Just what the world needs, another biography of The Beatles. Surely, the pantheon of knowledge is lacking study of the Fab Four. The Beatles’, who are the most celebrated, studied, covered and renowned rock band ever, story is as a part of modern culture as any musical figure in history. The Beatles are really the first band, so to speak. Before The Beatles, you had Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the Crickets. It was usually some dude or some dude and his backing band. After The Beatles, it was all Rock Bands, The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, etc. The few that followed, for example Elvis Costello with his band and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, were, in fact, referencing the old style for effect.
The Beatles in fact did not invent the genre but they developed it, so much that there has been very little ground that they did not cover. Like anyone is a young field, think Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in 1979, the new world was their’s to dominate. If you can be the first at something, do it.
Again, there has been much ado written of The Beatles. I have only read one other book on them, Here, There, and Everyway: my life recording The Beatles by Geoff Emerick, which was the best music memoir I have ever read. Still, I have seen the Anthology and other Beatles specials. I have listened to “Breakfast on with the Beatles” on the radio in High School. So, I think I know a thing or two about them.
And maybe, do because this book by Spitz offered little new information. There weren’t enough details that really told the story. The most detailed section was about Brian Epstein’s homosexuality.
Spitz does cover the whole story, but mostly with highlights. However, there were a few new things for me. He does dig in on Yoko Ono more than I seen before. She is greedy and out to destroy to The Beatles so that she can get John Lennon all to herself. Ono would be motivated by the financial security and legitimacy that Lennon would bring her.
He also details Lennon’s misery in his highly successful life. Lennon is angry and impulsive. Spitz takes the excuse that he is an artist, and offers little other explanation. You do get the idea that Lennon, for all his acting out, doesn’t take control of his life and instead to just reacts to it, which is explained by his childhood of being passed around from his mother to his aunt, and his exposure to his mother’s various boyfriends. Throughout the drama of John Lennon, as bad as that was, he bitch seems worse than his bite. He was easily taken advantage of and he instead punished those that were weaker than him.
Spitz goes pretty easy on Paul. Even Emerick who couldn’t be more aligned with Mr. McCartney was more critical.
What I think I got most out of the book, maybe because it was what I was most interested in were the bits about the song writing. Spitz describes Lennon and McCartney both as artists. The difference between there styles being that Lennon was a sculptor and McCartney a painter. Lennon would makes songs out of something else, a child’s drawing, a poster, another piece of art. While McCartney would use things that came out of him without even Paul understand exactly how. “Yesterday” came out of a dream and “Michelle” came out of a need for a song; and John remembering that Paul did some French thing.
There are facts here and there, which I didn’t know much but probably could have gotten from another source, like Ringo got paid less or Twist and Shout was recorded with John screaming while being horse , sick and in pain, which you can hear once you are aware of it.
I somehow doubt that this is the best Beatles book out there. In fact, if you are looking to learn more about them, I would suggest the DVD of the Anthology over this book. However, it’s fun learning about The Beatles, and I enjoyed it as a fan.
I think that success of the book is based on the success of everything new of The Beatles come out with years, decades after they broke up. They could release new Beatles CDs of the band turning their guitars and it would generate a charting position. People are looking to recapture something, and maybe something new will do that, even if it’s just the same and the packing is different. I am not sure what that “Something” is, but I know that it is certainly there.
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