The Beatles

In 2005, former Bruce Springsteen manager Bob Spitz published an extensive history of one of the most iconic rock and roll bands of all time. Although it joined the many, many Beatles books already in print, his The Beatles: A Biography has become the new standard reference both because he had unprecedented access to many people who had never given interviews before and because of his exhaustive background research. Many reviewers point to the sizable number of factual errors in the giant tome, but its thousands of footnotes, a well-categorized index, and two large sections of photos make Spitz’s The Beatles a valuable resource.

The book is divided into three large parts.

Part I, “Mercy,” details the very beginnings of the band. Spitz starts with the working-class childhood experiences of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr growing up in post-war Liverpool. He then relates how the four of them met, merged into a band, and started gaining a reputation. Spitz recaps both the well-known facts, narrating how the Beatles formed in Liverpool in 1960, and then built their reputation playing clubs in Hamburg, Germany. But he also includes the results of his far-reaching research: 1960s fanzines; excerpts from the diary of Brian Epstein, the band’s manager; the architectural layout of John Lennon house; and transcripts of radio interviews with the band from that time. Spitz doesn’t shy away from the men’s flaws: he describes the ruthless way the band discarded former members like bassist Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best and documents the heavy amphetamine use that fueled their Hamburg shows.



In Part II, “Mania,” we learn about the very heights of the band’s success as they rise to the top of the charts in Britain, the US, and then the rest of the world. Here too, Spitz includes the standard stories of the Beatles: appearing on the Ed Sullivan show to great acclaim, being introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan. He also combs through the many anecdotes about that time and separates fact from fiction. The most arresting details are the ones that explore behind-the-scenes events: that novice manager Brian Epstein made terrible business decisions while learning the ropes, that all four men had sexually-transmitted infections in the 1960s, that Paul almost married the pregnant Dot Rohne who ended up miscarrying and being dumped just as the Beatles were about to hit it big, and that the band’s exploration of drugs was very thorough.

This section also relates the after-effects of success. The more famous the Beatles become, the more removed they must be from the crowds that love them to pieces – sometimes literally. For safety reasons, the men are forced to spend most of their time trapped in hotel rooms to avoid the masses desperate to get a glimpse of them and stage complicated escapes to avoid dangerous situations after performances. As their dreams of fame and riches come true, the complexities of being megastars force the band to stop performing live and to retreat from their fanbase.

The last part, “Mastery,” asks about the band’s legacy and the lasting impact that the Beatles had on music. How is it that even as these four men’s relationships with each other were dissolving, they were still able to produce such excellent music? In this part, Spitz describes a selection of approximately twenty of the Beatles’ songs, explaining everything from source materials that influenced composition, to how the music and lyrics were written, to how the song sounds and what effect it has on the listener. In this section, Spitz also dwells on the complex and richly productive relationship between John and Paul. For the duration of their collaboration, the two men were able to make their opposite personalities and styles work together to create meaningful art. According to Spitz, so deep were the bonds the men forged, that even when they could no longer stand to be in the same room with each other, they still loved one another in their own way.



Part of what makes this history of the Beatles so unique is the close collaboration between Spitz and Paul McCartney, who not only agreed to cooperate with the author but also made sure that the many people associated with him who had never told their stories felt free to do so. As a result, Spitz talked to over 650 people, which gives the book a sense of completeness even though John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono refused to cooperate (she published her own book about the band at the same time).

The book is comprehensive without being sensationalist. As Spitz himself put it, “My book is not a book of dirty stories. There are no shocking revelations. I wasn't looking for any and I didn't find any.” Upon publication it garnered mostly very positive reviews, like the following from David Bower writing for the Associated Press: “a compulsively readable history [with an] exhaustive level of scholarship.” Still, the book’s factual errors have bothered Beatles fans, who have in turn bothered Spitz. In one dust-up, one of the editors of a Beatles fan website compiled a nit-picky collection of errors and sent them to Spitz, who replied, “You need an enema. Really! Do something useful with your life.”