A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song [Paperback]

Steve Turner (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 18, 2005

A lavishly illustrated, rollicking account of the real people and events that inspired the Beatles' lyrics.

Who was "just seventeen" and made Paul's heart go "boom"? Was there really an Eleanor Rigby? Where's Penny Lane? In A Hard Day's Write, music journalist Steve Turner shatters many well-worn myths and adds a new dimension to the Fab Four's rich legacy by investigating for the first time the ordinary people and events immortalized in the Beatles' music and now occupying a special niche in popular culture's collective imagination.

Arranged chronologically by album, the book breaks new ground by exploring how private incidents influenced the group's writing and how their music evolved. Turner reveals that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was really a drawing by Julian Lennon of his childhood friend; Bungalow Bill was an all-American tiger hunter; Doctor Robert was a New York 'speech doctor'; and much more. A longtime Beatles admirer, Turner tracked down and interviewed the real-life subjects of the songs, probed public records and newspaper archives, and spoke in depth to the people closet to the Beatles to unearth tales that have never before been made public. The result is a book that chronicles an untold story of the Beatles themselves.

Illustrated with over 200 photographs, A Hard Day's Write is a visually alluring and highly entertaining journey to the land stretching just beneath your conscious mind, mapped out with strawberry fields, fool-topped hills, and long and winding roads.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most readable and illuminating books ever written about The Beatles" Steve Matteo The Music Paper" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Steve Turner is the author of Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye, A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles' Song, Hungry for Heaven: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemption, Jack Kerouac: Angelheaded Hipster, and Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and the London Times. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: It Books; Updated edition (October 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060844094
• ISBN-13: 978-0060844097
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #6 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Theory, Composition & Performance > Songwriting
  • #29 in Books > Arts & Photography > Music > Reference

More About the Author

Steve Turner is the author of Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye, A Hard Day's, Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Hungry for Heaven: Rock and Roll and the Search for Redemption, Jack Kerouac. Angelbeaded Hipster, and Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and the London Times. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

413 of 435 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars I Don't Want to Spoil the Party, but . . . March 22, 2009

By doublefantasy

Format:Paperback

As I bought this book based on all of the very high praise found on this Amazon page, I now feel obligated to warn future potential buyers that this book is nowhere near all it's cracked up to be.

First of all, if you've read at least a few other Beatles books before, a lot of the information in this book purported to be "revelatory" is actually old news, and well-known even by casual fans. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was a drawing by Julian Lennon? Well, I'll be. Strawberry Fields Forever was a reference to John Lennon's special, childhood hideaway? No way! Penny Lane is a district in Liverpool? These are the kinds of shockers that just keep coming and coming.

Of course, as someone who truly does obsess over the Beatles, I was expecting to reread lots of things I already knew. The problem is the things I didn't know. There was, in fact, all kinds of information that I had never before come across. To the point that I would almost be impressed.

If I could believe a word of it. And sadly, I can't.

The book is riddled, just riddled, with ridiculous typos and factual errors. There seems to have been no copy editing done in this book outside of computerized spell checking. And so all kinds of typos remain, because the words they spell are in the dictionary. One of my favorites is when the author seriously refers to previous Beatles films as "Help! and Hard Day's Write." Yes, the author got the Beatles film confused with his own book, and no one managed to catch it. A mere few paragraphs later, he claims that the song added to Let It Be... Naked is I've Got a Feeling. Which it is not. He also claims that George Martin came up with the idea for the Sgt. Pepper Reprise, even though it's well-documented that Neil Aspinall was the true inspiration behind the idea. On and on it goes.

So, is the reason that "Badfinger Boogie" was the original title for A Little Help From My Friends because John had an injured finger at the time of writing? Perhaps. Sounds believable. But who knows. The inexcusable errors, coupled with the painful lack of any citations, leaves me unable to trust a word, no matter how much I'd like to.

