THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

6.6-pound Autobiography Tells Us How The Beatles Came To Dominate Pop Music

THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY By the Beatles Chronicle Books, 368 pp., $60 BY BRAD
KAVA Mercury News

In the early years, in every interview they did, the four members of the
Beatles waited for the inevitable question.

``What will you do when the bubble bursts?''

``We'd have hysterics,'' recalls John Lennon in the band's 340,000-word
autobiography, ``The Beatles Anthology,'' due out today, in time for Baby
Boomer Christmas.

``Because someone always asked it. I'm still looking for the bubble.''

In a sense, almost two decades after his death, Lennon's band mates are
also looking for the bubble, and it still hasn't burst.

Some 30 years since they recorded together and 40 years since they burst on
the pop music scene, they are still, as John would say, at the toppermost
of the poppermost.

Their three musical ``Anthologies'' -- two-disc collections of historical
outtakes and rehashes -- sold 30.2 million copies in the 1990s, putting
them in the top 10 of sales for all the decade's artists in the rarefied
air of still-producing sellers Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey and
Metallica.

You can expect sales of this $60 coffee table book (at 6.6 pounds, it's
heavy enough to be a coffee table) to keep the Fab Four high in the sales
spotlight in this new millennium.

Despite a few flaws, this is the book that Beatles fans have been waiting
for for a very long, long time.

It is a mix of old and new perspectives, from the men who sang about what
life would be like at 64, as they near that age.

The book contains oral reminiscences done for a video anthology, spiced up
with interviews done specifically for this book.

Laid out in interview style, it contains the memories of four of the most
important musicians in the history of pop music. It starts with biographies
and then is divided chronologically from 1960 through 1970.

As you leaf through the years and watch them weigh in on their views of
fame, early upbringings, drugs and music, it's not hard to imagine you are
in a room with the foursome, and a small team of friends and co-workers
listening to them respond to each other.

And herein lies the first failing -- Lennon's quotes are weaved in among
the others to seem as if he were there alongside the others.

But they were taken from old interviews, most notably the ``Lennon
Remembers'' series done for ``Rolling Stone'' magazine, which will also be
updated with cutting room floor material for a Christmas release.

It was hard for me to read the Lennon quotes, all of which are annotated
with the interview date, and most of which I already knew from another
context. They gave the book an unreal choppiness like the bizarre ``new''
release of the old Lennon song ``Free As A Bird'' on the recorded Anthologies.

While the others have had a chance to look back with new perspectives,
Lennon is locked out, a piece of history who for once, has no voice in what
his mates are doing.

Last Word For Lennon

(Although, in tribute, they give him the handwritten last page: ``By hook
or by crook, I'll be last in this book,'' he writes in what appears to be a
school yearbook signing.)

If you can get by this Natalie Cole-like mix of living and dead voices,
there are gems to be had. There is a good sampling of the self-effacing and
anyone-else-effacing wit that punctuated most every interview and concert
they gave. There are some very honest looks backward, showing what they
learned and what they didn't know then.

And there are touching eulogies to the man who many thought was their
leader, and defensive answers by the other three to some of Lennon's often
acerbic accusations.

George Harrison remembers how an early promoter wanted to call them Long
John and the Silver Beetles.

``He perceived John as being the leader because he was the biggest, the
pushy one. He was the leader when it was the Quarry Men (an early Beatles
incarnation), and he was certainly the leader at this point. I think he is
still the leader now, probably.''

McCartney, who shared writing credits with Lennon on every Beatles song, is
defensive, and as always, concerned with what others are thinking.

At one point, he clearly sees his differences with Lennon, mainly that he
was raised in a loving family that made him unashamed to be sentimental,
while Lennon, abandoned by his parents, had grown harsh.

``You never saw John,'' recalls McCartney. ``Only through a few chinks in
his armour did I ever see him, because the armour was so tough. John was
always on the surface, tough, tough, tough.''

At one point, reflecting on 1964, on a page decorated with a marijuana
leaf, McCartney regrets that a lot of the talk will soon be about drugs.

``Drugs have now become such a serious menace that it is now difficult to
write about the subject; I don't want to influence anyone in this day and
age. I've got kids of my own.''

Shortly thereafter, though, they acknowledge that Bob Dylan turned them
onto marijuana, and they spent many a year and recorded many a song under
its influence. Their eyes were red throughout the movie ``Help!''; ``Rubber
Soul,'' they recall, was their marijuana album, while ``Revolver'' was
their paean to LSD.

In Their Own Words

Most of this isn't news to anyone who has read the hundreds of books
written about the band, but hearing them talk about it candidly, in their
own write, gives this hefty coffee table book some added weight.

``It's like saying did Dylan Thomas write `Under Milk Wood' on beer?'' says
Lennon in 1972. ``The drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from
crowding in on you. They don't make you write any better.''

The book's best parts include song by song recounts of who did what in the
various collaborations.

While these have been available in other interviews, any Beatles scholar --
and didn't the Beatles do more than anyone to change us all from pop music
toe-tappers to students of music? -- will love to glimpse more about how
these works were created.

Also notable are the primary documents displayed here, from Lennon's letter
handing back his MBE award to the queen, to early set lists and financial
records. There is nothing like seeing a tour account listing that the
Beatles grossed $1.27 million on their 1964 tour of the United States and
Canada, but were paid only 85,000 pounds.

Like the African-American artists they idolized, they too were ripped off
by music industry sharks.

Pictures and text are packed tightly in this 367-page, oversize book, which
might have been spread out and made bigger to accommodate their older audience.

But, in a way, it reflects the band's lives -- ``We seemed to fit a week in
every day,'' recalls Harrison.

In this book, as with the best, multi-layered Beatles songs, I keep turning
the pages and finding things I'd missed.

It works especially well, when read accompanied by the musical
``Anthologies.'' Coincidences -- or synchronicity? -- abound.

I worried that this was more hype and marketing, something these surviving
members and Yoko Ono, seem all too good at. But its sheer density and
moments of poignant, honest reflection will be appealing even those who
didn't or still don't suffer ``Beatlemania.''

This book can't help but be a long winter's treat for older fans -- and the
legions of young ones who have picked up on a band that is still
influencing strains of so-called alternative and modern music.