BOOK REVIEW: All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Beatles Release, by Margotin & Guesdon

Shane | 21 January 2014 | 3 Replies

BOOK REVIEW: All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Beatles Release, by Margotin & Guesdon
Murdoch Books, rrp $55.00
1 November 2013
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
9/10

A lot of us would be surprised to know how many Beatles fans still obsess over every little thing about the band, some 43+ years after they broke up in a flurry of lawsuits, dope smoke and the sour taste of the Beatlemania hangover on their palates.

All The Songs, compiled meticulously by Frenchmen Jean-Michel Guesdon & Philippe Margotin, reveals pretty much all there is to know (or can be remembered) about every single song the band officially released in their time together.

This could well be THE definitive place to come if you ever wanted to know that producer George Martin and chief engineer Norman Smith “were thinking that I Want To Hold Your Hand might be even bigger than She Loves You”; that Paul played the cowbell on You Can’t Do That; that John wrote Norwegian Wood about one of the many women he cheated on his wife Cynthia with, though he couldn’t recall which one; who played the horns on Got To Get You Into My Life (Eddie Thornton, Ian Hamer, Les Condon on trumpets, Peter Coe and Alan Branscombe on tenor sax); that Dear Prudence was about Mia Farrow’s sister and doesn’t feature Ringo at all; or that George Harrison’s I Me Mine took him 5 minutes to write and features a 35 piece orchestra but no John (who wasn’t interested and instead waltzed around the studio with Yoko while the band rehearsed), and the part starting at 0:31 was re-inserted at 1:20 by Phil Spector to extend it.

It’s exhaustive, illuminating and, in its own way, a fascinating display of how a band of brothers became so disparate and at each other’s throats. It also reminds us of the amazing music the band produced, and whether or not you think it’s worthy that THIS band is still idolised above most others, there are plenty out there who do, and who will lap this heavy tome up.