The complete beatles chronicle

Review by Peter Aspden. Yes, it really is pages long, and, yes, it finishes at the end of I found myself rushing through the final chapters, willing the story to explode, as we all know it does.

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The Beatles never lacked for confidence. Paul switched to piano, and into his Little Richard routine. It was a place of hardship, but also somewhere that understood the excesses of boyhood passion. They used it, of course, on their next composition. This was not a city that tolerated waste. But Lewisohn adds a dash of determinism to the mix, studiously putting the socio-cultural building blocks in place: here was the first generation since pre not to be forced into army duty; over there, across the sea, was the birth of American rock-and-roll.

Here was the loose-lipped zaniness of the Goon Show ; there was the loose-hipped sensuality of Brigitte Bardot. The boys travelled to Germany to discover the style of French existentialism, learning at the same time how to make drunken crowds stomp in appreciation and how to carry off black polo-necks. It was a lot for a teenager to take in, even one or two touched by genius.

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And there is more miraculous personal chemistry: could the boys have been better served than by George Martin, patrician and elegant, and Brian Epstein, driven by turbulent erotic impulses, but ever open-hearted and trusting? This is also nothing if not a story of social mobility. Lewisohn well describes the disappointment of parents who expected better of their grammar school-educated children than to buy guitars and run off in pursuit of improbable outcomes.