The Beatles

© 2006 by Bob Spitz

I wanted something “light” to read during tax season – no philosophy or theology, no war, no epic fantasy or science fiction, no classic lit. For a while the thought of reading a biography of the Beatles floated around in my mind. As a serious musician in my late teens throughout my twenties, and as a music lover all my life, I have deep respect for their music, though I would not call myself a “fan.” I’ve long realized I really knew very little about them as men and music makers, save for the myths about them that permeate our culture.

So I picked this book off the library shelves on a whim. That, and figuring I’d get something meaty since The Beatles by Bob Spitz clocks in at 856 pages.

I began it on January 20 and finished it yesterday. I must admit I am surprised and a little embarrassed to note a thin blanket of melancholy covering me whenever I think about it. I mentioned it to the wife – “Is it because you’re finished with the book?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I think it’s John Lennon.”

Before that, though, the book itself. It can broadly be divided into thirds. The first third details the early lives of the lads up to the official formation of the Beatles around 1960. Lennon gets the first hundred pages. Paul and George each get a couple score or more, Paul edging out George, and Ringo gets a dozen pages or so. The second third details, almost to extreme minutiae, Beatlemania – from the marathon beer-fueled performances in Hamburg as unknowns up to the apex of the complete and utter conquest of America: the tours, interviews, movies, number one hit after number one hit. The final third chronicles their absolute mastery of the recording studio and their simultaneous demise.

It took me a month to get through the first third, two weeks the second, and a few days to finish it. I was much more interested in the Beatles from Rubber Soul / Revolver to Let It Be. More interested in how the songs were written and recorded and the interplay between band members at the height of their creativity. But every tale must have its antagonists and its obstacles, and in this tale, they are legion. But primarily it’s heroin, Yoko Ono, and John Lennon’s own fragile ego, though not necessarily in that order.

Not sure what I make of Lennon. I have a reflexive minor repulsion towards him, I think, although I do wholeheartedly appreciate his genius. He was not a great guitarist but he was great with a guitar. He was not a great vocalist but his voice is iconic. And without a doubt his songwriting is beyond nearly everyone else except, perhaps again, McCartney himself. When the two wrote together they were greater than the sum of their parts. I do believe centuries from now their music will still be performed in some fashion, long after Elvis and Sinatra and Madonna and Nirvana have become historical footnotes.

Spitz’s book is about the history of the Beatles, and the tragic arc of John Lennon runs through it like the electric third rail of a train track, from the first to the final pages. Particularly the final third of the book: Lennon’s growing fascination with then addiction to harder and harder drugs and the inhuman abuse of his body, the growing paranoia that resulted, the bitter cynicism that permeated his life, rooted in his earliest days – an absent father, a flitty mother, both demanding that he as a five-year-old choose between them, ultimately getting neither, never able to fit in at any school (how completely understandable the instant transformation upon first hearing “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley). Add the untimely deaths of his mother and his friend and early Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe. His dissatisfaction with his first wife, Cynthia, and himself an absentee father to son Julian … mix in to that worldwide fame, a limitless stream of money, anyone or anything he wants at his fingertips – how can that recipe not turn one utterly insane?

I dunno. This is all an undercurrent in the pages. No one comes out clean in Spitz’s book, with the possible exception of good-natured Ringo. Paul, the slick showman to a fault, transformed from an enthusiastic kid with slicked-back hair wailing 50s hits to ruthless bottom-line businessman. George – peaceful, spiritual George transfixed with all things mystically Hindu – and his anger issues. But The Beatles is not a tell-all spectacle of the lurid and sordid. The heights are as well documented as the lows. And though a quick glance through Amazon reviews show many die-hard fans upset over minor factual errors in the book, it seemed to me a nice introduction to the Beatles phenomenon. I have on order a book detailing the studio sessions which I think I’ll find vastly more interesting.

The best takeaway, for me, is a greater awareness of their music, a list of songs to check out on the youtube, from their earliest days to the psychedelic B-sides that never get airplay. I think this summer I’ll spend a week or two listening to Beatles albums in chronological order, one per day, from start to finish, and I think that will be very enjoyable.

Favorite line of dialogue from the book (paraphrased from memory):

   REPORTER: Hey Ringo, who’s your favorite composer?

   RINGO: I like Beethoven.

   REPORTER: What do you like best about Beethoven?

   RINGO: His poems.

   REPORTER: You can’t be real!

   RINGO: I am. Come and feel me.

An incidence of synchronicity:

Little One had to do an essay on a famous female who inspires her. She chose Mariska Hargitay, star of the long-running TV show Law and Order: SVU. Hargitay’s mother was actress Jane Mansfield, tragically killed in a car accident in 1967 at 34. There’s a passage in The Beatles where Mansfield, determined to meet the boys at the height of Beatlemania, literally camps out at the doorstep of their hotel, until they relent and they all go out clubbing. Along the way, John Lennon – “obscenely,” as it’s detailed by a witness – makes out with Mansfield in the back of a car.

Verdict – A-minus, mainly for that feeling of sadness I haven’t been able to shake regarding that mixture of tragedy and triumph (mostly found, I think, in John).