As a final note, while other reviewers refer to John Lennon constantly being psychoanalyzed by the author, even to the point of ridiculousness, and the glossing over all of Paul's compositions as written about Jane Asher, George Harrison is the one who gets the true short end of this stick. All of his song entries are excruciatingly short, up to and including a mere 97 words -- I counted -- written about While My Guitar Gently Weeps, one of the greatest Beatles songs ever written. Though Turner could find a whole page of information about It Won't Be Long and how he believes that John's mother inspired the song's sentiments (WHAT?), he couldn't find nary a word to say about what George's profound lyrics in this song said about his philosophical thoughts or world views.

It's a shame, because this really could have been an excellent and truly invaluable book, as the cover quotes all claim. Indeed, it should have been. But it's not. It instead goes down as one of the worst Beatles books I've ever read. And that means a lot.

73 of 85 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for New Beatle Fans May 11, 2007

By Beatlefansincethen

Format:Paperback

This book is very valuable for people who haven't read many Beatle books and don't know much about them or their music. If you fall into that category you will find this book indispensible. It gives an accurate outline of the stories behind every Beatle song, and what interesting stories they are. The people who inadvertantly influenced their writing, the events that inspired them to write a particular song, (sometimes a TV commercial or innocuous statement made by someone in the room or in their recent past.) A wonderful insight into their creative process and into their minds as well. Unfortunately for me, I've read so many Beatle books, that I have heard all of these stories before, so by the time I came across this book, it was kind of anticlimactic. Even so, there were still some things I didn't know like, Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkee is actually referring to Yoko Ono,(she's John's monkee) and is not about having a heroin habit, like I had assumed. I won't give anymore away though because if you are reading this, I recommend that you read A Hard Day's Write and find out for yourself.

The only thing I found mildly annoying, is the author's slight over analysis of Lennon's songs. Maybe he is right about most of them, he certainly doesn't seem off the mark when he talks about Lennon's abandonment issues. However his editorialising about John's, And Your Bird Can Sing really got under my skin. He seems to have the idea that John is singing about Paul in this song, and trying to say that Paul isn't as cool as he is, when he sings, "Tell me that you've heard every sound there is" etc. According to Turner, when he sings, "You say you've seen seven wonders," he's referring to Paul's "seven levels" remark when they first got high together. (huh?) What does one have to do with the other? John uses the 'seven wonders' reference as a metephor for someone who's 'seen it all'. I picked up on that when I was eleven for heaven sake. It's so obvious. And it's anyone's guess who he's singing about. Maybe he's singing about himself! Or the press, or maybe the fans, or the establishment...whatever. It was beyond stupid for Turner to stick this song with his clumsy oppinions. No one knows what the song is about. It makes me think that maybe Turner is the one who thinks this about Paul and he was looking for something in John's lyrics to validate HIS feeling. He even talks about the Anthology 2 version of the song, where John and Paul break into uncontrolled giggling at the mic, saying that Paul seemed unaware that the song is about him, judging from his giggling. Yeah Mr. Turner, only you and your idol John Lennon are in on what the song really means. I guess he whispered it in your ear and told you not to tell Paul. And what a fool Paul is! Here he is thinking that John Lennon is his friend, when he really isn't! Thankfully there is you, Steve Turner to set things straight. Hopefully Paul read your drops of wisdom and realized once and for all that he just wasn't cool enough to be friends with that wonderful Lennon.

Every once in a while, Turner's feelings seem to peak through like this, and it diminishes what is otherwise, a great read. There are a couple caption mistakes, especially a big one which features more editorialising. On one page there is a large picture of a Beatle reclining in his seat on a PanAm jet. It looks like the flight to New York on Feb. 7, 1964. He has a clothe over his face, so you really can't tell who it is, except...if you look at the watch worn on the right wrist instead of the left,the checked shirt, and the cuff links,you'll know that it is definitly Paul. ( he was dressed this way on that flight, while John had a white shirt and was sitting with his wife.) But Turner writes in the caption that JOHN always needed time to be alone and get away from it all and the picture shows this. No it shows that PAUL needed time to be alone and get away from it all. Or maybe he was just TIRED and needed a nap! This editorialising is dumb. Like he's trying to show that John was the only one who needed to be alone. Because he was cooler?,more brilliant?,the 'artistic Beatle'?,the 'smart Beatle?' Paul was maybe too busy being 'cute'.

