You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the "Beatles" |  | Author: Peter Doggett
Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £18.99
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 48500
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.6
ISBN: 1847920748
EAN: 9781847920744
ASIN: 1847920748
Publication Date: September 24, 2009
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN January 12, 2010
Remaster Bob (Hong Kong, China SAR Hong Kong)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great book.
Triggered by the recent arrival of the remastered music, and having too much time on my hands, I have been reading Beatle-books all of a sudden and for the first time. So far I have devoured: "Can't Buy Me Love" - Jonathan Gould, "Read The Beatles" - Edited by June Skinner Sawyers, "Magical Mystery Tours: My Life With The Beatles" - Paul Bramwell, "The Act You've Known For All These Years" - Clinton Heylin, and this. Heylin's content was misrepresented on the cover (I thought it was a book all about the Sgt Pepper album and The Beatles!) and his prose often bordered on the unreadable. I've made a note to avoid his other work. All the others are warmly recommended except - sorry mate - Paul Bramwell's biography, which failed to engage me as I had hoped it would. Apart from it's vitriolic truthfullness (?) or at least his frankness on his experience of Yoko Ono, I can't remember anything else about it already. "Read The Beatles" was an enjoyable anthology, and Jonathan Gould's "Can't Buy Me Love" would make a great companion for Peter Doggett's new study; slip from that straight into "You Never Give Me Your Money", and a curious reader would have a great introduction to the whole Beatles saga.
But for many of you who may feel you are familiar enough already with the story of the Beatles as a band - but you're thirsty for more - this would be the one to go for. As others have said - revelations on [nearly] every page. But whereas Mark H. reports more "admiration" than ever for the guys, I experienced an increase in pity, and sympathy, for these four individuals lost inside the maelstrom of their own success, losing touch with each other to varying extremes and fluctuations, losing perspective and placing trust in unworthy places. And the money they lost and spent on lawyers?! - Wow. In a different universe they could have fed the starving of many dozens of Bangladeshi-like crises. Entirely gripping if you feel any loving connection with the phenomenon of The Beatles.
Doggett strikes me as an excellent writer; I was never frustrated by his style. Non-hysterionic if there is such a word. And only once did any doubt arise in my mind about the accuracy of his comments. When he is discussing the 1987 CD release of Sgt Pepper as a "20th Anniversary" event in Chapter 9 and suggests "In 1967 a simple advert in the pop papers had sufficed to announce the album's arrival. Twenty years on there was a multimedia promotional circus...." Well, I have no personal recollection of either launch, but I recall from other accounts that there was a lot of promo work done in 1967 ahead of Sgt Pepper....(a track a day on US radio stations? etc. etc.) But no matter - I am no Beatles historian and I am more than delighted to recommend Doggett as one of the most convincing.
Some of the individual snippets of gossip about both McCartney and Lennon's behaviour, in particular, serve well to present them as the same flawed human beings as the rest of us, occasionally showing outrageously arrogant traits. Money is no guide to human dignity, sure enough. But I liked the balance struck between all four of the Beatles, and the way we are kept in touch with many/all of the other key characters in the story.
There is a pleasant balance, too, across all aspects of the post-break-up story; this is certainly no detailed boring account of finances and lawsuits. In fact, I was looking for more detail on a few occasions, such as: what exactly did Klein get up to that finally turned his three Beatle clients against him? I remember he tried to calm down Lennon's political meanderings, but there must have been more shenaningans involved than that.
A great read though. Ignore my tendency to nit-pick. And I like a good punch-line, which Doggett does not fail to deliver. His final sentence left me with a smile on my face and nodding sagely in agreement. You can't ask for more than that. As a novice armchair reader of the Beatles literature, this - and Jonathan Gould's equally fine contribution - will be remaining on my shelf. I'll enjoy reading this again one day. I can't say fairer than that.
A REVELATION ON EVERY PAGE!!! January 5, 2010
Jojo Allen (Liverpool)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This isn't just another Beatle book.
I've read and still pour through everything on the group.
Fancied myself a real afficionado.
I was blown away by this book!!!
My review title says it all - I learned something I didn't know on practically every page.
It's not a clinical, stodgy text book.
While it is highly detailed and informative, it's also very entertaining.
Immensely readable and hard to put down.
I read very few books these days that I can't wait to get back to and don't want to come to an end.
Pete Doggett's You Never Give Me Your Money is one of those books.
Even I might ask 'Do we really need another book about The Beatles?', but with this kind of brilliant research and writing, perhaps, Mr Doggett should try his hand at the complete and definitive bio of the band.
He'd have my attention.
dont be the fool on the hill and go to the cash till December 23, 2009
baz boz (uk coventry)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
i am not one for writing reviews. but you got to get this book it very good.all beatles fans will love it. puts a new light on the fab four .the beatles are sill fab.it wont put off them.
Not stuffy December 8, 2009
amazon junkie (Bedfordshire, Britain.)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Suprisingly this book is far from being a stuffy accountants summary of the Beatles financial positions and is instead full of interesting anecdotes and insights that swept me along as I read it. Think of it instead as a biography wearing commercial tinted glasses but that is no less fascinating because of it.
Essential reading...! October 20, 2009
M. R. Downham (Epsom, UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I can't help but endorse the reviews already posted - this is an excellent book, detailing the complicated and protracted business affairs of The Beatles, both during the giddy days of Apple in the late 60s through to the 70s and beyond. If it sounds like a dry summary, you couldn't be more wrong. The narrative is brisk & filled with detail that will satisfy most followers of Beatles lore. Above all, it is a hugly sad story as well, showing just how far four people who survived in the eye of the hurricane during Beatlemania drifted apart during the 70s, descending into petty, petulant squabbles as the lawsuits & counter-lawsuits dragged on during the process to disentangle the Apple empire. Conversely, it also offers a glimpse as to how close The Beatles came to reuniting during the mid-1970s when relations thawed.
The only criticism of the book (& it's a small one) is that jacket for the book must rank as being one of the dullest I've seen - it doesn't exactly 'shout' from the bookshelves!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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