An NPR Best Book of the Year • Winner of the Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism
“This is the best book about the Beatles ever written” —Mashable
Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still … entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them.
Dreaming the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up?
As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia.
Dreaming the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.
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I expected much more from this book. It was full of personal opinions and supposed facts that there is no way the author could personally know. Being a long time Beatle fan, I was very disappointed in this book.
An exhilarating, over-the-top, insightful celebration of the Beatles–with a unique focus on the story of the effect of their music on us all since their break-up.
Read 2.23.2019
I stopped reading halfway through. Just too much irrelevant inside details for me, although I love the Beatles.
Very enjoyable read. New insights on the life & times of the Beatles. Stories I have not heard before. Makes me want to go back with a sharper ear and listen to the songs.
It took a little while for me to get into this book. The first few chapters, I came pretty close to stopping, but I stuck it out and it was worth while.
This isn’t the typical story of the Beatles, this is seeing the Beatles from the eyes of someone who grew up with them after they were already gone – broken apart, never to rejoin.
And like the Youtube video of kids reaction to the Beatles, the point is that the Beatles are more than the 60s, more than their generation, the Beatles are something special, something that hooks into people. A band that still sells a million records a year, 50 years after they last made an album.
I don’t agree with the author on many of his opinions on specific songs (although I sort of do agree with him on the two best Beatles albums), but I found a lot to be learned in what he had to say.
If you’re a Beatles fan, you should read this book. If you’re not a Beatles fan, you should read this book.
Not what I expected. Sort of the author’s whimsical fantasy in an unmotivated youth carrying into adulthood.
An interesting take on telling the Beatles story.
After having read countless books about the Beatles I was wondering how much more I could glean about the band from this. But I’m a fan of the writer’s other works and his pieces in Rolling Stone, so I dug in. Man, am I glad I did. Instead of dwelling on the accomplishments, controversies and rumors about the Beatles (yes, they took lots of drugs), “Dreaming The Beatles” is a love letter from the ultimate knowledgeable and inquisitive fan about the longterm significance of the Beatles music. When dealing with the past, Sheffield prefers to examine what was happening internally with the band rather than address the way their actions were perceived by the public. Example: Ringo quit the band so Paul Mccartney played drums on “Dear Prudence.” And the significance of “Prudence?” — She was thedaughter of Mia Farrow — (those Beatles always thought they could get out of a funk by writing about girls, Sheffield observes). So, John Lennon wrote the song to Prudence to try to get her to come out of hiding while they were all at the Maharishi’s in, I believe, India. But in reality, Prudence was probably the most well-adjusted of all and just wanted the members of the Beatles to go away and stop bothering her. Ultimately, the lyrics on the song are reflections of the band’s mind frame not knowing if or when Ringo would return. It’s pearls of wisdom like this that make “Dreaming The Beatles” so enjoyable.
This author has an interesting view on songs I’ve loved a life time, as well as alot of Beatles snippets I’ve never heard before. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Written in Beatlespeak but wrong on some facts and hard to slog through.
If you enjoy theorizing around the “why” of the Beatles phenomenon this is the book for you.