Feature: What The Beatles might have been

How different would the world have been if the Beatles had broken up in 1962 on the verge of recording their breakthrough early hits? A new book By Larry Kirwan, "Liverpool Fantasy," suggests that John Lennon would go on the dole, George Harrison would become a Jesuit priest and Ringo Starr would become the drummer with Gerry and the Pacemakers. Paul McCartney, under the stage name Paul Montana, would be the only success story, a Las Vegas crooner married to Cher and politically connected after writing the campaign song for America's 40th president, Spiro Agnew.

Kirwan, a lifelong rocker himself and leader of the Irish-American rock band Black 47, grew up in Wexford, Ireland, very much under the spell of the Beatles. Back in 1986, before he formed Black 47, Kirwan wrote "Liverpool Fantasy" as a play.

"The idea came from somebody saying once that John Lennon would have made it in whatever field he chose," Kirwan explained. "I didn't agree with that because I knew a number of people like Lennon when I was growing up, very creative musicians who came from the same background, working class guys, and while they were very creative, they always had flaws, like Lennon's flaws -- too arrogant, problems dealing with people. I felt that he wouldn't have made it on his own, that he would have screwed up somewhere along the line, said the wrong thing to someone.

"Paul, on the other hand I think would have made it in his own way, because he is much more pragmatic and could have fit in more into any era. Also there's the whole chance of making it, it's very ephemeral, you just don't know where you get your break from. The Beatles happened at a particularly right time in the world for them and for everyone else. They had tremendous talent and it came out, and they had the outlet for that talent with the 1960s."

In Kirwan's fantasy Lennon walks out of the studio as the band is about to make its breakthrough because the record company wants the next Beatles record to be the ballad "Till There Was You" instead of the Merseybeat anthem "Please, Please Me." It's one of those moments of truth that can determine which way a life progresses, but for Kirwan, it was more than the lives of the Beatles that was at stake.

"When 'Please, Please Me' came on the radio in Ireland it changed the way everyone thought," Kirwan recalled. "Up until then Ireland and the UK were still in this post WWII way of looking at things, and when that song came it just kind of burst the dam for all that was trying to get through but didn't have an opening. I always remember something about it when it broke through the radio, it's like we went from black-and-white into color. It was that particular moment. They sparked the world around them, I'm not even sure if they realized it at the time. In the book Lennon has this visionary feeling and knows that they blew it. George feels it a bit too. Paul and Ringo don't really feel it."

The subject holds particular fascination for Kirwan because of his upbringing in Wexford.

"Wexford and Liverpool are both seaports and there was a direct shipping line between Wexford and Liverpool," he said. "Since both cities were seaports and had that connection to the shipping lines, both cities were really into music. The sense of humor, I would say, is somewhat the same too. The music scene in Wexford was really influenced by the whole Liverpool Merseybeat thing. When Merseybeat happened everybody in Wexford knew all the Liverpool songs. Wexford people supported Liverpool's soccer teams so we went over for soccer games. The Beatles were Irish anyway, we always felt that."

Though the book was about a reunion attempt, Kirwan said he never expected to see one in real life.

"I was never really interested in them getting back together," he said. "I felt they had their time and it was wonderful and let it be. To be honest I doubt if they ever would have gotten back together. They'd gone their separate ways. I know from my own work you're not really interested in recreating what's gone on before because you're too interested in what you hope to be doing.

"I wanted to show how musicians work together, because we're written about a lot and we get asked opinions about anything, but rarely from the inside. I wanted to show what it was like to be on the stage, what they're feeling onstage when they're playing. There's an alchemy between the players in a band. The Beatles had it and they changed the world through that bond."