Oxford Street Maternity Hospital, Liverpool, 1940, and the city had other things on its mind that autumn. What I keep hearing in him is the rhythm guitar s and that voice sitting a hair behind the beat, on purpose, dragging the line like he's got all night. Listen for it on the verses, the way he lets Ringo arrive first. And then Sean turns up on the same date in 1975, which is a tidy bit of scheduling.
Same date, thirty-five years apart, and not by accident of the calendar alone — Sean arrived in 1975 on the ninth. Otis, you've got me listening to the verses again for that lag behind Ringo.
In His Own Write came out in 1964 and sold like a novel, which nobody at the publisher can have planned for — nonsense verse and little drawings, Lear and Carroll filtered through Liverpool. I've had two copies through the shop; one had a child's underlining all the way through.