The Beatles: Off the Record

By Keith Badman

The Beatles Off The Record is the most comprehensive oral history of The Beatles ever published - an 'as it happened' story of the greatest pop group of them all.

Featuring a wealth of quotes from the Sixties by John, Paul, George and Ringo themselves and a host of others who were close to the group during the heady days of Beatlemania and beyond, including their families, fellow musicians, Brian Epstein, George Martin and dozens more.

As Hunter Davis, The Beatles official biographer, states in his foreword; ...compared with some of The Beatles' later selective and polished or faulty and fading memories, this is much nearer the truth. Well, as it appeared to be, at the time...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Omnibus Press
• Release date: Dec 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9780857120458

Keith Badman

KEITH BADMAN is the author of several pop culture books, including The Beach Boys, Beatles Off the Record and Good Times and Bad Times: The Definitive Diary of the Rolling Stones 1960–1969.

Reviews for The Beatles

[brianjayjones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A terrific primary source -- but definitely not for those who are unfamiliar with the Beatles and their story. This isn't a biography, it's transcriptions of interviews with the boys and those around them, snippets of news releases and news stories, and transcribed appearances on television or radio shows, all presented in roughly chronological order. Badman provides (rightly) only a minimal guiding track, stepping in only to gloss a name or straighten out a disparity in dates. What he won't do is try to straighten out or explain events or stories, because -- with the advantage of hindsight -- watching the key players try to explain everything themselves is part of what makes this so fascinating. Even if you're a hardcore Beatles fan, there's lots in Badham's book to like, and much that's probably new to you. For one thing, you'll get a better feel for the kind of mind-numbing, eye-glazing interviews the Boys had to sit through, especially early in their career. We've all seen the interviews compressed to their soundbites for documentaries, but Badham lets us see what gets edited out in the interest of time -- mainly one stupid question after another ("Do you get dandruff with all that hair?") which the Beatles, for the most part, answer gamely until around 1966, when John Lennon finally unloads on a reporter for asking "What do you want to do when you grow up?" ("Why are you being so horrid?" one reporter sulkily asks Lennon afterwards.) But it's not just the media that bumbles through interviews; sometimes the Beatles do, too. I was surprised by how non-responsive or rambling their answers could sometimes be -- particularly from Paul McCartney, who could obviously make his charm go a long way, but when you read his remarks on the page, they don't always make a lot of sense. You can also see the Boys reverting to "talking points" for many questions, answering questions the same way, even when cornered individually. Badham also reproduces several documents I'd never seen before: the original lyrics for "Yesterday" (as "Scrambled Eggs"), filed when Paul was simply trying to get the song down on paper with placeholder words; the various press releases from Apple as the wheels were coming off (and when is someone going to write a history of Apple?); a snippet from a 1969 newspaper floating John Lennon as the lead role in the upcoming Jesus Christ, Superstar. Finally, reading interviews and press releases from That Moment In Time -- when they had no way of knowing what was coming -- the end of the Beatles really isn't all that obvious. All four of them continue to speak relatively well of each other in interviews (except for George when speaking of Paul) and indicate that they are still interested in working together if the right project comes along. It's no wonder fans were so shocked when McCartney finally announced he was leaving the group (months after Lennon had already privately left) -- there was little indication of disarray or disagreement in the press, not even from the Beatles themselves. There are places in the book where some interviews or television appearances have obviously been misheard or transcribed incorrectly (at one point, someone describes a crowd of people at an airport as looking like "a sea of hands" from above, when it was probably "sea of ants") but such errors are easy to overlook in this goldmine of a Beatles book. Highly recommended -- but, again, not for those who are unfamiliar with the Beatles story going into it.