The Errant Æsthete

According to R. R. Bowker’s Books in Print database, there are more than 500 books about the Beatles currently available; in the past year or so alone, we’ve seen the publication of, at least half a dozen more, including the best-selling “Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me,” by Pattie Boyd, the former Mrs. Harrison (and former Mrs. Clapton) who the NY Times referred to as “the muse who made the guitars gently weep.” With over 55 million Google hits, the Beatles are almost twice as well represented online as Beethoven (28.6 million hits), and — maybe John Lennon was right about this — more than seven times as popular as Jesus Christ (7.7 million hits).

Which makes it all the more surprising, almost bewildering, in fact, to realize that, according to Bruce Handy in the NY Times Book Review today reviewing the new release of “Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America” by Jonathon Gould, there is still plenty left to tell. “Gould has written a scrupulous, witty and, at times, appropriately skeptical study, which drew me back into a subject I thought I was sick of.”

Handy goes on “… who among us can say with certainty that he or she would have signed the Beatles before they were THE BEATLES? This gets at the greatest virtue of Gould’s book, for if you’ve already read a decent Beatles book there can be only one real reason to read another: to unclog your ears and hear the group afresh, as if, say, it were 1966 again, and you were driving somewhere and “Paperback Writer,” with its kick-start rhythm, droning melody, snarky lyrics and waterfalls of harmony, had just come on the radio for the first time instead of the billionth, and the song was still startling, and maybe even head-scratching …”

“At his best, he lets you hear with keener ears the way a great novelist lets you feel with keener emotions. He even made me want to listen to “Eleanor Rigby” again. I can’t think of higher praise.” (STORY)