John Knowles's Reviews > A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song

For most of my life I was a fan of the Beatles. Seeing this book on the bookshelves really intrigued me so I picked it up to try it. While I'm not a super fan and don't know everything about them or the songs. This book was a fairly lengthy read since the Beatles have release over one hundred songs. The book works like a biography, giving background information of more than just when and why the song was written. For example, the book explains in greater detail John Lennon's poor relationships with his daughter and son. His daughter actually became a teenage runaway, which became the inspiration for "She's Leaving Home". A more well know song that Paul McCartney wrote about Lennon's son originally named "Hey Julian", then "Hey Jules", and finally "Hey Jude". The book also gives insight to other stuff like the deranged murderer, Charles Manson who supposedly was inspired to do his work when he misinterpreted the meaning to Helter Skelter.

Overall Steve Turner did a great job getting information about all of these songs. I find it very impressive how he found at least one quote per song and other extensive insights about said songs. He also did a great job expanding on more than just the song (Like the Charles Manson story and the Teenage runaway). He also gave information about the time period to give better insight about how the times were. Overall, I would recommend this to any Beatles fan, both casual listeners and full fledged super fans.