Books

New biography tells more than anyone really needs to know

06:12 PM CST on Wednesday, December 7, 2005

By GUSTAVO S. TURNER / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

Twenty-five years ago today, John Lennon was murdered, forcing fans hoping for a reunion since the band broke up in 1970 to accept that all that was left of the Beatles was the best thing about them: their music.

But listening to that music has never been enough. The Beatles' lives continue to fascinate those touched by their songs. No surprise, then, the books timed to the 25th anniversary of Lennon's death and the holiday season. Bob Spitz' recently released The Beatles: The Biography is attracting the most attention, but several older books may be more worth your time.

Apparently, "gee-gee" was 1940s Liverpool slang for racehorse.

One learns this early in Bob Spitz's 983-page biography of the Beatles, chiefly because John Lennon's aunt's husband at some point in his life was a racetrack bookie. As far as I can tell, gee-gees don't play any other role in the lives or art of the Liverpool quartet.

The immodestly titled The Beatles: The Biography is that kind of book. Mr. Spitz spent seven years accumulating interviews and sources to produce this mess of a book and it is a cautionary tale about the dangers of our current "total information awareness" society.

The new field of knowledge management distinguishes between three categories: data (raw and chaotic), information (which has been given some meaning), and knowledge (when the meaning is useful). Following this model, Mr. Spitz's book is mostly information, with healthy helpings of senseless data (such as gee-gees). Unfortunately, real knowledge, anything enhancing our enjoyment of the Beatles' astonishing music or giving us real insight into their lives would have to be found elsewhere.

The main problem is Mr. Spitz's attempt to be definitive and even scholarly.

Apple Corps Ltd.

The lives and music of the Beatles continue to fascinate.

The Beatles is neither. There are much better accounts of the band's basic narrative, well-known to the point of cliche, and a glance at the copious endnotes actually dispels any claims of investigative rigor. Many of the anecdotes Mr. Spitz rehashes can be found in earlier, readily available books, and many of his "facts" (particularly the shocking or incendiary ones) are mere hearsay, and old hearsay at that.

It would be difficult not to be charmed by the Beatles' rise, success and breakup: four likeable Liverpool lads, Hamburg, yeah, yeah, yeah, Beatlemania, Ed Sullivan, madcap movies, bigger than Jesus, psychedelia, revolution, Yoko, lawyers and accountants, The End. That narrative, of course, is in Mr. Spitz's book. Still, one's impression is a decent 500-page book is trapped somewhere in this mammoth tome, still waiting for an editor to do his or her job.

The Beatles is also lopsided, covering the period before 1964 in painstaking (and often painful to read) detail and then losing steam by the end, particularly after 1967.

The usual set-pieces would still amuse those who have never read a Beatles biography: Mr. Spitz includes the "Hamburg Red Light District Saga," the "Bob Dylan Got the Beatles Stoned for the First Time Story," and (of course) the "Brian Epstein Took John Lennon on a Possibly Gay Vacation in Spain Yarn."

Mr. Spitz's ever-changing writing styles also sabotage his project. After an exciting introduction describing an early live performance in Liverpool, the first chapter begins with a bizarre meditation on "water" that makes even less sense when it is reprised 900 pages later.

Such musings, and many other purple passages throughout the book, read like a dated script for a documentary voice-over, the kind of pomp mocked by Monty Python's Eric Idlein the spoof TV show The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. But Mr. Spitz has updated this style for the VH1 Behind the Music generation, ending sections with the kind of hackneyed cliffhangers favored by that show. ("For Pete Best, it was the beginning of the end.")

Attempts at coloring his out-of-control mountain of secondhand data are often bewildering. It is not enough for Mr. Spitz to state that Brian Epstein was born into a prosperous Jewish family in September 1934.

Presumably with the help of a calendar he has ascertained that this happened during Yom Kippur, but adds "while his father and uncle davened, as ploddingly as they polished furniture, in the crowded sanctuary of the Green Park Drive Synagogue, not too far from their home." Yes, the amount of data is impressive, but how does he know that the Epstein men prayed the same way they cleaned? And, more crucially, what does any of this have to do with, say, the awesome chord at the beginning of "A Hard Day's Night"?

Mr. Spitz has represented Bruce Springsteen and Elton John. His background makes him a savvy guide through a maze of complicated business deals, but they take up a lot of room that could have been devoted to the music.

Mr. Spitz seems obsessed with Epstein, particularly with the manager's sexual lifestyle, a cavalcade of what Mr. Spitz terms "attractive young men and wanton sex." He criticizes others for sensationalism, while devoting much ink to his own reveries about the relationship between Epstein and Lennon. The sections concerning Epstein are a book in and of themselves (though that book has already been written by Debbie Geller). Descriptions of the recording process, the live performances and the records themselves are serviceable, though he engages in some laughable plot summary recap of lyrics. Mr. Spitz on "Taxman": "Everything is taxable according to his account: the street, your seat, the heat, your feet. No matter what you do or how much you have – pay up and shut up." (His italics. Mr. Spitz loves italics.)

It is unclear whether the release of The Beatles: The Biography was timed to coincide with the ghastly "commemoration" of Lennon's brutal murder 25 years ago. One finishes the book, though, with the lingering feeling that Little, Brown decided to put out a hardcover book at the price point of $29.95 for the holiday season, mostly targeted to the affluent boomer market.

It makes sense that those of a certain age looking for a suitable present will shell out for a large object papered with a great photo of the Fab Four in their prime. And undoubtedly, this book will sell well, never mind gee-gees, the water sermons and Epstein's pretty boys.

The Beatles' Midas touch, still tantalizingly elusive, can turn even something such as this mess into gold.

Gustavo S. Turner is a writer based in Cambridge, Mass. His stories on music and popular culture have appeared in Página/12, Ten by Ten, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
E-mail gustavo.turner@gmail.com

The Beatles: The Biography
Bob Spitz
(Little, Brown, $29.95)

The Beatles, by Hunter Davies [1968, revised edition 2004]: This was the "official" Beatles biography, commissioned by Apple as an authorized version. Everyone knows it was very sanitized (even the Beatles acknowledge that much in their 2000 Anthology), but it gives the first serious, well-written account of their career until Sgt. Pepper's.

Shout!, by Philip Norman [1981, revised edition, 2003]: This remains, alas, as close to a "standard" impartial biography as we have. Much better written, researched and, most important, edited than Mr. Spitz's book, this should be the starting point for anyone interested in learning more about the Beatles' life and work.

The Beatles: Recording Sessions, by Norman Lewisohn [1988]: Hands down the most exhaustive exploration of the Beatles as recording artists, Mr. Lewisohn's book is a day-by-day diary of how every single Beatles tune, from "Love Me Do" to "I Me Mine," was crafted at the Abbey Road studios. The one book to get for fans who care about the music above all.

Many Years From Now, by Barry Miles [1997]: Instead of "writing" an autobiography with a ghost scribe, the always classy McCartney instead hired his friend, the acclaimed British Beatnik and biographer Barry Miles, to write an authorized biography of his years as a Beatle. The end result, while obviously Paul-centric, is nevertheless the definitive account from within the eye of the storm. Miles is astonishingly balanced (i.e., he doesn't always paint his patron as a hero), and his account of the breakup is the most exacting available, and the most painful.

Gustavo S. Turner