A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song
by Steve Turner
List Price:
Our Price: $13.39
You Save: $11.61 (46%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Steve TurnerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-18
ISBN: 0060844094
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: It Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060844097
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song
Book Review: Great for New Beatle Fans
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is very valuable for people who haven't read many Beatle books and don't know much about them or their music. If you fall into that category you will find this book indispensible. It gives an accurate outline of the stories behind every Beatle song, and what interesting stories they are. The people who inadvertantly influenced their writing, the events that inspired them to write a particular song, (sometimes a TV commercial or innocuous statement made by someone in the room or in their recent past.) A wonderful insight into their creative process and into their minds as well. Unfortunately for me, I've read so many Beatle books, that I have heard all of these stories before, so by the time I came across this book, it was kind of anticlimactic. Even so, there were still some things I didn't know like, Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkee is actually referring to Yoko Ono,(she's John's monkee) and is not about having a heroin habit, like I had assumed. I won't give anymore away though because if you are reading this, I recommend that you read A Hard Day's Write and find out for yourself.
The only thing I found mildly annoying, is the author's slight over analysis of Lennon's songs. Maybe he is right about most of them, he certainly doesn't seem off the mark when he talks about Lennon's abandonment issues. However his editorialising about John's, And Your Bird Can Sing really got under my skin. He seems to have the idea that John is singing about Paul in this song, and trying to say that Paul isn't as cool as he is, when he sings, "Tell me that you've heard every sound there is" etc. According to Turner, when he sings, "You say you've seen seven wonders," he's referring to Paul's "seven levels" remark when they first got high together. (huh?) What does one have to do with the other? John uses the 'seven wonders' reference as a metephor for someone who's 'seen it all'. I picked up on that when I was eleven for heaven sake. It's so obvious. And it's anyone's guess who he's singing about. Maybe he's singing about himself! Or the press, or maybe the fans, or the establishment...whatever. It was beyond stupid for Turner to stick this song with his clumsy oppinions. No one knows what the song is about. It makes me think that maybe Turner is the one who thinks this about Paul and he was looking for something in John's lyrics to validate HIS feeling. He even talks about the Anthology 2 version of the song, where John and Paul break into uncontrolled giggling at the mic, saying that Paul seemed unaware that the song is about him, judging from his giggling. Yeah Mr. Turner, only you and your idol John Lennon are in on what the song really means. I guess he whispered it in your ear and told you not to tell Paul. And what a fool Paul is! Here he is thinking that John Lennon is his friend, when he really isn't! Thankfully there is you, Steve Turner to set things straight. Hopefully Paul read your drops of wisdom and realized once and for all that he just wasn't cool enough to be friends with that wonderful Lennon.
Every once in a while, Turner's feelings seem to peak through like this, and it diminishes what is otherwise, a great read. There are a couple caption mistakes, especially a big one which features more editorialising. On one page there is a large picture of a Beatle reclining in his seat on a PanAm jet. It looks like the flight to New York on Feb. 7, 1964. He has a clothe over his face, so you really can't tell who it is, except...if you look at the watch worn on the right wrist instead of the left,the checked shirt, and the cuff links,you'll know that it is definitly Paul. ( he was dressed this way on that flight, while John had a white shirt and was sitting with his wife.) But Turner writes in the caption that JOHN always needed time to be alone and get away from it all and the picture shows this. No it shows that PAUL needed time to be alone and get away from it all. Or maybe he was just TIRED and needed a nap! This editorialising is dumb. Like he's trying to show that John was the only one who needed to be alone. Because he was cooler?,more brilliant?,the 'artistic Beatle'?,the 'smart Beatle?' Paul was maybe too busy being 'cute'.
In his quest to analyze John's songs (to death) he under analyzes Paul's, even Yesterday, which most Beatle scholars think is subconsciously about his mother. But Turner seems to think that if Paul is not writing about Jane Asher, he is writing about.... nothing. Only John has deep feelings that are revealed in his songs. Only John was hurt by the loss of his mother. Not that 'cute Beatle.' He has no feelings and was hurt by nothing.
