Biography of the beatles summary of books

The Beatles have just ended, and Rolling Stone founder Wenner sits down with Lennon for a confessional that doubles as harsh attack, soul purging, study in how songs came to be, and, in the end, a kind of lament for something that was the defining journey of a life, which would never come close to being replicated. Lennon is more hurt than angry, one senses, as he lobs stones at the stained-glass windows of Beatledom.

Ironically, for all of the bashing, the book presents McCartney as the Beatles’ most talented member, reflecting a respect that Lennon clearly feels. He tells you – not always correctly — who wrote what, song-wise. But beyond the hurt feelings and foggy memories is a clarity of thought that emerges almost despite the man himself. As he says: “And the thing about rock and roll, good rock and roll, whatever good means, etc., ha-ha, and all that shit, is that it’s real. And realism gets through to you, despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like all true art.” Hear, hear.

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The closest I ever came to a contact high from reading occurred the summer I was 14, curled up on my bed and pretending it was some submersible straight out of Yellow Submarine, staring gobsmacked at the pages of Peter Brown and Steven Gaines’ The Love You Make, a drugs- and sex-sotted ripsnorter of a Beatles bio. It was the first book on the band I ever read. And while I would go on to read, if not every other, then damn close to it, that sense of an illicit reading encounter—with me wondering if I had done something wrong in so willingly being funneled into this mad, psychotropic world—captured a kind of Beatlesesque spirit, quite beyond the let’s-all-drink-liquid-acid trappings. Even at 14, I understood that there was luridness there intended solely to shock and sell, but the book had so much in it that I’d return to it every few years, get caught up in the narrative all over again, snicker at the Satryicon-bits, and wonder who would eventually come along and write—insert posh Etonian voice—a proper, even scholarly bio, something to do for the Beatles what Gibbon did for Rome. Something Beatlesesque but more, serious and seriously funny, estimable, weighty, necessary, definitive, and, dare one say, canonical.

By my reckoning, there are four absolutely essential Beatles books: The Love You Make for that aforementioned spirit; Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head for its clear-eyed analysis of each Beatles number (and its willingness to critically throttle some of them); and two by Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, and The Complete Beatles Chronicle, the former giving a blow-by-blow account of each of the Beatles’ EMI sessions, and the latter giving a blow-by-blow account of just about everything the Beatles ever did and the day they did it on. So the news that Lewisohn is working on a three-volume bio—a gargantuan undertaking—has had me wondering if Lewisohn was set up to realize this kind of biogra

The book The Beatles and the Historians by Erin Torkelson Weber is the most thought-provoking Beatles book I have ever read.   This book digs into the way The Beatles has been portrayed through the past 50 years in books and publications. 

There are four areas that she touches on:  the official narrative (the s), the Lennon Remembers narrative (s), the Shout narrative (s), and the Lewishon narrative (s - today).

The official narrative was pushed mostly through the publication of Hunter Davies Official Beatles Biography.   It painted the Beatles as four best friends that all got along.   Lennon and McCartney were the power writing music team and they were all one big happy group.   

The Lennon Remembers narrative ruined that image of the Beatles after his infamous interview for Rolling Stone.  Of course, the Lennon Remembers interview is not a really valid historical document.   John was very angry and was using drugs at the time of that interview.  John himself recounted much of that interview and he is known to not be a very good source for reliable history of The Beatles he mixes things up in all sorts of interviews.   John just didn't have that great of a memory.  Nonetheless, the Lennon Remembers quotes appeared in books in the s and beyond. 

Next comes the Shout narrative, which is what I always called the "St. John" period.   This perspective is that John Lennon did nothing wrong.   He was this peaceful guy all the time.  Paul McCartney was painted as the mean guy -- the one that broke up the band.   John was the talented with the clever lyrics and Paul's writing was "basic."    This era also basically ignored George and Ringo in books.   

That leads us up to the Lewisohn narrative.   Starting with his Beatles Recording Se