The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles [Mass Market Paperback]

Peter Brown (Author), Steven Gaines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

Here is the national bestseller that Newsday called “the most authoritative and candid look yet at the personal lives…of the oft-scrutinized group.” In The Love You Make, Peter Brown, a close friend of and business manager for the band—and the best man at John and Yoko’s wedding—presents a complete look at the dramatic offstage odyssey of the four lads from Liverpool who established the greatest music phenomenon of the twentieth century. Written with the full cooperation of each of the group’s members and their intimates, this book tells the inside story of the music and the madness, the feuds and the drugs, the marriages and the affairs—from the greatest heights to the self-destructive depths of the Fab Four.

 

In-depth and definitive, The Love You Make is an astonishing account of four men who transformed the way a whole generation of young people thought and lived. It reigns as the most comprehensive, revealing biography available of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

 

Includes 32 pages of rare and revealing photos

A Literary Guild® Alternate Selection

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nearly two decades after its initial publication, this behind-the-scenes tale reappears in paperback (after all, didn't Rolling Stone say it would "sell forever"?). One of the suit men--as the Beatles dismissively, often with good reason, called the folk who saw to their business affairs--recreates the well-known saga of Beatlemania but does it dispassionately enough to make it interesting. Brown, who directed the Beatles management firm NEMS and later their disastrous financial organization Apple, seems to have survived the experience unscathed, the purges, rancor, glamour, notoriety, the dishonesty, jealousy and infighting among all those who wanted a piece of the action, or a bigger cut, which eventually came to include the musicians themselves as the group began to split apart. While seeming to be objective, he leaves little doubt about his preferences as he discusses the Beatles individually, their parents and in-laws, wives and lovers, probing the personalities to show us the underside of the pop culture with its sleazy pursuit of the big buck. There are revelations about John and Yoko and about their drug addiction, but the material is otherwise pretty familiar. Still, it's a dramatically good story and Brown catches us with the headiness of it all--and Gaines's now well-known name and a new foreword by rock critic Anthony DeCurtis may spark a little extra interest.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Finally the real story.”—Rolling Stone
 
“Literate, complex…more than sensationalism…a hard-hitting yet sympathetic book that unflinchingly captures the highs and lows.”—The Boston Globe
 
“The best backstage memoir yet of the most amazing musical phenomenon of our times.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“The definitive book on the Beatles.”—New York Post
 
“Beatles aficionados will be amazed by the wealth of detail, the questions answered, and the tale of what happened to the Beatles, their women, their children, and their friends.”—Liz Smith, New York Daily News
 
“Leaves the reader tearing through it as though one didn’t know how the story ended.”—San Francisco Examiner
 
“A gothic tale of drugs, sex, music, greed, booze, and genius…an entire generation’s loss of innocence.”—People
 
“Fascinating.”—The Indianapolis Star
 
“The most sensational Beatles biography…emotionally involving.”—Esquire
 
“The definitive book on the world’s greatest  rock group…tells the truth with surprisingly little varnish.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“A dramatically good story....Peter Brown catches us with the headiness of it all.”—Publishers Weekly
 

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: NAL Trade (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451207351
• ISBN-13: 978-0451207357
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #86 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture > Beatles

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read, but..., October 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles (Hardcover)

I first read this book in 1986 and found it very engrossing and a well written insider's account of what Beatlemania was really about behind closed doors. However, that's the problem. Today I look at the book as a "tell all" that makes the Beatles nothing more than greedy sex/drug addicts that created music on the side.

If you read the book, then you know he is not too flattering about Paul's escapades. In a 1984 interview with Playboy, Paul & Linda disowned the book and felt betrayed by Brown, whom they had once considered a good friend. The interview also says that Brown tricked them into spilling the beans, claiming he was writing a book on the 1960s music scene, and not The Beatles specifically. If you read the intro to the book, Brown claims he had "full" cooperation of the surviving Beatles and Yoko Ono, and that they willing let the cat out of the bag for the information that makes up most of the juicy details of the book. As a result of this book, you hardly see Peter Brown mentioned by any of the Beatles these days, much less anyone else. For someone who was also close to the band, you wonder why it's full of factual errors and such. And Brown tries to make it appear he was there 24/7 with all the Beatles. A lot of the material seemed to have been lifted off various articles and interviews done around the time the book was written, and re-written into narrative form as if he were there.

