The Beatles : A Hard Day's Write; the stories behind every song

What comes to mind when I mention a banker with a motorcar? Don’t most bankers have cars? Yes, but you probably thought of the same banker that I did. Have you ever heard of little Lucy O’Donnell? You know Lucy. She’s Julian’s friend from school. Have you seen Julian’s drawing of Lucy … in the sky with diamonds?

Some words and phrases stick in our minds forever. When they’re attached to universally known melodies, it’s difficult to even read the words without playing the music in our heads.

That happened dozens of times as I read Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song. Very few lyrics appear in the book, but song titles and even short phrases (newspaper taxis, blue suburban skies, show more yellow matter custard) launch personal soundtracks.

Sometimes I feel I was born with Beatles music pre-programmed in my head. It’s always been there. Mention Blackburn Lancashire and I start humming the tune. I can’t help it.

But these songs had to be written first. Where did they come from? What motivated John Lennon and Paul McCartney (and in some cases George Harrison and Ringo Starr) to pen more than one hundred classics? Turner can probably answer those questions better than anyone this side of McCartney himself. He conducted interviews with the musicians and many of their real-life inspirations. He also dug through countless resources to compile an exhaustive collection of lyric origins.

John and Paul found creative sparks everywhere: newspaper stories, a vintage circus poster, an affair, a breakup, a Corn Flakes commercial. Often they’d be inspired by an interesting phrase. Paul latched onto the sound of “meter maid” after hearing it spoken by an American friend, just as he did when a chauffeur told him he was working eight days a week. Penny Lane, of course, was a neighborhood in Liverpool and Strawberry Field was an orphanage in Woolton.

Some stories were familiar to me [Paul awoke with the tune for "Scrambled Eggs" -- later known as "Yesterday" -- in his head] but many others were complex ["A Day in the Life" was a combination John's fictionalized account of a real friend's death fused with Paul's unfinished song about going to school in the morning], or simply strange [using intentionally confusing words, John strung together three songs-in-progress for "I Am the Walrus" to complicate the efforts of a schoolmaster seeking meanings in Beatles music]. I could go on, but Turner’s book tells these stories much more completely than I can.

I found the origins endlessly fascinating for what they revealed about John and Paul’s musical abilities, too. Many times the rock-n-rollers would invent an entire song around a guitar riff or chord. Other times they would simply decide to write something in the style of Smokey Robinson, the Shirelles, Ray Charles, or Bob Dylan. Viola! Have you ever noticed the Beach Boys-style harmony in the chorus of “Back in the USSR”? There’s a reason it’s there.

Turner arranged the songs in the order their albums were recorded. That gave me a further sense of the creative evolution and stylistic phases Lennon and McCartney passed through during the Beatles years.

First published a decade ago, and reprinted recently with new interviews and facts, A Hard Day’s Write came to my attention only last month in a Seattle bookstore. All the songs are covered, though not all thoroughly. That was okay. Reading this book was an extremely enjoyable trip through the Beatles songbook.

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While I consider myself a lifelong Beatles fan, I won’t try to lay claim to being a Beatles expert, and I certainly haven’t tried to read each and every book about the Beatles that has ever been published. So, when I say I enjoyed this behind-the-scenes exploration of the history behind the writing of every Beatles song, you’ve got to take that with a few grains of salt — there may have been other books, perhaps many others, which covered this ground before. In fact, the version of this book by Steve Turner reviewed here is, itself, an update of an earlier edition. But, speaking as a casual reader of Beatles-related books, I do recommend this particular book. For each song included, the author explains what the inspiration for show more the song was, where the songwriter(s) were at the time of the writing, and other little historical tidbits. Where there are discrepancies about the origin of a song, Turner includes all the variant tales, rather than trying to narrow it down to the correct one. The amount of background provided for each song various considerably — from one or two paragraphes of text, to several pages, about the most well-known of the Beatles hits. The text is accompanied by a plethora of rare and obscure photographs, making this a pleasurable read for Beatles fans, even if all you’re doing is browsing. Maybe there are better, more in-depth historical volumes about the Beatles’ song out there, but I found this one to be a fun and informative read!

Originally reviewed for my local library's website in November 2013: http://lincolnlibraries.org/bookguide/staff-recommendations/staff-recommendation... show less

I loved this book and if you like The Beatles, even a little bit. you will too. Even if you've only heard the melody of "Yesterday" in an elevator you know who they are. They are a part of everyone's sub-conscience.
This compilation of every album and every song on each album, done in chronological order, debunks many a myth and offers enlightening information on how each song came to be and the state of the Fab Four as well as the world when they tunes were written.
The book is begins with the red section and covers their music from their inception in 1959 through to the Revolver album, the point "when the Beatles become recording artists rather than performers." At the point their music became more experimental.
The second blue section show more highlights the remainder of their years together as a group, Sgt Pepper to Abbey Road.
Reading this book serves to distinguish just what a phenomenal band The Beatles were and how at a young age were pressured to produce music quickly. Download your favorite music App and listen to each song after you've read how it was written and the nuances of the music as it was developed. Your appreciation for The Beatles will surely grow. show less

I sat down and read this in one sitting. Rare photographs of the Beatles (and others) that accompany tidbits of trivia, affirmation (or debunking) of legends mixed with quotes, stories of influences and inspirations for every song the Beatles recorded. If you have even the slightest interest in the Beatles and have an afternoon to kill, then this book is a thrill. For instance seeing the actual Julian Lennon drawing that inspired the title of Lucy in the ‘Sky with Diamonds’ alongside a photo of the four year old “Lucy” that Julian had in mind as he created the name and drawing will give any Beatlemanic a stiffy. Before reading A Hard Day’s Write, I actually looked up about half of the Beatles songs on Wikipedia to compare what show more wikipedia had to report versus what Turner had to report. Although by necessity there is some overlap, overall Turner digs a bit deeper on most occasions and is able to create a bit of a narrative arc. Whereas wikipedia seemed to repeat itself a bit and was—by nature—without an overall narrative arc. show less

I can honestly say that this is one of the most informative, entertaining Beatles books I've yet to read. This is almost even more so than the "Anthology Book" Turner works his way through every song penned by the Beatles, even including some not released on any major album. He offers numberous qutoes from interviews with all of the Bealtes, Sir George Martin, the spouses and girlfriends of every Beatle. I felt that this was filled with very pertinent, yet new and refreshing information. It happens all too often in Beatles books that the same information is rehashed in an unoriginal manner.
The book is an entertaining read, and gives very interesting analysis on the motives of the Beatles in composing each one of their songs. I show more reccomend this to any Beatles fan who wishes to hear a new, refreshing perspective on all the old great songs which we love. show less

A great , insightful book on the inspiration for each song in their catalog. Loved reading about my favorite songs and in my opinion the greatest rock group in history.

Story how how each song was written. Where did John and Paul get inspired from, who wrote what
and how their music changed. There are of course some beautiful, unseen photos.