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Author | Craig Brown |
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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.
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Craig Edward Moncrieff Brown is an English critic and satirist, best known for his parodies in Private Eye.
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Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney of the Beatles. It is the best-known and most successful musical collaboration 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.
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Maureen Starkey Tigrett, also known as Mo Starkey, was a hairdresser from Liverpool, England, best known as the first wife of Ringo Starr, the Beatles' drummer. When she was a trainee hairdresser in Liverpool, she met him at the Cavern Club, where the Beatles were playing. Starr proposed marriage at the Ad Lib Club in London on 20 January 1965. They married at the Caxton Hall Register Office, London, in 1965, and divorced in 1975.
From August 1962 to September 1969, the Beatles consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Their break-up is attributed to numerous factors, including: the strain of the Beatlemania phenomenon, the 1967 death of manager Brian Epstein, bandmates' resentment of McCartney's perceived domineering, Lennon's heroin use and his relationship with Yoko Ono, Harrison's increasingly prolific songwriting, the floundering of Apple Corps, the Get Back project, and managerial disputes.
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