Except for these flaws, A Hard Day's Write is an interesting book, and highly recommended. I just hate when Beatle writers try to perpetuate the myth that John was the only smart one. The only artistic one. etc. It reduces their credibility. The best Beatle books never stoop to subjective editorialising.
Summary of A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song
A lavishly illustrated, rollicking account of the real people and events that inspired the Beatles' lyrics.
Who was "just seventeen" and made Paul's heart go "boom"? Was there really an Eleanor Rigby? Where's Penny Lane? In A Hard Day's Write, music journalist Steve Turner shatters many well-worn myths and adds a new dimension to the Fab Four's rich legacy by investigating for the first time the ordinary people and events immortalized in the Beatles' music and now occupying a special niche in popular culture's collective imagination.
Arranged chronologically by album, the book breaks new ground by exploring how private incidents influenced the group's writing and how their music evolved. Turner reveals that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was really a drawing by Julian Lennon of his childhood friend; Bungalow Bill was an all-American tiger hunter; Doctor Robert was a New York 'speech doctor'; and much more. A longtime Beatles admirer, Turner tracked down and interviewed the real-life subjects of the songs, probed public records and newspaper archives, and spoke in depth to the people closet to the Beatles to unearth tales that have never before been made public. The result is a book that chronicles an untold story of the Beatles themselves.
Illustrated with over 200 photographs, A Hard Day's Write is a visually alluring and highly entertaining journey to the land stretching just beneath your conscious mind, mapped out with strawberry fields, fool-topped hills, and long and winding roads.
Reference Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Reference Books
The Great Song Thesaurusby Roger Lax, Frederick Smith
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1989-02-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $174.48
The New Oxford History of Music: Volume IV: The Age of Humanism 1540-1630Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1968-12-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $102.77
Price in other shops:
The Oxford Companion to Popular Musicby Peter Gammond
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1991-04-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $27.40
Price in other shops:
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (Oxford Paperback Reference)Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1996-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.75
Price in other shops:
Musical Involvement: A Guide to Perceptive Listeningby Donald J. Funes, Stephen E. Squires
Harcourt College Pub; Published: 1991-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $101.94
Compact Discs Yearbook 2000/ 1, The Penguin Guide to (Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music)by Ivan March, Edward Greenfield, Robert Layton
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2000-10-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.94
Price in other shops:
Listening to Musicby Jay Zorn
Prentice Hall College Div; Published: 1994-12-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Guitar (2nd Edition)by Frederick Noad
Alpha; Published: 2001-08-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.87
Price in other shops:
DJing for Dummiesby John Steventon
For Dummies; Published: 2007-01-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.99
Price in other shops:
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsessionby Daniel J. Levitin
Penguin Audio; Published: 2007-08-16; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $15.50
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
I, Me, Mineby George Harrison
Chronicle Books; Published: 2007-03-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.58
Price in other shops:
The Beatles Complete Chord Songbookby The Beatles
Hal Leonard; Hal Leonard Corporation; Published: 2000-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
The Beatles - Abbey Road - Car, Truck, Notebook, Vinyl Decal Sticker #2469 | Vinyl Color: Whitebeatles; Single Detail Page Misc
Best price: $0.01
Vandor The Beatles Coasters Set with TinVandor; Vandor; Kitchen
Best price: $16.94
Price in other shops:
Planet Waves Beatles Guitar Picks, Meet The Beatles, 10 pack, MediumD'Addario &Co. Inc; Planet Waves; D'Addario &Co. Inc; Release date: 2009-06-26; Electronics; Musical Instruments
Best price: $3.99
Price in other shops:
The Beatles Anthologyby Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
Chronicle Books; Published: 2002-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.74
Price in other shops:
The Beatles AnthologyCapitol Entertainment; Release date: 2003-04-01; DVD
Best price: $53.28
Price in other shops:
Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatlesby Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey
Alfred Publishing; Gotham; Published: 2007-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.06
Price in other shops:
The Lost Beatles Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive, 1964-1966by Larry Marion
It Books; Published: 2011-03-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.06
Price in other shops:
The Beatles Anthologyby The Beatles
Chronicle Books; Published: 2000-10-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $31.00
Price in other shops: