The Beatles: The Biography

Title: The Beatles: The Biography

Author: Bob Spitz

Pages: 983

Genre: Biography

Grade: A

Synopsis:  This is the decisive biography for the Beatles.  Published in 2005, it includes over 100 pages of notes for a book that was obviously painstakingly researched and carefully written.  The book covers each of the Beatles from birth (including a history of their parents) and then follows the Beatles up through their tumultuous breakup in 1970.  Nothing from the Beatles past is off-limits in the book.  The book details Beatlemania and their encounters and addictions to drugs, sex, music and more.

My Review:  I've never been a huge fan of the Beatles, but I liked them and enjoyed most of their songs.  This book, however, may have changed much of that.  Reading this book was more of an experience than reading a normal book because I would tune youtube to the songs and albums that were being described in the book.  Every song and every album has a story behind it and I am better able to appreciate how the Beatles progressed and grew as they tried new ground-breaking techniques with nearly every new song.  John Lennon was an amazing musician that allowed drug-use to destroy him (he's the only Beatle to really get into heroin use).  He was always a jerk, but once he got involved with Yoko Ono (who was even nuttier than he), then he somehow became an even bigger jerk. Paul McCartney was another amazing musician that was less dependent on drugs than the others, but was always Mr. Bossypants in the studio. George Harrison and Ringo Starr were more low-key and likeable throughout most of the Beatles years, although they both were pretty fed up with John and Paul by 1970.  It's hard not to feel sorry for Pete Best (who Ringo Starr replaced) as he was in prime position to be a star, if only his drumming had been up to par.  Brian Epstein (the Beatles manager), loved to have guys over to his apartment to beat him up and treat him super rough.  When the Beatles recorded their first hit song, Love Me Do, each of them already had gonorrhea. 

Disclaimer: Nothing is off limits in this book.  There is lots of language, drug use and sex, but the sexual escapades are thankfully not detailed.

From the Book: "(p. 510) Later, when the other Beatles arrived, the crowd in the street had swelled to an estimated twenty-thousand, some of whom were whipped up in a terrific heat. Others, many of them young girls who had been waiting since dawn, suffered from hunger and exhaustion. The police force, which had been monitoring the situation nervously, called in the army and navy to help maintain order, but it was short-lived. By late afternoon, with chants of "We want the Beatles!" ringing through the square, the shaken troops, now four-hundred strong, felt control slipping from their grasp. They didn't know where to look first: at the barricades being crushed, the girls fainting out of sight, the hooligans stomping on the roofs of cars or pushing through their lines. A fourteen-year-old "screamed so hard she burst a blood-vessel in her throat." It was "frightening, chaotic, and rather inhuman," according to a trooper on horseback. There most pressing concern was the hotels plate-glass windows bowing perilously against the violent crush of bodies. They threatened to explode in a cluster of razor-sharp shards at any moment. Ambulances screamed in the distance, preparing for the worst; a detachment of mounted infantry swung into position."