Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles

337 Pages·2007·1.58 MB·English

by  Kenneth Womack

Long and
Winding Roads

Long and
Winding Roads
The Evolving Artistry
of the Beatles
Kenneth Womack
NEW YORK • LONDON • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
Bloomsbury Academic
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First published in 2007 by the Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
© Kenneth Womack, 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Womack, Kenneth.
Long and winding roads : the evolving artistry of the Beatles / Kenneth Womack.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-1745-9 (hardcover :alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-1745-0 (hardcover :alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-1746-6 (pbk. :alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-1746-9 (pbk. :alk. paper)
1. Beatles. 2. Rock music—Analysis, appreciation.
3. Rock musicians—England. I. Title.
ML421.B4W66 2007
782.42166092’2—dc22
2007006478
eISBN: 978-1-6289-2515-9
Jeanine,
Pour toi,ma belle

Contents
Chapter 1
The End
1
Chapter 2
The Beginning
3
Chapter 3
A Cellarful of Noise
21
Chapter 4
And the Band Begins to Play
41
Chapter 5
Rock and Roll Music
63
Chapter 6
The Biggest Showbiz Town Ever
79
vii
viii LONGANDWINDINGROADS
Chapter 7
Yesterday and Today
103
Chapter 8
The End of the Road
129
Chapter 9
The Act You’ve Known for All These Years
157
Chapter 10
Roll Up for the Mystery Tour
187
Chapter 11
Whiter Shades of Pale
211
Chapter 12
Getting Back
251
Chapter 13
The Dream Is Over
277
Chapter 14
Long Live the Dream
301
Acknowledgments
309
Bibliography
311
Index
323
Chapter 1
The End
Whoever has dreamed oftravel and deeds
cannot lower his sails without grieving.
—BJØRNSTJERNEBJØRNSON
T
wenty-three seconds.
At the end of the Beatles’career as recording artists,there were twenty-
three seconds.There were moments of grandeur and largesse in the studio,
punctuated by scenes ofacrimony and bitterness staged in business meetings.
There was also Tittenhurst Park,a Georgian mansion with rolling lawns
and an assortment ofoutbuildings.In the spring of1969,John Lennon pur-
chased the regal,hundred-acre estate to get away from it all,a place to liberate
himselffrom the tumultuous events ofthe previous year—a period in which
he and Yoko Ono had begun to live their lives writ large on the global media
stage.Their highly publicized saga had culminated in March with their much-
ballyhooed wedding near the rock ofGibraltar.Having vacated the Montague
Square apartment in London that he had borrowed from Ringo Starr—Jimi
Hendrix would move into the flat soon thereafter—John had fled with Yoko to
the greener pastures ofrural Ascot.
And for a few hours in the late summer of1969,the Beatles drifted there as
well,eschewing London,with its noise and its pollution,for the countryside,
where they posed for a photo session.It was only the latest ofa seemingly end-
less succession of exercises in which they had posed,at times,around bomb
craters,in parks and on beaches,on boats and around steamer trunks,or,
more recently,as they walked along the zebra crossing on stately Abbey Road
in northwest London,where traffic was stayed for ten minutes while the pho-
tographer had his way.
Some twenty weeks earlier,the Beatles had strummed the final chords of
“Get Back”on the rooftop oftheir Savile Row office building.Their impromptu
1