Welcome to Mark Arnold's Beatles Book Site

Hi,

This is Mark Arnold. I am a writer. I wrote a book in 2006 called, "The Best of The Harveyville Fun Times!" Now, I'm at work on two new books: one is called, "Created and Produced by Total TeleVision: The Story of Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo & the Rest" for BearManor Media and the other is called, "Mark Arnold Picks on The Beatles", which I plan to publish myself, unless a publisher is interested.

With this blog, I intend to print one review on a daily (hopefully) basis that will eventually appear in the book. I strongly welcome comments and corrections to any factual information that I may say or any song omissions.

I am looking for artists to do both cartoony and realistic drawings and paintings of The Beatles for the book. Everyone's contribution that's used will receive a free copy of the book when it's published, so contact me if you're interested. My tentative plan is to complete the writing of this book in Spring 2008 and publish in the Fall after I get all of the artwork and advertising.

I am trying to review every song written and/or performed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and The Beatles, regardless if it was released or not.

We'll start off the listings with "Abandoned Love" on the next blog.

In the meantime, here's the rough draft of the introduction to my book. Happy reading and I look forward to your comments and your submissions.

Mark Arnold Picks On The Beatles 1st Edition. All opinions and text are copyright 2008 by Mark Arnold except for any lyrical quotations.

I first became interested in The Beatles in early 1977. I had recently become a fan of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and of NBC’s Saturday Night Live. On February 19, 1977, NBC aired a repeat of the Saturday Night Live episode from October 2, 1976, with Monty Python’s Eric Idle as guest host. On the show were many references to The Beatles including one of Producer Lorne Michael’s appeal to get The Beatles together for $3000 and Idle’s repeated attempts to perform “Here Comes the Sun” at full shout throughout the show. There was also the first appearance of The Rutles, a parody of The Beatles that Idle actually premiered on SNL before airing it on his own Rutland Weekend Television. All of these Beatles references got me really intrigued about who these people were. I had heard of The Beatles, but didn’t know them individually, nor did I know much about their music. Sure, I had heard “Yellow Submarine” and “Come Together” by this time in my life, but had no idea who the performers were, nor did I care.

Anyway, it was Idle’s shouting performance of “Here Comes the Sun” that got me asking my parents, “What does the original song sound like anyway?” My parents said, “Well, we have the album over there (Abbey Road), why don’t you listen to it?” So, I took the album from the rack and placed the needle on side two, track one to listen to “Here Comes the Sun”. I thought to myself, “That’s a nice song and I have heard this before. I wonder what else is on this album.” So I flipped the record over and started with “Come Together” and was amazed and thought to myself: “I’ve heard this before!” And indeed I had, many times on the radio and the earliest memory of it is as background music at a restaurant in Castroville, CA, called The Giant Artichoke circa 1971-1972.

The next track was “Something” and again I was, “I’ve heard this!!” I hadn’t heard the next couple of tracks (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” or “Oh! Darling”) before but thought that “Silver Hammer” was funny, but wasn’t terribly impressed with “Oh! Darling” at the time. Then the next track was “Octopus’s Garden” and again I was, “I’ve heard this!!” I listened to the rest of the album and concluded, “This isn’t right. There’s four songs on this album that I have heard before and the rest wasn’t too bad.” I was under the impression that albums were always filler for a hit song or two, so to have at least four “hit songs” on a non-greatest hits album was wrong! Nobody could be that good!!

I asked my parents if we owned any more Beatles stuff. The only other item was a 45 of “Help!” back with “I’m Down”. I had also heard “Help!” before and really liked this song. “I’m Down” was new to me, but has since become one of my favorite Beatles songs of all time.

I was hooked. Every time a birthday or Christmas rolled around I wanted to buy a new album. At first, as most fans probably are, I only wanted Beatles. I was disinterested or better still, unfamiliar with what John, Paul, George and Ringo were currently putting out. In fact, as amazing as this is, in early 1978, my mother bought me a 45 of “With a Little Luck” and it was credited to “Wings”, so I asked her why she bought me this. She said, “Take a look at who wrote it.” It said “McCartney” and I said, “Oh.” I played the 45 and discovered that I was totally familiar with the track because of the radio but didn’t know that this was by the same guy that used to be in The Beatles. Dumb, I know, but I learned quickly.

I believed the myth that John, Paul, George and Ringo didn’t produce anything of real consequence after their 1970 break up. In fact, some of my favorite tracks by the foursome appeared long after the split and I’m still discovering quality tracks to this day as you will discover in my reviews.

Songs not listed include those where Beatles were producers or supporting players and do not sing. An exception to this rule are songs by Yoko Ono if included in John Lennon product, or songs by other Wings members if included in Paul McCartney product. Only commercially released albums and compilations in the US or UK are listed and reviewed as they have been considered over the years to be the general acceptable configurations for most of these songs. If a song is part of a compilation or soundtrack, the compilation or soundtrack may be listed in the review, but the compilation or soundtrack will not be listed unless one of the Fab Four has contributed at least 50% of the compilation (i.e. Scouse the Mouse is listed, while Lethal Weapon 2 is not). I have to say that I have personally listened to or viewed everything listed in this book unless otherwise indicated. It’s mainly unreleased material that I have never heard before. Obviously, as Paul and Ringo continue to record new material, these songs will be added to future editions, and if anything has been overlooked or omitted, please let me know at thft@att.net, so that it can be added to future editions. Incidentally, when I say a date for “First released”, it is always the date of the first Beatles-related issue.

Bibliography:
Beatles After the Break-Up, The by Keith Badman
Beatles: An Illustrated Record, The by Roy Carr & Tony Tyler
Beatles Anthology, The by The Beatles
Beatles Digest, The by Goldmine
Beatles Forever, The by Nicholas Schaffner
Beatles on Record, The by Mark Wallgren
Beatles Recording Sessions, The by Mark Lewisohn
Beatles Ultimate Recording Guide, The by Allen J. Weiner
Complete Beatles Chronicle, The by Mark Lewisohn
Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of The Beatles Let it Be Disaster by Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt
Great Rock Discography, The by Martin C. Strong
Lennon and McCartney Together Alone by John Blaney
Long and Winding Road, The by Ted Greenwald
Top Pop Singles 1955-1993 by Joel Whitburn
Unreleased Beatles by Richie Unterberger
and of course the various albums and videos by The Beatles, group and solo, and their friends, and Limewire.

By the way, I will be incorporating a ratings system in this book for you to pick and choose.

**** = GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE (A classic tune and must have track)
*** = I FEEL FINE (A really good if not great track)
** = GETTING BETTER (Not bad, but not great average sounding track)
* = I’M A LOSER (Some artistic merit, but just barely)
0 (no stars) = FOR NO ONE (For completists or masochists only)
no rating = (I haven't heard it, so I can't really rate it. Send me a copy for next edition)

Finally, I just want to offer up the following disclaimer for anyone who thinks I am personally attacking their favorite Beatles group or solo song. This is all in fun and I have to admit that I probably would buy an album of The Beatles farting and enjoy it.

-Mark.