Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!
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She didn’t blackmail him. Quitting music was *his* idea because he was so frustrated and poor. She wanted him to keep at it, because the idea of him, or anyone perhaps, quitting their “dream” was too sad to handle. I get that. If I had a friend trying an impossible dream like that, I wouldn’t have the heart to tell them to give up, no matter how much they sucked. (I don’t treat myself that way, but that’s another story.)
He couldn’t accept that she loved him because he didn’t think he deserved it. And she didn’t think seem to think she deserved it, despite being the most beautiful woman in Suffolk, but this is movie world, where Lily James is only average looking and feels insecure.
And because if they’d already gotten together, the story wouldn’t fit the Beatles songs. Not many of their songs are about being married with kids - even though at least two of them were during the Beatles period. Perhaps there will be a sequel where he uses “Maybe I’m Amazed” to patch up his marriage.
But after his experience playing Wembley etc and getting famous off of somebody else’s songs and talking to an old wise seafaring John Lennon, he realized that being a star just for the sake of it isn’t that great, that he just wasn’t a great songwriter anyway, and that he was much more suited to teaching and playing Beatles covers as an amateur, because they are great songs, and making people happy is what pop music should be about.*
He also realized that he didn’t need to be a rock star to deserve love. Hers or anyone’s.
The storytelling is a bit clunky, but that’s the gist of it. When they make the Broadway/West End musical, they can tighten some of that up.
Also, there’s no way in 2017 that he could have sung “She was just 17, if you know what I mean...” to universal acclaim. I mean, really. That’s not on. I think the Lennon and McCartney were about 20 when they wrote that, but still...
* That’s a truth I’m not sure I wanted to learn. I’m frustrated by how most of the bands that play live where I live just do covers. I would like to see musicians actually trying their own stuff. But if the choice is between enduring a naff original and the whole audience singing along to a classic, I’ll take the latter.
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