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You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle For The Soul Of The Beatles

You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle For The Soul Of The Beatles
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Very good (if incredibly depressing)
Review date: 2010-04-07 Rating: 8 out of 10

There seems to be no end to the world's appetite for books about the Beatles. Especially biographies, which is odd when you consider that the Beatles have been mostly badly treated by their biographers. Philip Norman's 'Shout!' is sour, impatient and spoiled by Norman's evident contempt for McCartney; Ray Coleman's 'Lennon', although full of original research, is wrecked by Coleman's hero-worship of his subject; Chris Salewicz's McCartney biog is perceptive and well-written, but spends most of its length on the first 20 years of McCartney's life and practically skips over the Beatle period; Chris Sandford's McCartney book is gossipy and rather light; Albert Goldman's attempted demolition of Lennon has sunk back into obscurity; Bob Spitz's group biography is, by all accounts, wearyingly long and boring; and Geoffrey Giuliano's 'Revolver' is, so far as anyone can tell, pure fiction. I haven't read Philip Norman's 'John Lennon', although based on Norman's earlier performance I'm not sure I want to, and while Beatle fans everywhere are looking forward to Mark Lewisohn's giant three-volume biography, I don't think that the more literate of us expect that it's going to have the same level of critical insight as Richard Ellmann's 'James Joyce' or the rich wit of George Painter's 'Marcel Proust'. So far, Jonathan Gould's 'Can't Buy Me Love' is the only biography of the Beatles in which the quality of the writing is worthy of the subject. But Peter Doggett's book about the Beatles' collapse and afterlife (or afterlives) is a fascinating read, if not a book that exactly inspires you about the resourcefulness and resilience of the human spirit.

The trouble with books about the Beatles is that as long as the book focuses on the music it's liable to be inspiring, but the Beatles' actual lives are - like most people's - pretty sad. Doggett's book is especially so, because of the way it focuses on the splits and disagreements within and around the band. Nobody comes out of it very well: Lennon, especially in the last two years of the band, behaved with culpable fecklessness, jetting off around the world with Yoko and releasing albums of bad free improvisation when he should have been taking back his own responsibility as self-styled bandleader; McCartney, forced into the unwelcome position of boss, handled his own power clumsily, lashing out at Apple staff and alienating his bandmates; when Harrison wasn't being self-righteously pious he was having hissy fits about how Lennon and McCartney didn't take his songs seriously enough, even though he seldom bothered to present them properly to the band; and Starkey just waited glumly for the whole sorry drama to play itself out. The Allen Klein debacle saw the band rip itself apart, and then it was all lawsuits and sniping at each other in interviews until Lennon and McCartney managed to patch up their friendship in the mid-70s.

Even after Lennon's death, which helped bring the remaining bandmates closer together for a while, the legal problems persisted. A suitably symbolic end to the story is the fight for the Apple brand: decades ago, the mighty Apple Corps sued a tiny computer company and made them promise never to dabble in music, but thirty years later Apple Computer have bought the name and the trademark off the much-humbled Apple Corps, and lease it back to them. Apple Ltd. now pays Apple Computer for the right to use its own name.

The last ten years of the Beatles' afterlife have not, on the whole, been tremendously happy. Harrison's too-early death is yet another premature Beatle fatality. Not even the most nihilistic goth bands have been so death-haunted as the supposedly sunny Beatles: Lennon & McCartney each lost their mothers while still in their teens; Stuart Sutcliffe, brain haemorrhage; Brian Epstein, overdose; Mal Evans, shot by LA police; Lennon himself, shot by a nutcase; Harrison, dying of cancer only a couple of years after being stabbed multiple times by another nutcase; Linda McCartney, dead at 56; Maureen Tigrett, Ringo's first wife, the cheering 'Mo' from Let It Be, dead at 48. (One might add Neil Aspinall, dead from cancer at the relatively young age of 66.) Violence and premature death swirl around the Beatles in a way that makes G.G. Allin look like a wannabe.

For all that, it's a wonder that the Beatles aren't more miserable. McCartney finally got rid of that pesky, moany second wife in a way that gave him a mild flaying in the tabloids; the increasingly grumpy Ringo seems to be bored of being fab. Doggett's book is valuable for its honest look at the short-sighted squabbling that has accompanied the last forty years of Beatledom, but you'll want to go back to the music after you've finished, because if this book is anything to go by, there is nothing very enviable about being a Beatle.

COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN
Review date: 2010-01-12 Rating: 10 out of 10


Great book.