In his quest to analyze John's songs (to death) he under analyzes Paul's, even Yesterday, which most Beatle scholars think is subconsciously about his mother. But Turner seems to think that if Paul is not writing about Jane Asher, he is writing about.... nothing. Only John has deep feelings that are revealed in his songs. Only John was hurt by the loss of his mother. Not that 'cute Beatle.' He has no feelings and was hurt by nothing.

Except for these flaws, A Hard Day's Write is an interesting book, and highly recommended. I just hate when Beatle writers try to perpetuate the myth that John was the only smart one. The only artistic one. etc. It reduces their credibility. The best Beatle books never stoop to subjective editorialising.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Well and little known stories behind the creation of Beatles songs March 11, 2009

By Wayne Klein HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Steve Turner's A HARD DAY'S WRITE: THE STORIES BEHIND EVERY BEATLES SONG focuses on all the material written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star that has appeared on offically released albums. Turner gives us a peak into how the popular songwriting team of Lennon & McCartney would turn ordinary every day events or items from their personal lives into the enduring classics that every Beatles fan knows. The book is extremely well written (although there are a couple of proof readings that slipped through the cracks for example there's a picture in the book with an incorrect caption claiming that Chuck Berry sued John Lennon for plagerism--it was Morris Levy's music company that did. Turner also misses the chance to tell about the fiasco of the John Lennon "Oldies" album that was marketed on TV as a result of this suit and the settlement)and factual for the most part.This third edition is the most handsome one yet and the book appears in a coffee paper size in paperback. Turner has filled the book with a nice mixture of rarely seen photos so that this treasure trove of Beatles trivia won't make most fans feel that they've been there and done that with previous Beatle books.

Turner also dispells some myths about the band's popular songs for example "Yellow Submarine" although clearly written as a children's song had a rumors floating around for years that it was about drugs (heck, just about every Beatls song had that rumor but this was one unusual one that I hadn't heard before). Turner also digs up the news item that inspired Paul McCartney and John Lennon to write "She's Leaving Home" and even discovered that the girl that McCartney wrote about in his song had met her idol three years before the song was written (although McCartney never knew it). He also finds out that McCartney's song got a lot of the incidental facts right even though he didn't know the facts of the missing person's report. Likewise, he tackles McCartney's popular "Michelle" and points out that jazz singer Nina Simone was the inspiration for the song and the playing style of Chet Atkins.

"Baby You're a Rich Man" a Beatles b-side that used the same question/answer approach of "With a Little Help from My Friends" was a Lennon-McCartney collaboration with John bringing the unfinished "One of the Beautiful People" and Paul's chorus of "Baby You're a Rich Man". There are also the familiar stories about songs such as "Hey Jude", "Let It Be", "I Am the Walrus" and "Something" (although here it states that George denied that he wrote the song about his wife Patti wherease the popular assumption was that he DID write it about her)in addition to little known stories about some of the "Anthology" tracks. He often comments on the various songwriter's approach and style and how their personality informed their music.

The book has an extensive discography for the band and bibliography with books and interviews that Turner used as the source to verify some of the tales told here. Turner's goal was to write a book that would occasionally surprise the surviving Beatles as well with info about the people that might have inspired a story and their fate. Turner has a terrific job here. The only thing that might have improved his book would have been more first person interviews about the songs included here from some of those who knew the band well. Also, Turner should focus on the songs that have appeared on various bootlegs that they wrote and recorded over the years that appeared on various solo albums (John's "Child of Nature" which morphed into "Jealous Guy"--why THAT song hasn't appeared on an offical release is beyond me).