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Hundreds of books have been written about The Beatles. Over the last half century, their story has been mythologized and de-mythologized and presented by biographers and journalists as history. Yet many of these works do not strictly qualify as history and the story of how the Beatles' mythology continues to be told has been largely ignored. This book examines the band's historiography, exploring the four major narratives that have developed over time: The semi-whitewashed "Fab Four" account, the acrimonious breakup-era Lennon Remembers version, the biased "Shout!" narrative in the wake of John Lennon's murder, and the current Mark Lewisohn orthodoxy. Drawing on the most influential primary and secondary sources, Beatles history is analyzed using historical methods.
Hundreds of books have been written about The Beatles. Over the last half century, their story has been mythologized and de-mythologized and presented by biographers and journalists as history. Yet many of these works do not strictly qualify as history and the story of how the Beatles' mythology continues to be told has been largely ignored. This book examines the band's historiography, exploring the four major narratives that have developed over time: The semi-whitewashed "Fab Four" account, the acrimonious breakup-era Lennon Remembers version, the biased "Shout!" narrative in the wake of John Lennon's murder, and the current Mark Lewisohn orthodoxy. Drawing on the most influential primary and secondary sources, Beatles history is analyzed using historical methods.
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The definitive biography of The Beatles, hailed as "irresistible" by the New York Times, "riveting" by the Boston Globe, and "masterful" by Time. As soon as The Beatles became famous, the spin machine began to construct a myth -- one that has continued to this day. But the truth is much more interesting, much more exciting, and much more moving -- the highs and the lows, the love and the rivalry, the awe and the jealousy, the drugs, the tears, the thrill, and the magic to never be repeated. In this vast, revelatory, exuberantly acclaimed, and bestselling book, Bob Spitz has written the biography for which Beatles fans have long waited.
John Lennon's second collection of poems, stories and drawings back in print to mark its 50th Anniversary.
A real breakthrough in terms of applying a theoretical protocol to biographical material has come with Henry W. Sullivan’s unpromisingly titled The Beatles With Lacan: Rock’n’Roll as Requiem for the Modern Age. Sullivan provides an excellent analysis of the Beatles’ career – perhaps, along with Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head (Fourth Estate, 1994), the best so far available. But in using the work of Lacan, Sullivan offers a psychoanalytic framework to discuss personality and creativity. He also provides a provocative analysis of the roots of rock’n’roll, arguing that the paternal guard of the time, born in the first two decades of the twentieth century, were traumatize...
One of the most important documentaries on rock music ever published, this is EMI Records' official diary-format history of every Beatles recording session. Now in paperback. Researched from hundreds of unreleased Abbey Road archive tapes, featuring thousands of previously unpublished studio documents and interviews with many of the key recording personnel. The book is filled with over 350 color and black-and-white photographs and illustrations, including rare photos by Linda McCartney and the first facsimile reproductions of Abbey Road recording sheets, tape boxes, album sleeve roughs, memos, contracts, press releases and much more.
‘Who gave the drugs to the Beatles? I didn’t invent those things. I bought it from someone who got it from somebody. We never invented the stuff.’ – John Lennon Riding So High charts the Beatles’ extraordinary odyssey from teenage drinking and pill-popping, to cannabis, LSD, the psychedelic Summer of Love and the darkness beyond. Drugs were central to the Beatles’ story from the beginning. The acid, pills and powders helped form bonds, provided escape from the chaos of Beatlemania, and inspired colossal leaps in songwriting and recording. But they also led to break-ups, breakdowns, drug busts and prison. The only full-length study of the Beatles and drugs, Riding So High tells of getting stoned, kaleidoscope eyes, excess, loss and redemption, with a far-out cast including speeding Beatniks, a rogue dentist, a script-happy aristocratic doctor, corrupt police officers and Hollywood Vampires. ‘The deeper you go, the higher you fly...’
John Lennon's five-year retirement from the world of music, his brief comeback in 1980, and his brutal murder outside his New York home have become the stuff of legend. But the reality of his daily life during that period has been obscured by the mythology Lennon sold to the press in his final interviews, and which his widow Yoko Ono has maintained to this day. Acknowledged Beatles expert Peter Doggett is a lifelong fan of Lennon, and the author of The Art And Music Of John Lennon, a detailed commentary on his entire artistic output. Several years ago, a mysterious set of circumstances led him to a room where he was able to read several of the ex-Beatle's private diaries - never revealed to ...
John Lennon was a rock star, a school clown, a writer, a wit, an iconoclast, a sometime peace activist and finally an eccentric millionaire. He was also a Beatle - his plain-speaking and impudent rejection of authority catching, and eloquently articulating, the group's moment in history. Chronicling a famously troubled life, Being John Lennon analyses the contradictions in the singer-songwriter's creative and destructive personality. Drawing on many interviews and conversations with Lennon, his first wife Cynthia and second Yoko Ono, as well as his girlfriend May Pang and song-writing partner Paul McCartney, Ray Connolly unsparingly reassesses the chameleon nature of the perpetually dissatisfied star who just couldn't stop reinventing himself.