Beatles books you own | Page 2 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Looks like we've got quite a few of the same books. What's the Fred Seaman one like? I always imagined it would be a bit like the Goldman book – full of juicy details but with a slightly distasteful agenda.

I didn't know The Beatles Live! had extra information. I might have to get hold of that.

Oh dear, my credit card's just taken another hit. It's a real shame it's out of print – the second hand prices range from £30-80+.

I bought a paperback copy with the flexi disc from Amazon for £30 – it felt like I need this book in my life. Should arrive next week sometime.

mjb said:

A book on books!

http://www.tmrzoo.com/?p=7601 suggest it would have been better with some kind of commentary, rather than just being a list. Still, you've got to admire someone's diligence in compiling something like that.

Skye – there's a thread on the Hunter Davies book here: https://www.beatlesbible.com/f…..e-beatles/

I'd imagine (no pun intended) he picked up a lot while writing closely with Paul, who knew a bit before. Here are some Anthology quotes that suggest they passed around some knowledge between them.

PAUL: “Dad was a pretty good self-taught pianist, but because he hadn't had training himself, he always refused to teach me. I would say, 'Teach us a bit,' and he would reply, 'If you want to learn, you've got to learn properly.' It was the old ethic that to learn, you should get a teacher. It would have been OK for him to teach me, but I respect the reason why he wouldn't. In the end, I learnt to play by ear, just like him, making it all up. I did then take lessons, but I always had a problem; mainly that I didn't know my tutor, and I wasn't very good at going into an old lady's house – it smelt of old people – so I was uncomfortable. I was just a kid. I quite liked what she was showing me, but then she started setting homework: 'By next week I want you to have learnt this.' I thought it was bad enough coming for lessons, but homework! That was sheer torture. I stuck it for four or five weeks, and then the homework really got difficult so I gave up. To this day I have never learnt to write or read music; I have a vague suspicion now that it would change how I'd do things.

“To this day, I have a deep love for the piano, maybe from my dad: it must be in the genes. He played the piano from when I was born through until I was well into The Beatles. And you can start to see where I'm coming from when you hear an old number like 'Stumbling', which is a very clever tune. Dad told me what was clever about it; he was my musical education. There was none in school; we never got music lessons. He would always point out things like the chord changes at the beginning of 'Stairway To Paradise'. Later, he'd tell us we should do that one with The Beatles. We'd say, 'Dad, Dad… “Build a stairway to paradise”? Please!'”

PAUL: “Stuck out in Hamburg with no instrument, I was forced onto piano as they had one on stage at the Kaiserkeller. I was used to facing the audience so this was an excuse to turn my back on the audience and just get into the music, which was good. I started to get into numbers like 'Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying', a Ray Charles B side. That was a good little period for me, and I think I developed my piano-playing quite a bit. I ended up being slightly better than the other guys on piano from that period by pure default: having no guitar.”

JOHN: “I like 'I Want To Hold Your Hand ', it's a beautiful melody.⁷⁰ I remember when we got the chord that made that song. We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar, playing on the piano at the same time, and we had, 'Oh, you-u-u… got that something…'

“It's a bit haphazard. There's no rules for writing. We write them anywhere, but we usually just sit down, Paul and I, with a guitar and a piano, or two guitars, or a piano and a guitar and Geoff (that's George).⁶⁵ It's all the combinations you can think of; every combination of two people writing a song. And we obviously influence each other, like groups and people do.^“68

I also read a George Martin quote where he said he learned the guitar in the 1960s to try and keep up with The Beatles, but that they were always better. I can't remember the precise quote but I think he said they were better on the piano (Martin's instrument) than he was on guitar.

No definitive info about how John learnt though.