Paul McCartney The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook Spiral-bound – February 1, 2000

I love the Beatles. I purchased this book about 10 years ago, I removed the spine, took it to Office Max and had them cover and bind it so that the book would lay open when I was using it. It did not cost that much and was well worth it. I have worn this book out over the years. I left it in my gazebo this past summer and it got wet when it rained hard one day. My wife tried to dry it out with a hair dryer but that just caused it to blow up to twice it's size and pull the pages out of the binding. I was devastated. My beloved Beatles book, gone.Here I am, 10 years later, just bought it again, and will do the same thing, take it to Office Max and have them re-bind it and cover it (bout 5-10 bucks)(why don't the publishers realize that as players we need it to lay flat!?) Anyway, as almost everyone else say's here, this book is spot on. EXACTLY as the Beatles played it, in the right key's. The people here who say the song's are sometimes not in the right key are wrong. Sure the Beatles used varispeed technology sometimes on their recordings so you may have to tune down or up a semi-tone or use a capo to get it exact, welcome to the real world,(read Geoff Emmerick's book on how the Beatles recorded and experimented) but this book gets it right for a guitarist learning and playing the songs with or without a band,and 99% of the time playing along with the song, the right chords placed perfectly over the words.I do not read music or tab. This is a CHORD book. No music notation to get in the way, no tab numbers, just chord names with chord pictures where your fingers are placed and the position on the neck. This book has the chords for each song pictured at the top of the page for that song to reference while playing or learning. Every song is laid out so that when you open to a new page laid out flat the whole song fits into those 2 pages that you are looking at, starting on the left page and ending on the right page. No page turning when playing! Perfect! Well thought out practical book for a guitarist. If you like the Beatles and play guitar you have to have this book. It has every song Lennon & McCartney wrote during the Beatles period that they recorded as the Beatles, and every song that George Harrison recorded with the Beatles. It is THE definitive one to have.Update: The book arrived a few days ago. I got it for $16 (list is $25 which I paid when it came out over 10 years ago) I took it to Office Max last night. It cost me $1.09 for them to cut the binding off and $3.19 to put a new spiral binding on it for a total of $4.65!(including tax) Just over 20 bucks total and I have THE PERFECT Beatles book. They had 2 bindings to choose from, the spiral wire looking binding, and a thicker half inch long type of binding. Go with the thick one. The book lays open perfect now, easy to turn the pages. Get a capo, you will need one to make this book work sometimes, the voicing are great with a capo on and exactly what the record is doing. For those of you criticizing the book read the introductory part in the beginning to explain what the approach was. It is a perfectly logical approach.I flung the book open last night and George's "Here Comes the Sun" was there, never tried it. Must admit I never thought he was a great player, good but not great. I musta been missin' somthin', cause that song ain't easy! The way the book is written it gives me a path to doing as little or as much as I want with it. The capo @ the 7th fret is a great voicing/tone for the song. Exactly goes along with what was originally done. Get the book. Hope this was helpful. Enjoy!

I've found Hal Leonard publications to be accurate as far as chord accuracy, so this is an excellent musician's reference for guitarists, keyboardists, vocalists, etc. It has all the songs. That said, this is not, to me, an intermediate guitarist and drummer- and easy book guitar-wise. There's a lot going on, musically, in Beatles music; 2 guitars playing a huge variety of chord forms, lead and back-up vocals, bass, drums, horns, woodwinds, percussion, and more. The songs have anywhere from 3 to like 28 chords per song- if I've looked fairly carefully! I'm starting out playing the 3-7 chord songs until I get better. It is an absolute blast! If you can, get the spiral bound edition so the book will stay open. BTW buy the songs you like on Amazon and you're ready to rock!

This book is great for learning Beatles tunes quickly and accurately. It is more helpful I would think, to a rhythm guitarist, as you only get the chords, and although you can usually figure out the little lead parts from the chord progression, it is in no way indicated here. But this why it's called a chord book.Anyways, this book contains pretty much every song The Beatles released. They are listed alphabetical, but I almost wished that they had grouped songs from the same album together in chronological fashion. But, its easy enough to mark off the pages of the particular songs you want to play.I bought the book to practice guitar with (I am a bass player) and I have found the Beatles are great to sit down, learn some different chords, and commit them to memory by playing along with the albums. The accuracy is astounding sometimes, where you always thought you were hearing Am in "I Will", its really A7, which you can hear if you look for it. Also The Beatles were known to play tuned down a half or whole step sometimes, and to speed up or slow down recordings a bit, so in the beginning of each song, it is indicated if you need a capo, or if the song is detuned. Very helpful for playing along to the recordings.The lyrics are included, and so this book can help you practice singing and playing at the same time, which is one of the harder aspects of guitar playing, after simply mastering the instrument.The drawback of this book is that it is bound like a regular book, with a glued spine. This is OK, but with almost 200 pages, you will need to either really work the spine, or get some clips to hold the pages back on a stand. If this book were spiral bound, there'd be no problem. I guess the best work around is just to photocopy your selections first.I gave this book 5 stars for how great a resource it is, because you can get the complete sheet music (with chord diagrams) for more money, but if you don't read music, you're paying for a lot of work that in the end is useless to you. Just having the chord diagrams here is enough for me.

Easy to follow and best songs!