“He hears emotion in music”: Journalist John Harris shares how Beatles' songs helped his autistic son, names new book after Paul McCartney track

Journalist John Harris recently appeared on the Today in Focus podcast in an episode, titled How the Beatles helped my autistic son find his voice. In the episode, he said that when his autistic son James was a child, he loved playing songs by the Beatles on repeat.

Talking about the same, John Harris told the podcast host Helen Pidd:

“He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact.”

During the podcast, John also recalled taking James to see Kraftwerk headline at Bluedot festival. He added:

“Ginny, my partner, put her hand on James’s chest, and his heart was beating so fast and kind of flapping his hand... And then when they played Autobahn... he was having this sort of mystical experience.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, he further mentioned his recent book, which he named after a track by Paul McCartney. John's new book, Maybe I'm Amazed: A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs, recounts how music helped him connect with his son after James was diagnosed with autism.

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John Harris opened up about his autistic son and his music preference

At the podcast, John Harris, who is the presenter of The Guardian's sister podcast, Politics Weekly, explained how his autistic son connected with music.

“I remember going up when he was in bed, and he was really kind of intensely scripting, coming out like a human tape recorder with these things that he heard on the TV... And I couldn't sort of pull him out of it," he said.

Further opening up about his son, and how his love for music started, he continued:

“James was about to turn 3. We went to Pembroke Castle and I remember taking James to the top of one of the towers and as anyone would say, 'What can you see, James?' And in response, he was just reciting scripts from kids TV in a very sort of low whisper.”

He then said that he bought an iPod classic and filled it up with music, subsequently writing down song titles on a piece of paper and holding them up. Explaining James' love for music, John further said:

“The fact that he was just playing songs he liked loads and was completely gone on it. Music sort of broke this mood of worry and introspection and all the rest of it, because for a while, we didn't have any music on at all.”

John also discussed the difficulties and prejudices that autistic individuals still encounter, as well as what he has discovered about how they listen to music.

Later in the podcast, he discussed his new book, Maybe I'm Amazed, in which he examined the relationship between autism and music. As per Evri Magaci’s March 29 report, John Harris' memoir details the life of his autistic son, and the transformational power of music in a moving examination of love and connection.

As per the official description of the book provided by Amazon, in the book, a father has shared how music has helped his son discover the world, one song at a time.

It further read that Maybe I'm Amazed has explained how James' life quickly became interlaced with the music of artists like Amy Winehouse, Kraftwerk, Funkadelic, The Velvet Underground, The Beatles, and many more, becoming an integral part of his identity.

Furthermore, in addition to revealing a secret history of neurodivergence and creativity, the book has walked the readers through the challenges of raising an autistic child in a prejudiced society and has offered fresh insight into why notes, chords, and lyrics have such a profound emotional impact on people.

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Meanwhile, John Harris' How the Beatles helped my autistic son is currently available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.