Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World Kindle Edition

I bought this based on the recommendation of a friend who proclaimed that he learned so much new information about the Beatles (first chapter, according to him). I didn’t learn much I didn’t know already. The Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da story was new to me and I was happy to learn that one. I’m still not sure it was worth the price.While I can’t say I regret reading the book, I do kind of regret buying it. There’s not much new here. While it’s interesting to read another superfan’s opinions, he sometimes misquotes lyrics or proclaim’s a song’s meaning. For example, “Yes, It Is” has never been confirmed to be about a woman’s death. Neither Lennon nor McCartney have said that. It was merely some other author’s opinion). He dedicates several paragraphs though to that premise stating more or less unequivocally that is what they song is about.He pointlessly devotes an entire chapter to songs about the Beatles which is a complete waste of time since it includes such musical luminaries as The Muppets and Weird Al. Many of the songs are not about the Beatles at all and are simply songs the author seems to like.He also devotes an entire chapter for the tired Beatles versus the Rolling Stones debate. He paints Mick Jagger as an authentically dangerous, rebellious figure while Lennon (and the Beatles) were happy go lucky moptops. He conveniently ignores Mick’s public school education (7 O-levels, 3 A-levels) and phony working class accent (find old interviews to hear his real accent). John didn’t fake any of that (failing all his O-levels) rebellion. John was actually violent (even Ringo was in a gang). The Stones had an image, played up by their brilliant management. But John was right, every thing the Beatles did the Stones tried to copy musically up until they figured out they were better by just being the Stones. I love both bands, but it’s a tiresome argument that even a little research should dispel.Something other reviewers have mentioned is his annoying (cloying) habit of constantly quoting Beatles lyrics throughout every single chapter. Often several times in a paragraph. It got old in the first chapter. It never stopped. It’s throughout the book and is maddening.I did find his take on why the Beatles seem to go from peak to peak, even years after their breakup, to be interesting and insightful.Give it a pass. There are much better books out there. There are better fan sites out there. There are better Reddit posts out there.

Despite the sizzling jacket blurbs to this effect, this is definitely not THE book about the Beatles to read. There are redeeming features: most notably, the book is well-written and pleasurable (for Beatles fans) to read (hence 3-stars). It contains good comments about Ringo, and dubious, unoriginal ones about Paul. The satisfaction was more of the kind you get reading People Magazine than serious reflection on who the Beatles were and why their influence remains so great. For a book whose purported aim was to address just this question--on behalf of the whole world, no less--there was little musical, historical or cultural insight. The leitmotif of Sheffield's story is that the Beatles were all about girls--copying girl band music, wooing, talking to/about and appealing to girls, and so on. He develops this in a way that makes it seem less-self-evident than you'd think, but in any case it's hardly a basis to explain why, half a century after their breakup, the public remains fascinated by the Beatles and their music. Sheffield is a fanboy magazine reporter, no more.Along these lines, as his editor, I would have insisted on several alterations:1. Get a co-writer who understands music so you can address the musical aspect of the music, duh.Sheffield doesn't seem to know much about music beyond his own tastes, about which he is surprisingly inarticulate. One of his girlfriends liked this one, he was going through puberty when he discovered that one, and so on.(For the reader who wants to learn something about Beatles music, see Ian MacDonald's song-by-song analysis in Revolution in the Head. MacDonald also has much deeper insights about the cultural place and impact of the Beatles, as do other writers.)2. Cut the fanboy crap by 50%.I love the Beatles and I rarely get bored hearing about them, listening to outtakes, seeing them in pictures and following each of their post-Beatles careers. Still I found this book cloying. Use your own words instead of Beatles song quotes. It's cute only once or twice.3. Get over yourself, in fact, pretty much forget yourself except maybe in the foreword.This book is about 10%-15% about Sheffield himself. Personal anecdotes can be a useful device, but Sheffield's serve no purpose other than to explain how he came to prefer this song or that. I personally found some of his choices perverse, but I wouldn't burden my review explaining the autobiographical provenance of my preferences--as Sheffield has done.4. Know that when you rank The Rolling Stones’ and Taylor Swift’s music alongside that of the Beatles, you compromise your credibility. Absolutely no insult intended to those other artists. But the correct comparison with the Beatles is to songwriting geniuses such as Rodgers/Hart/Hammerstein, George & Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Irving Berlin, Ellington/Strayhorn and similar artists whose compositions (though not the story of their fame) also have proven to have lasting virtue (they became jazz standards). As as Leonard Bernstein put it, The Beatles were Schuberts of our time and the best songwriters since Gershwin.The story of The Beatles astounding personal fame is yet a different story, one not really told well in Sheffield's book either.Unlike some of the other more substantive musical and cultural biographies of the Beatles, Sheffield's book will not long accompany the Fab Four in their continued reputation as the most influential band of the second half of the 20th century. But as a fun read for Beatles gossip-obsessed fans, I can recommend...borrowing it from the library.

