 | |
| Author | Craig Brown |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | The Beatles |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | 4th Estate |
Publication date | 10 April 2020 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-00-834000-1 |
One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time is a non-fiction book written by satirist Craig Brown about the English rock band the Beatles. The book was published by 4th Estate on 10 April 2020, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the announcement of the group's break-up. [1] [2]
Anthony Quinn of The Guardian called the book "not a biography so much as a group portrait in vignettes, a rearrangement of stories and legends whose trick is to make them gleam anew", and noted that it "does an intriguing sideline in characters who were tangential to the Beatles' story", such as Richard and Margaret Asher (whose daughter Jane was a girlfriend of Beatle Paul McCartney), drummer Jimmie Nicol, and former police constable Eric Clague. [1]
Nuala McCann of The Irish News wrote: "Craig Brown's rollicking roll back in time is worth a listen just to wonder at the things people do in the name of fandom and to feed that little twinge of nostalgia sweet and tender as the first bite of the madeleine." [3]
More than just a nostalgic hagiography, Brown succeeds in "putting the Beatles in their place as well as their time," Dominic Green wrote in Literary Review , as the book reveals how "the exceptional strangeness of The Beatles reflects the ordinary oddity of real life." [4] Green called it "by far the best book anyone has written about them and the closest we can get to the truth."
Esquire 's Alex Bilmes wrote that "Brown hits all the beats you might expect from a Beatles biography, from jagged first stabs through the swelling roar of the Beatles' imperial phase to the sour diminuendo of the band's dissolution. But he places at least as much emphasis on what may seem inessential, tangential, ephemeral, as he does on the big stuff." [2] Bilmes concludes that the book is "a tragicomedy. Both dark and sunny, like a Lennon/McCartney song." [2]
The book won the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. [5] Journalist Martha Kearney, who served as one of the judges that year, called it "a profound book about success and failure which won the unanimous support of our judges. Craig Brown has reinvented the art of biography [...] The idea of there being a fresh book about the Beatles is quite hard to imagine as there is so much written about them—but it is such an original book". [5] The book was chosen by comedian and TV host Griff Rhys Jones for Sara Cox's talk show Between the Covers.
Craig Edward Moncrieff Brown is an English critic and satirist, best known for parliamentary sketch writing, humorous articles and parodies for newspapers and magazines including The Times, the Daily Mail and Private Eye.
"Taxman" is a song by English rock band the Beatles, from their 1966 album Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, George Harrison, with some lyrical assistance from John Lennon, it protests against the higher level of progressive tax imposed in the United Kingdom by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which saw the Beatles paying a 95% supertax. The song was selected as the album's opening track and contributed to Harrison's emergence as a songwriter beside the dominant Lennon–McCartney partnership. It was the group's first topical song and the first political statement they had made in their music.
Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collaborations ever by records sold, with the Beatles selling over 600 million records worldwide as of 2004. Between 5 October 1962 and 8 May 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue.
"And Your Bird Can Sing" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on their 1966 album Revolver, apart from in the United States and Canada, where it instead appeared on Yesterday and Today. The song was written mainly by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The recording features an extended dual-guitar melody, played by George Harrison and Paul McCartney, which anticipated the harmonised guitar arrangements commonly used by Southern rock, hard rock and heavy metal bands.
"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. It was also issued on a double A-side single, paired with "Yellow Submarine". Credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership, the song is one of only a few in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney later disputed primary authorship. Eyewitness testimony from several independent sources, including George Martin and Pete Shotton, supports McCartney's claim to authorship.
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"Your Mother Should Know" is a song by the English rock band The Beatles, from their 1967 EP and LP, Magical Mystery Tour. It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney. Titled after a line in the 1961 film A Taste of Honey, its lyrical premise centres on the history of hit songs across generations. McCartney said he wrote it as a plea for generational understanding and respect for a mother's life experience. In the Magical Mystery Tour television film, the song serves as a big production number in the style of a 1930s Hollywood musical. Some commentators view the sequence as cultural satire, as the Beatles are seen dancing and dressed in white evening tails.
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Philip Norman is an English author, novelist, journalist and playwright. He is best known for his biographies of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly and Elton John. His other books include similar studies of John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton.
The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles is a 1983 book by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines. Brown was personal assistant to the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, a senior executive at Apple Corps, as well as best man to John Lennon at the latter's wedding to Yoko Ono in March 1969.
Lennon Remembers is a 1971 book by Rolling Stone magazine co-founder and editor Jann Wenner. It consists of a lengthy interview that Wenner carried out with former Beatle John Lennon in December 1970 and which was originally serialised in Rolling Stone in its issues dated 21 January and 4 February 1971. The interview was intended to promote Lennon's primal therapy-inspired album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and reflects the singer's emotions and mindset after undergoing an intense course of the therapy under Arthur Janov. It also serves as a rebuttal to Paul McCartney's public announcement of the Beatles' break-up, in April 1970.
The Beatles: The Authorised Biography is a book written by British author Hunter Davies and published by Heinemann in the UK in September 1968. It was written with the full cooperation of the Beatles and chronicles the band's career up until early 1968, two years before their break-up. It was the only authorised biography of the Beatles written during their career. Davies published revised editions of the book in 1978, 1982, 1985, 2002, 2009, and 2018.
The Beatles: Get Back is a documentary television series directed and produced by Peter Jackson. It covers the making of the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be and draws largely from unused footage and audio material originally captured for and recycled original footage from the 1970 documentary of the album by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. The docuseries has a total runtime of nearly eight hours, consisting of three episodes, each of duration between two and three hours covering about one week each, together covering 21 days of studio time.
The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present is a book released in November 2021 by the English musician Paul McCartney and the Irish poet Paul Muldoon. It is published by Penguin Books Ltd in the United Kingdom, W.W. Norton/Liveright in the United States of America and C.H. Beck in Germany.
Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans is a biography of the Beatles' road manager Mal Evans by Kenneth Womack. It was published on November 14, 2023 by HarperCollins.
