All You Need Is Love: The End of the Beatles by Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

What Da Cover Says: All You Need is Love is a ground-breaking oral history of the Beatles and how it all came
to an end. Based on never-before-published or heard interviews with Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and their families, friends, and business associates, this is a landmark book, containing stunning new revelations, about the biggest band the world has ever seen.

In 1980-1981 former COO of Apple Corp, Peter Brown and author Steven Gaines interviewed everyone in the Beatles’ inner circle and included a small portion of the transcripts in their international bestselling book The Love You Make, which spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list. But left in their archives was a treasure trove of unique and candid interviews that they chose not to publish, until now. A powerful work assembled through honest, intimate, sometimes contradictory and always fascinating testimony, All You Need is Love is a one-of-a-kind insight into the final days, weeks, months and years of the Beatles phenomenon.

What I Says: I am one of those people who enjoys the Beatles music but never seriously delved into their background, when that Beatles documentary came out recently I didn’t watch it cos I was reading. My daughter though is obsessed with them and has discussed with me her theories on why The Beatles split up, her ideas range from Epstein dying, to lounging on amps to something to do with biscuits. What this book sets out to try and achieve is, using recorded interviews from those in the Beatles inner circle, is there a definitive instance that brought the end?

What I liked most about this book was that the evidence is laid before you uncut, the writers do not give their opinions, there is the odd comment where a known fact is shared but it is left to the reader to decide who they believe. I have to admit that at the beginning this was hard to read, the included interviews are unedited transcripts, including all the um’s and err’s, and the sudden changes in direction as the person thinks of something else, I soon adapted though. You may think this could be a big mistake but it is a great tool for the detective, those who kept repeating themselves and avoided answering the interviewer’s questions give you the feeling of listening to a liar.

As the book progresses you can see the interviewers are focusing on a selection of events, drugs, Epstein, Manila, tours in America, money, Yoko/Linda and the many vultures circling after Epstein’s death. It was interesting how nobody remembered things exactly the same, a lot of memories were similar but there were subtle differences…and then there was Allen Klein, not a single word he says feels like even being close to the truth…and yet I reckon he believed every word he said.

This is a unique look at The Beatles, the inner workings of their lives and how The Beatles worked as a business. I was left shocked at how unprepared the guys were for the death of Epstein, how quickly the con men appeared and started taking advantage…I was surprised they lasted as long as they did. I was left with my own theories but nothing conclusive…which I guess is the point of this book, “here is the info do what you will with it”. Not the easiest format to read but how interesting it was easily draws you in and you soon forget you are reading…saying that I would love to listen to the recordings.

This was my stop on the All You Need Is Love blog tour, be sure to check out the other reviews. Thanks to Octopus Books and Random Things Tours for having me.