The Beatles

Gonorrhea plagued the Beatles after a wild stint in Hamburg, greatly complicating both their personal and professional lives, according to Bob Spitz’s uncomfortably-detailed history of the band, simply entitled “The Beatles.”

“There was so much sex on the fly that it seemed almost quid pro quo that they would eventually have gotten it for their efforts,” the author writes. The infections had to be hushed up to prevent John Lennon’s then-wife, Cynthia, from filing for divorce and walking away with half of John’s earnings. A team of “tame venereologists” was called in to treat the most influential and arguably most beloved band in history.

Such anecdotal (and venereal) gems pepper this quite definitive, nearly 1,000-page tome, recounting the lives of the Fab Four from their ancestral origins all the way through the band’s dissolution in April 1970.

Harvard students considering inter-disciplinary work need only look to Spitz’s analysis of the band’s formation to see a master at work. The book does not begin with the creation of the band. The narrative begins in 1800s Liverpool, mapping out the socioeconomic formation of the city. Spitz uses this setting as a platform to describe the historic Irish migration patterns that brought both the Lennons and McCartneys to Liverpool.

Enfolding physics into the formative tale, Spitz writes, “Thanks to a confluence of geography and the cosmos, Radio Luxembourg...had a signal that by some miracle could sprint its semidirect way to the United Kingdom.” Three of the four future Beatles simultaneously listened by night to that station’s brand of American rhythm-and-blues, stricken from conservative British-owned radio stations.

The book treads through territory familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of the Beatles’ history. Their rough early years in Liverpool as the Quarrymen; the band’s evolution as a cohesive musical force in the decrepit red-light district of Hamburg; their subsequent return to Liverpool; the sudden stardom; their appearance on Ed Sullivan and Beatlemania in America; their reinvention amid the “Sergeant Pepper” years; and finally, the break-up, infamously hastened by tensions from Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono.

What truly sets Spitz’s account apart from other works is the level of detail in his research. Although the book reveals little that’s new in terms of the band’s general history, fascinating anecdotes abound.

No potential detail is left unrevealed—from manager Brian Epstein’s hat size (7 and 3/8) to the fact that George Harrison “reposition[ed] [his] furniture for maximum sunlight and serenity” after becoming Ravi Shankar’s disciple in India.

Seemingly innocent Paul McCarney is revealed to have been engaged to girlfriend Dot Rhone while she was pregnant. “With the pregnancy only three months along, Dot miscarried,” Spitz writes. “With [Paul] suddenly free of obligation, it was only a matter of time before they turned bitterly frigid, and a few weeks later he announced that it was over between them.”

Despite his obsession with the band, Spitz refuses to glorify his subjects and portrays them in a strikingly truthful and complex light.

Occasionally, Spitz’s frightfully exhaustive eye strays too far away from his subjects, as when he goes into the matter of manager Epstein’s tortured homosexuality, offering up Epstein’s once-private journal with the passage: “‘It was at this school…that I can first remember my feeling for other male persons and a longing for a close and intimate friend.’” While mildly captivating and distantly related to the band’s creation, some readers may be turned off by such obsessive analysis of every influence on the band’s lives.

Spitz’s prose occasionally drifts into the realm of chuckle-inducing clichés, as when he writes that the Beatles “were actually going on the road—a road from which they would never look back.”

However, Spitz stylistically redeems himself with his incredible ability to set a scene. He describes one of the clubs the band played at in their early years as being a “filthy, sweltering, fetid, claustrophobic little firetrap of a club. The walls and ceiling sweated absolute humidity; there was no exit aside from the main entrance…an ersatz ventilation pipe had been installed as a concession to the public health department.” How Spitz found out about a 40-year-old ersatz ventilation pipe that probably is no longer in existence is far beyond our understanding, but his skill for sending readers back in time with his description is spellbinding.

“The Beatles” is quite an achievement. Even the most hardcore Beatles fan will be able to discover some new minutiae about the band. For the casual Beatles fan, the book may prove too detailed, but those willing to endure the many esoteric bits will be treated with incredibly tantalizing tales about the most iconic band in rock and roll history.

The Beatles
By Bob Spitz
Back Bay Books
Out Now