Beatles biography lewisohn review of related
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Something’ll Happen!
The closest I ever came to a contact high from reading occurred the summer I was 14, curled up on my bed and pretending it was some submersible straight out of Yellow Submarine, staring gobsmacked at the pages of Peter Brown and Steven Gaines’ The Love You Make, a drugs- and sex-sotted ripsnorter of a Beatles bio. It was the first book on the band I ever read. And while I would go on to read, if not every other, then damn close to it, that sense of an illicit reading encounter—with me wondering if I had done something wrong in so willingly being funneled into this mad, psychotropic world—captured a kind of Beatlesesque spirit, quite beyond the let’s-all-drink-liquid-acid trappings. Even at 14, I understood that there was luridness there intended solely to shock and sell, but the book had so much in it that I’d return to it every few years, get caught up in the narrative all over again, snicker at the Satryicon-bits, and wonder who would eventually come al
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In a recent two-part interview, Mark Lewisohn offered some interesting thoughts regarding why a premier Beatles history needs to be written, and written correctly; discussion of his own research methods and approaches, and his evaluation of where the Beatles stand in comparison to other titans of art and culture.
You can find the entire interview here.
The interview also covered more contentious topics, including Lewisohn&#;s evaluation of the posthumous lionization of John Lennon, how that lionization has impacted Paul McCartney&#;s reputation, and his conclusion that that lionization is now done; his current assessment of Philip Norman&#;s Shout!, a narrative-defining work on which Lewisohn served as a researcher; and his own professional interactions with George Harrison and Paul McCartney. In the second part of the interview, Lewisohn reveals that he has accessed the notes Albert Goldman compiled while researching The Lives of John Lennon and praises Goldman&#;s research m
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Tune In by Mark Lewisohn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
First off, this is not a review of the page standard edition of this book, which I haven&#;t read.
Oh no. This is a review of the boxed, two-volume &#;Extended Special Edition&#;. I got my copy on 14 November and finished it a month later, and given that it&#;s pages, at an average of c. 58 pages/day, that&#;s the fastest I&#;ve read any book in my life.
I had serious doubts about Mark Lewisohn&#;s qualifications to write this book. I know that he&#;s the most dedicated and conscientious Beatles scholar ever, with a rock-solid grasp of the chronology of what happened when and a talent for, and love of, delving in archives and finding out stuff nobody else had found out. However, biography is an art form and Lewisohn&#;s earlier books about the Beatles had struck me as triumphs of research but, given that they were in chronicle form, hardly works of art. I found it very hard to believe that Lewisohn was going to come up with some