; she refused to allow him to pressure her into giving up her acting career and left him when it became glaringly obvious he was cheating on her.  

Joe said
I’m not surprised a memoir would be self-serving and non-referential. It was published in 1972, she was putting down on paper a lot of stuff that had happened three or four years previously. Vindictive and impartial, sure, but it was fairly recent history at the time, not an account of events after a long passage of time. That’s why I’m not writing off her credibility, particularly of the events she experienced. I think you’re right to reserve judgement on the hearsay though.

The Beatles Bibliography – I have a copy of that at home. I remember they were very sniffy about Lewisohn’s Complete Beatles Chronicle, which I called them out on in my review. If you want subjective opinions that book is full of them. IIRC they bigged up the (then-unpublished, now widely slated) Joe Flannery biography which was written by Mike Brocken, who also co-authored… The Beatles Bibliography! So yeah, not the most impartial source.

I don’t think Wenner had much to do with Body Count, at least if you believe Schwartz’s account. She wrote a feature about Apple for Rolling Stone which she said was heavily edited and rewritten without her knowledge. BC was published by Straight Arrow, which I think was Rolling Stone’s holding or parent company. But I have no idea what actually went on or who was involved.

Here’s the relevant passage from Body Count, not at all complimentary of Wenner:

I remember the unwarranted sniffiness about TCBC (and, to a considerable extent, Lewisohn in general) and agree that there’s a great deal of subjectivity there. I think the book’s greatest flaw was its failure to explain the standards it was judging the works by, which meant many of the evaluations tilted towards personal preference. However, that doesn’t mean we can dismiss all of their conclusions  — some of their analysis was good: I haven’t read “Body Count” yet, as I said, so I can’t assess how good or bad their analysis of that at the moment.       

“Vindictive and impartial, sure, but it was fairly recent history at the time, not an account of events after a long passage of time.”

You’re right; its not as if she was publishing this decades after the events, but it still qualifies as retrospective. That doesn’t necessarily mean her memory was affected, but it does mean that she had certain agendas when she was writing it that may have affected the accuracy of her statements. Agenda is just as important in evaluating  a source’s credibility as the “when” it was written, or published. Overall, unless there is separate, independent verification of Francie’s version of events, I don’t find her a particularly credible source, but YMMV.     

ewe2 said

pickles said
While I agree that Beatles fans have a tendency to dismiss the negative memoirs, such as Peter Brown’s, and that that has obscured a more accurate version of their story, that doesn’t change the fact that there are serious, serious issues with Francie’s overall credibility, impartiality, and honesty. (I’m putting all my chips on the table here: I’m a historian, and analyzing the credibility and accuracy of evidence is part of my job.) First, you have her agenda as a scorned woman, and the book evidently displays a great deal of vindictiveness. Second, the book was published in 1972, when Paul’s critical reputation was possibly at its nadir, and it was published by none other than Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone press, which very obviously chose John’s side in the John/Paul breakup era split. Third, a number of writers — including, disappointingly, Doggett — have recounted the “Jap Tart” episode as fact, but its not; its the unverified retrospective eyewitness testimony of a biased source. Does that mean we can dismiss it out of hand? No — its is entirely possible, given Paul’s state of mind at this time, that he wrote it, but I have never seen evidence from anyone else that this event occurred. During “Lennon Remembers,” John himself admits that his examples of the other Beatles treating Yoko badly come off as him being paranoid; if he had a clear example, such as this “Jap Tart” post-card, why didn’t he bring it up? Or Yoko? When discussing why she and John left Cavendish in Norman’s Paul bio, she doesn’t mention this incident at all. Why didn’t either of them ever bring up this incident in the ten years after it supposedly occurred? The Fifth issue is the nature of the source: Francie didn’t (so far as we know) write any of these instances down in her diary, or in a letter to her mother, which would make them more credible, as those would have been never intended for public consumption; she wrote them in a memoir, something she wanted people to buy, and there has been discussion that Wenner encouraged her to promote the sex and dissension in her work, because that’s what would sell.   

I want to stress that I’m not arguing that we should wipe out everything Francie says, or claims: I’m saying that there are significant reasons to doubt Francie’s credibility. John’s occasional physical abuse of women receives more attention in part because it is, unfortunately, a fact; Cynthia Lennon, Thelma Pickles, and May Pang all recount it, and John publicly admitted it. At this point, given the nature of the source, Francie’s accusations that Paul hit Jane are hearsay — a second hand statement that can’t be proven. And given what we know of Jane, her tolerating Paul hitting her seems out of character; she refused to allow him to pressure her into giving up her acting career and left him when it became glaringly obvious he was cheating on her.  

All fair points, but let me play devil’s advocate: her allegations haven’t been dismissed by the principals either. Sure, neither John nor Yoko confirmed the postcard story, but the one guy who you’d expect to deny it and other allegations, simply hasn’t – Paul himself. The story has been repeated often enough in enough memoirs and biographies, and Paul hasn’t been backwards in putting his side of the story in many respects, so the silence is interesting.

Picking on the timing of the book seems odd: if she’d planned to write a tell-all, four years is a long time to wait, it wouldn’t have been for lack of eager publishers. If she’d planned a tell-all she would certainly have been keeping notes or a diary. It seems to me that just because she has a negative attitude (ok, vindictive) attitude to Paul, all sorts of other motives have been ascribed to her and her memoir, and that doesn’t seem too objective to me. Like you say, just because it’s negative doesn’t mean there isn’t truth to it. And please, do be careful of the views expressed by people on rec.music.beatles about her, it’s some of the most poisonous usenet I’ve ever read, way out of proportion and pathological.

I’ve never even been to that website, and didn’t even know it existed. My knowledge of Francie is drawn from reading books like Doggett’s or The Beatles Bibliography; my evaluation of the validity of her testimony is based entirely on historical methods; applying historical standards to primary and secondary sources to determine their credibility.  

I think, because we (the fans) devour each and every new biography, memoir, and account by John’s third-cousin-twice-removed, that we believe the Beatles themselves do the same, but I think we’re projecting in that regard. Paul is, by all indication, a very busy man; he probably hasn’t read half the books about the band that most fans here have; Lewisohn isn’t even sure if he’s read “Tune In” yet. Paul might not be aware of the numerous times this “Jap Tart” incident has been recounted. There are lots of less savory moments in Beatles history that Paul has never addressed: Remember the account by the “Apple Scruff” fan watching through a window, who argued that John was drawing back his arm to hit a then-pregnant Linda during an Apple business meeting, but only stopped when Paul placed himself between the two of them? MacDonald recounts this story as fact — which its not — and Paul never mentioned it, verified or disputed it, and we *know* Paul has read MacDonald, because he complained about some of MacDonald’s interpretations of his songs. I would guess Paul figures if he started correcting what he perceives as all the errors in Beatles historiography he’d never get anything else done, so unless someone directly asks him in an interview (assuming he then doesn’t duck the question) he’s not going to address the issue. Therefore I don’t find Paul’s silence on the issue particularly significant.