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Raised less than an hour from Liverpool on a steady diet of John Lennon and The Beatles, James Walsh has been a life-long appreciator of the working class hero. TG spoke to the songwriter about Lennon's flawed character, sticking it to the rock journalists and his melodic rhythm guitar.

Words: Matthew Parker

Most songwriters in rock and pop music have been influenced in some way by John Lennon's work, what do you identify with most in Lennon's music?

"I think he was one of the first writers to do away with metaphors and go for the jugular when it came to his more emotional songs. I really love his later stuff, because I think it's quite easy to write about heartbreak and the real dramatic emotions that you go through when you're young, but what I think is fantastic about Lennon is that when he was older he could just as easily write about how much he loves Yoko and Julian and Sean. That's the hardest thing to write without sounding cheesy or mawkish and he had that unique ability."

What do you think it is about his music and playing that's created this legacy?

"I think the amount of emotion and different genres that he managed to combine, there's no real archetypal John Lennon song: he was able to do everything. It helps that he was such a huge personality as well, he was so politically active and obviously a big peace campaigner and that's just added to his legend. As has the fact that he was obviously a flawed character. Towards the end of his life he had begun to recognise that and feel slightly bad about it. He tried to make it up to everyone that he had hurt along the way and that's quite unique for an artist I think."

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