‘The Beatles have got a lot to answer for in Liverpool’

Roger Appleton, the director of a new documentary about Liverpool’s music scene – and not just the Fab Four – is inspired by the romantic and beautiful place he sees as ‘the least English of English cities’

Liverpool’s music scene is like the tide of the Mersey. It rolls in and brings fantastic songs and bands and then, for a little while, there’s a lull as it goes out. There’s almost a rhythm to its success.

I think many of the songs written here are inspired by the light and the river. Listen to a band like Echo and the Bunnymen and there’s often a lilting, lyrical feel to their tunes; compare it with a Manchester band of a similar period, like New Order, and their music is mechanistic, almost industrial.