I was born in late 1959 and my earliest memory is watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. Their music is the soundtrack to my childhood and I've never stopped listening to them. I just finished reading the "Beatles: 1966" and "Dreaming the Beatles" back to back. Both books are phenomenal reads, totally different in style and content. 1966 is a historical account of the year the Beatles changed from being pop stars to being artists and changed musical history. Sheffield's book is told from the point of view of a fan who came to love the Beatles years after they split up. It is told with such humor and wit, with lines like "[George] won custody of Dylan in the Beatles divorce" - priceless, that I cannot wait to read it again. Do not let these ridiculous negative reviews dissuade you. Dreaming The Beatles is the book I always hoped someone would write. His thoughts on how Rubber Soul influenced Blonde on Blonde is worth the price of admission. GREAT BOOK!!!

If you can't stand McCartney, this is the book for you. The author obviously dislikes Paul, misinterprets his ambitiousness as pure selfishness, slams some of Paul's greatest songs, and derides him on every other page, painting the other Beatles as helpless victims of his tyranny. He loves John and George, tries to make excuse for them, and is indifferent about Ringo. If that's what your looking for in a Beatle book, this screed's for you. And as for the rest of it, it's mostly re-tread stories you already know if you're a veteran fan. I'd save my money and skip this bargain-bin effort if I were you.

Subtitled, “The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World,” this is something unusual – a different, very personal take, on the Beatles story and what they mean. Author Rob Sheffield is an editor at Rolling Stones, a music critic and a Beatles fan. Sheffield’s parents were amused, and slightly confused, about the obsession that he, and his sisters, had for the Beatles. Didn’t they know that this band had split up? In fact, Sheffield’s real argument, in this extremely personal love letter to the band, is that the fact the band split up made no difference at all to how people felt about them. I first came to the Beatles in the Seventies, via Wings, and that was the decade in which the ex-Beatles themselves were pretty disgruntled about people raking up the never ending stories of reunions. However, as it now clear, every era claims the Beatles as their own discovery. They sit, virtually unchallenged, as the ‘Greatest Group of all Time’ and look set to remain there.When the Beatles broke up, even they thought there was a time limit to their success. The more they raged about not looking backwards, became embroiled in lawsuits and personal arguments, writing songs that were definitely about each other, others that were probably about each other and unable to cut those ties (John Lennon was always a Beatle, throughout his entire life), the more the public simply refused to allow them not to be Beatles anymore. If the four ex-members of the band refused to play the game and get back together, they would simply invent new ways to enjoy being fans – enter tribute bands, movies about them, plays, Beatles conventions, endless podcasts, even ‘Beatles historians’ such as Mark Lewisohn, to really treat the Fabs as seriously as we feel they should be treated…Rob Sheffield muses about what the Beatles mean to him, and to so many of us, in this book. Yes, it is opinionated and that means that you will not agree with everything he writes. I am sure he would not expect us to. Still, he says a lot that you may well agree with and lots that you can get either enthusiastic, or enraged, about. He snipes a little at Paul, but, sadly, I feel that only time will show how there is, literally, nobody who is as multi-talented and central to the Beatles as Paul was. If George and Ringo were, in George’s only half-joking words, the ‘economy Beatles’ then it was John and Paul who led the way and created the bulk of the music that much of the world still sings. Whatever my doubts about some of Sheffield’s views, I really did enjoy this book and I applaud him for writing something beyond the usual biography. For those of us to whom the Beatles are not only important, but so important that we need to consider every aspect of their career in mind-numbing detail, this is a book you should probably read.

I never usually bother writing reviews but felt I had to say something about this excellent bookHaving read a lot of Beatles books I came across this one recommended by the British Beatles Fan Club and I think its the most different I've readRob is a fan like all of us but he comes at it from a different angle .I would urge any fan of this always interesting and most excellent band and institution to give this one a try !

Being from Liverpool it is hard to escape the legacy of The Beatles. They are in all parts of this great city and whilst they were known for wanting to get the hell out of Liverpool (post-war Liverpool wasn’t the thriving metropolis that it is today) the impact of The Beatles cannot be underestimated.My parents were not fans of The Beatles so I came to develop my love for them independently. I can still remember the year they made their first impact on me – 1992: 30 years after they were first relevant. I watched a brilliant movie called Secrets starring Dani Minogue – sort of like The Breakfast Club but with the Fab Four and set in Australia – as a side not you cannot get this moved and it makes me so angry because I love it – after watching the movie and hearing the music of The Beatles I was hooked.I love it when I come across writers who talk about the impact that a band I love (from the city I love) has had on them. It is even better when the writer is Rob Sheffield who I have loved since reading Love is a Mixtape. Winner.Dreaming the Beatles is a biographopedia – did I just make up a word? It is a collection of Beatles stories interspersed with stories of Sheffield’s life and it just works. The reason it works is because music isn’t an isolated medium. Who among us doesn’t have a song that transports us to a time or a place?One thing you can tell is that Rob Sheffield is no idle listener. His love for The Beatles is deep-rooted and as a fan you need to feel that otherwise this type of book (a biographopedia) would not work.Another fine piece of writing from Rob Sheffield.Dreaming the Beatles by Rob Sheffield is available now.

Interesting take on a subject that's been written about and talked to death about over the years, refreshing to see a different take on it

Written by a man who is obviously a fan. Honest, funny and enlightening