Reviews
"This is rock-solid stuff .... Yields all sorts of surprises, even for the initiated.... Essential for Beatles fans and a pleasure to read." -- Kirkus Reviews, Since they burst onto the scene 50 years ago, millions of words have been written about every aspect of the Beatles' music and career, from books aimed at teenage female fans to scholarly works deconstructing "The White Album." Now comes "All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release," an exhaustive tome that gives the inside scoop on every song on every album from their debut, "Please Please Me," to their swan song, "Abbey Road," as well as all the singles, EPs and B-sides they produced between 1963 and 1970. The book, which is arranged chronologically, is a collaboration between French music writer Philippe Margotin, who has penned books on U2 and the Rolling Stones, and musician Jean-Michel Guesdon, who has spent 30 years collecting information about the Fab Four. "All the Songs" is a trove of trivia for even the most ardent Beatles fan, featuring facts ranging from who played which instrument on each song to when and where each song was recorded. Margotin and Guesdon also include how many takes each song required as well as who was in the studio when the songs were recorded. While many of the stories behind the songs will be familiar to Beatles fans -- the classic "Yesterday" originally was titled "Scambled Eggs," the title for "A Hard Day's Night" came from a Ringo Starr malapropism, Eric Clapton played the blistering guitar solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- there are plenty of others that are obscure enough to keep fans reading. Among some of the more interesting revelations: * Several of the songs on "Help!" -- "You're Going to Lose that Girl," "Ticket to Ride" and "Yesterday" -- required only two takes, while the band got "Another Girl" right on the very first one. In contrast, the album's title tune took 12 takes while the band's cover of the Buck Owens' "Act Naturally" needed 13. * Paul McCartney wrote the ballad "Michelle" when he was a student at the Liverpool Institute of Art, inserting French phrases into the song as a ploy to attract women. * Members of Pink Floyd, who were recording their first LP "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" at Abbey Road studios at the same time the Beatles were recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," sat in the control room while the Beatles mixed the song "Lovely Rita" in March 1967. * There is a discernable burst of profanity at the 2:59 mark in the song "Hey Jude," although there is disagreement about whether it was uttered by John Lennon or McCartney. * One of Lennon's favorite guitars was a 1958 Rickenbacker Capri, which he bought on a whim for about $150 when the Beatles were cutting their musical chops in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960. He played the guitar, which he had repainted black, on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and used it in the studio until 1965. His widow, Yoko Ono, said he also used it on "Double Fantasy," the last album Lennon recorded before his death in 1980. In addition to the stories behind the songs, the book also contains hundreds of photos from all phases of the Beatles' career, many of them rarely seen. Added together, "All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release" is an engaging journey through the band's canon that should easily satisfy both casual and die-hard fans., [This] doorstop collects a galaxy of Beatles song data into impressively simple and digestible form. Beautifully illlustrated., Everybody has a Beatles fan in their life, and you'll make them very happy if you give them a copy of All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release, "Beautiful layout and plenty of photos throughout.... And if that isn't enough, Patti Smith wrote the book's preface."-- A.V. Club, 'Our Favorite Books of the Year, Fifty years ago, the Beatles released their debut album. ... if you're a fan and All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release makes it onto your coffee table, chances are that it'll be the one least likely to leave. Music historians Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin dissect, discuss and analyze every song, from 'Please Please Me' (1963) to 'The Long and Winding Road' (1970). There's a well- written 'Genesis' and 'Production' section for each song, as well as enough technical tables to please everyone's inner nerd, not to mention 600 photographs.-- Wall Street Journal|9781579129521|, Fifty years ago, the Beatles released their debut album. So many commemorative books have appeared recently that it's hard to keep count, but if you're a fan and All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release (Black Dog & Leventhal, 672 pages, $50) makes it onto your coffee table, chances are that it'll be the one least likely to leave. Music historians Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin dissect, discuss and analyze every song, from 'Please Please Me' (1963) to 'The Long and Winding Road' (1970). There's a well-written 'Genesis' and 'Production' section for each song, as well as enough technical tables to please everyone's inner nerd, not to mention 600 photographs., "Everybody has a Beatles fan in their life, and you'll make them very happy if you give them a copy of All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release ."-- Newsday
