Dreaming the Beatles

The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World

Rob Sheffield

• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780062207661
• eBook ISBN: 9780062207678
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Art General

An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism

“This is the best book about the Beatles ever written”  —Mashable

Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them.

Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up?

As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia.

Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.

Index

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

Aaliyah, 124

Abba, 13

Abbey Road (album), 5, 10, 13, 83, 95, 100, 159, 160, 194, 199, 211–215, 225–229, 232, 256, 261–62

Abbey Road (studio), 5, 83–84, 90–96, 118–120 132, 138, 151, 191, 199, 212, 213, 234–35

“About a Girl,” 302

“Across the Universe,” 102

“Act Naturally,” 65

Adams, Douglas, 66

Aerosmith, 102, 279

Aftermath, 132, 137–38, 182, 184

“Afternoon Delight,” 276

“Ain’t No Way,” 101

“Ain’t That Peculiar,” 91

“Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” 298

“All My Loving,” 9, 74, 261

“All right, George!,” 38

“All She Wants to Do Is Dance,” 299

All Things Must Pass, xii, 55, 234, 245, 269

“All Those Years Ago,” 54, 289

“All Together Now,” 111, 172

All You Need is Cash, 114

“All You Need Is Love,” 9, 178, 186, 251, 285

“Alphabet Street,” 315

Altamont, 202–206

“American Pie,” 205

American Top 40, 158

“And Your Bird Can Sing,” xi, 9, 89, 120, 131, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139

“Angel Baby,” 59

“Anna (Go To Him),” 40

“Another Day,” 14

Ant, Adam, 257

Anthology, 4–5, 9, 31, 68, 72, 136, 193, 304–6, 307

“Any Time at All,” 280

Appetite for Destruction, 139

Apple, Fiona, 104

Apple, 15, 66–67, 177, 287–88

“Apple Scruffs,” xii, 77

Armchair Controversy, 223–24

Asher, Jane, 117, 133, 146, 176

Asher, Peter, 133, 217

“Ask Me Why,” 38, 51

Aspinall, Neil, 142, 143, 144, 146, 223

“Attack of the Blue Meanies,” 227

Austen, Jane, 314–15

Auteurs, 194

Aykroyd, Dan, 256

Ayler, Albert, 133

“Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” 107

“Baby It’s You,” 40, 59

“Baby You’re a Rich Man,” 172

“Baby’s in Black,” 11, 18, 311–12, 313

Bacall, Lauren, 67

Bach, Barbara, xii

The Bacchae, 72

“Back in the U.S.S.R.,” 281

Back to the Egg, 269

Backstreet Boys, 307

“Bad Boy,” 280–82

Bad Company, 206

Badfinger, 273

Bailey, F. Lee, 217

“Ballad of a Thin Man,” 152

“The Ballad of John and Yoko,” 244, 251–52

“Ballrooms of Mars,” 109

Bananas magazine, 158–59, 160

The Band, 159

Band on the Run, 268–69

“Band on the Run,” 81

The Bangles, 111

Bangor, Wales: Beatles retreat to, 165, 176–77, 179

Bardot, Brigitte, 154, 234

Barrett, Syd, 53

Bauhaus, 112–13

Bay City Rollers, 17–18, 261

Beach Boys, 132, 136, 285

Beardsley, Aubrey, 153

Beastie Boys, 18, 101–2

The Beatle Tapes, 284

Beatlemania, 286–88

The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, 11, 17, 18, 72, 73, 77, 227, 284

Beatles for Sale, 72, 84, 97, 112

The Beatles Forever (Schaffner), 16, 216

“The Beatles Movie Medley,” 107–8

The Beatles Second Album, 60, 73. See also With the Beatles

Beaucoups of Blues, 69, 2...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Dramatis Personae
• Prelude: “Thanks, Mo”
• Meet The Beatles (1962–1970)
• “Dear Prudence” (1968)
• “I Call Your Name” (1957)
• Please Please Me (1963)
• The Mystery Inside of George
• “It Won’t Be Long” (1963)
• The Importance of Being Ringo
• The Scream
• “Ticket to Ride” (1965)
• “Think for Yourself” (1965)
• Rubber Soul (1965)
• Instrumental Break: 26 Songs About the Beatles
• “Tomorrow Never Knows” (1966)
• Revolver (1966)
• “Strawberry Fields Forever” (1967)
• The Cover of Sgt. Pepper (1967)
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
• “It’s All Too Much” (1967)
• Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
• Beatles or Stones?
• The White Album (1968)
• “Helter Skelter” (1968)
• “Something” (1969) vs. “My Love” (1971)
• The Cover of Abbey Road (1969)
• Turn Me On, Dead Man
• The Beatles’ Last Album (1970)
• “Maybe I’m Amazed” (1970)
• “God” (1970)
• Paul Is a Concept by Which We Measure Our Pain
• When George Sang “In My Life” (1974)
• A Toot and a Snore In ’74 (1974)
• Rock ’n’ Roll Music (1976)
• “Silver Horse” (1981)
• The Ballad of Eighties Beatles vs. Nineties Beatles
• The End: Sorry We Hurt Your Field, Mister
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index
• Illustrations
• About the Author
• Also by Rob Sheffield
• Copyright
• About the Publisher