Brown also clumsily ends the book with that poem John wrote Stu Sutcliffe in 1961 ("I can't remember anything without a sadness..."). However, that is taken out of context, since it only contains the first verse. If you read the actual full poem, it becomes full of Lennon's trademark "color metaphors" (if you will) that hardly fits his epitaph, since the book concludes with his assassination.

Stick with Nicholas Schaffner's "The Beatles Forever."

50 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have been called "The Love You TAKE:, September 28, 2003

By 

The Man On The Flaming Pie (The Foothills of the Headlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles (Mass Market Paperback)

...A Fountain Of Misinformation."
One of the things that I found the most agitating about this book is the fact that the author, Peter Brown, titled it after one of the Beatles' most profound lyrics, when he obviously doesn't LOVE the Beatles like you or I do. In fact, he seems to have an apparent axe to grind against most of the Beatles and their associates. Upon nearly every mention of Brian Epstein's, George's, Ringo's, and especially Paul's name, Brown manages to slip in a subtle (and occasionally blatant) put-down. John also gets his share of the smack, but it is far less vicious and accusatory. The reason for John's somewhat (for lack of a better word) "gentle" treatment, I believe, is because his tragic death occured when this book was about halfway finished, therefore making this book probably one of the first writings to have that "John was smart and always right and Paul was dumb and wrong about everything he did" attitude. Brown's favoritism towards John is too obvious (perhaps because John "immortalized" him in song), especially in the final three chapters where he discusses each of the Beatles' lives after the breakup--Paul, George, & Ringo share one chapter between them, while John gets a full two!
Some of the more annoying characteristics of Brown's words include his selling himself and this book on the fact that he was an "insider" and building up his own importance. ("I told Paul to junk it . . . but Paul's ego wouldn't let him consider this.") The phrase "revealed here for the first time" also becomes quite irritating. The worst thing, however, is that most of his "facts" are completely or at least partially wrong! (I rolled my eyes quite often throughout this book.) The book reads like a fictional story rather than a biography. What I mean is, Brown retells the stories of events that happened as if he were there, which, for at least 95% of them, he wasn't. (For example, in his story of George's visit to Haight-Ashbury: "Out of the crowd came a guitar, which was thrust into George's hands. 'No...no, please,' George stammered, trying to return it. 'Play!' someone shouted in the crowd . . . George gave Pattie a sick look. He began to strum a few chords, but the acid made the cheap guitar feel like a lump of cheese in his hands . . . George insistently returned the guitar, with profuse apologies, and they tried to make a break for it back to the car. Angry hoots were heard as the mood of the rejected crowd turned malevolent." I know it's been long documented that George had a bad time there, but there is plenty of literary and photographic proof that Brown's version isn't accurate.) Reading this book reminded me a lot of the kids in grade school who'd tattle about every little thing, usually making up lies. To give Brown his due, I do admit that his first-hand recounts of the terrifying incidents in Japan and the Phillipines which happened during the Beatles' final tour are excellent.
Brown's strong point is obviously his knowledge of the financial aspect of the Beatles' lives, as he quotes quite a few figures throughout the book (how accurate they actually are can't be certain). However, when discussing their songs, lyrics, or phyches, he appears rather foolish. Unprofessionally for a biographer, he can't seem to keep his personal opinions to a minimum. (What I found most hilarious was that, towards the end of the book, he mentions a project comprising of video footage of the Beatles being put together by Neil Aspinall. Brown calls it "pathetic." Well, 15 years later, this "pathetic" project turned out to be The Beatles Anthology...something much bigger and much better than Peter Brown's little storybook.)
I rate this book 2 stars because, inaccuracies aside, it actually IS entertaining. However, believe in many of Brown's words and you'll end up feeling depressed, I'm sure, as he absolutely does NOT focus on ANYTHING positive. If you haven't read many Beatles books yet, this is definately not recommended. For an unbiased look at the Beatles, try Nicholas Schaffner's "The Beatles Forever," which came out a few years before "The Love You Make."

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Nothing has been held back, even when it shocks"., April 1, 2002

By 

C.H. (Beach Park, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Love You Make (Signet) (Paperback)

As the paperback cover states, longtime Beatle insider Peter Brown dishes out the dirt, National Enquirer style. Written with the cooperation of the Beatles, their wives/girlfriends etc., there was nonetheless a backlash when they read what went to print (though they didn't deny much of it) and he was forever cut from the Beatles' inner circle. Lots of information about the drug and sexual habits of those cuddly Liverpudlians, as well as the antics of manager Brian Epstein. Nice to know these things, but I think I'll just listen to their music.