Triggered by the recent arrival of the remastered music, and having too much time on my hands, I have been reading Beatle-books all of a sudden and for the first time. So far I have devoured: "Can't Buy Me Love" - Jonathan Gould, "Read The Beatles" - Edited by June Skinner Sawyers, "Magical Mystery Tours: My Life With The Beatles" - Paul Bramwell, "The Act You've Known For All These Years" - Clinton Heylin, and this. Heylin's content was misrepresented on the cover (I thought it was a book all about the Sgt Pepper album and The Beatles!) and his prose often bordered on the unreadable. I've made a note to avoid his other work. All the others are warmly recommended except - sorry mate - Paul Bramwell's biography, which failed to engage me as I had hoped it would. Apart from it's vitriolic truthfullness (?) or at least his frankness on his experience of Yoko Ono, I can't remember anything else about it already. "Read The Beatles" was an enjoyable anthology, and Jonathan Gould's "Can't Buy Me Love" would make a great companion for Peter Doggett's new study; slip from that straight into "You Never Give Me Your Money", and a curious reader would have a great introduction to the whole Beatles saga.

But for many of you who may feel you are familiar enough already with the story of the Beatles as a band - but you're thirsty for more - this would be the one to go for. As others have said - revelations on [nearly] every page. But whereas Mark H. reports more "admiration" than ever for the guys, I experienced an increase in pity, and sympathy, for these four individuals lost inside the maelstrom of their own success, losing touch with each other to varying extremes and fluctuations, losing perspective and placing trust in unworthy places. And the money they lost and spent on lawyers?! - Wow. In a different universe they could have fed the starving of many dozens of Bangladeshi-like crises. Entirely gripping if you feel any loving connection with the phenomenon of The Beatles.

Doggett strikes me as an excellent writer; I was never frustrated by his style. Non-hysterionic if there is such a word. And only once did any doubt arise in my mind about the accuracy of his comments. When he is discussing the 1987 CD release of Sgt Pepper as a "20th Anniversary" event in Chapter 9 and suggests "In 1967 a simple advert in the pop papers had sufficed to announce the album's arrival. Twenty years on there was a multimedia promotional circus...." Well, I have no personal recollection of either launch, but I recall from other accounts that there was a lot of promo work done in 1967 ahead of Sgt Pepper....(a track a day on US radio stations? etc. etc.) But no matter - I am no Beatles historian and I am more than delighted to recommend Doggett as one of the most convincing.

Some of the individual snippets of gossip about both McCartney and Lennon's behaviour, in particular, serve well to present them as the same flawed human beings as the rest of us, occasionally showing outrageously arrogant traits. Money is no guide to human dignity, sure enough. But I liked the balance struck between all four of the Beatles, and the way we are kept in touch with many/all of the other key characters in the story.

There is a pleasant balance, too, across all aspects of the post-break-up story; this is certainly no detailed boring account of finances and lawsuits. In fact, I was looking for more detail on a few occasions, such as: what exactly did Klein get up to that finally turned his three Beatle clients against him? I remember he tried to calm down Lennon's political meanderings, but there must have been more shenaningans involved than that.

A great read though. Ignore my tendency to nit-pick. And I like a good punch-line, which Doggett does not fail to deliver. His final sentence left me with a smile on my face and nodding sagely in agreement. You can't ask for more than that. As a novice armchair reader of the Beatles literature, this - and Jonathan Gould's equally fine contribution - will be remaining on my shelf. I'll enjoy reading this again one day. I can't say fairer than that.









A REVELATION ON EVERY PAGE!!!
Review date: 2010-01-05 Rating: 10 out of 10

This isn't just another Beatle book.
I've read and still pour through everything on the group.
Fancied myself a real afficionado.
I was blown away by this book!!!
My review title says it all - I learned something I didn't know on practically every page.
It's not a clinical, stodgy text book.
While it is highly detailed and informative, it's also very entertaining.
Immensely readable and hard to put down.
I read very few books these days that I can't wait to get back to and don't want to come to an end.
Pete Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money is one of those books.
Even I might ask 'Do we really need another book about The Beatles?', but with this kind of brilliant research and writing, perhaps, Mr Doggett should try his hand at the complete and definitive bio of the band.
He'd have my attention.

dont be the fool on the hill and go to the cash till
Review date: 2009-12-23 Rating: 10 out of 10

i am not one for writing reviews. but you got to get this book it very good.all beatles fans will love it. puts a new light on the fab four .the beatles are sill fab.it wont put off them.

Product Details/Specifications


Authors:
Peter Doggett

Recording label: Bodley Head
Manufacturer: Bodley Head
EAN: 9781847920744
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 1847920748
Number of pages: 352
Publication date: 2009-10-01
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Published)

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