The 1960s were characterised by a great cultural and ideological revolution that started with young people and involved workers, intellectuals and ethnic minority groups. These were the years of racial struggles, women's emancipation and technological progress. The protest of those years found in music an effective channel of diffusion and the Beatles, together with other great musicians, are part of the great revolution.

It is hard to imagine modern music, rock, pop, songwriting and pop music without the Beatles, who were profoundly influenced by the art, music and attitude of the 'fab four', the 'baronets', as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr are still called, the protagonists of a legendary career.

Bibliography:

 

Beatles : interviews, history and magic, complete discography and videography. - Milan: Arcana Editrice, c1984.

Selected Radio Interviews (1964-1965), A Guide to Record Secrets and Wonders, Complete Video Catalogue, John Lennon cited by Manson's defenders, Paul McCartney is dead, The genesis of 'Sergeant Pepper's', Beatles in Italy...

 

 

 

 

The Beatles / Bob Spitz; translation by Ira Rubini. - Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, 2006.

Think you know everything about the Beatles? Wait until you have read this exciting biography. A lot has been said about the Beatles, but never as in this book has the halo of mystery that surrounded the legendary band for more than forty years been dissolved by the rigour and sensitivity of Bob Spitz who, in almost a decade of research, has reconstructed the private life and public image of the quartet that shook music and started a true cultural revolution. Through direct interviews, unpublished documents, articles, radio programmes and photographic material, the author has followed the boys from their origins in working-class Liverpool to their troubled final days as a group, weaving a comprehensive, brilliant and joyful account of the four pioneers of the new age of rock.

 

The Beatles anthology. - Milan : Rizzoli, 2000

A true autobiography in which Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon take the floor and recount the life and artistic career of the great musical group. Pages from the archives and interviews specially created for this work trace the portrait not only of the Beatles but of an entire generation that identified with them.

 

 

Beatles versus Rolling Stones / Georg Diez; translation by Thomas Paggini and Fausto Vitaliano. - Milan: Feltrinelli, 2001.

The book is conceived as a face-to-face, a confrontation that tells the story of the two bands that changed the face of pop music and so much of western custom. Beyond the historical juxtaposition, there is an opposition that 'works' underneath the taste choices that new generations still make today. Georg Diez reconstructs facts and misdeeds, interweaving the events of the two bands and shaping a 'conflict' (of ideas, promises, behavioural models) that still affects our present.

 

The Beatles: the complete works / Ian MacDonald; Italian edition edited by Franco Zanetti. - Milan: A. Mondadori, 1997.

This meticulous and accurate examination of the Beatles' complete oeuvre - an official discography counting 211 recorded tracks, 186 of which are signed by the members of the quartet - opens with a thorough introduction that places the 'baronets from Liverpool' in the more general framework of the historical evolution of their decade. Of every single track MacDonald provides an impressive amount of information and details: the instrumentation, the dates of issue, the circumstances in which it was conceived, the composition methodology, the recording process (drafting, arranging, performing, mixing). A systematic, rigorously scientific study - completed by an interesting synoptic section, an extensive bibliography and a rich glossary of technical and specialised terms - that does not omit to consider the complex network of relationships that united John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to their collaborators and the most controversial aspects of the history of one of the legends of our century.

 

 

 From the Beatles' deception to God's music / Giancarlo Padula. - Milan: Greco & Greco, 2003.

So many hopes, myths, chimeras, feelings, utopias and ideals shattered! So much music. Why was and is all this a deception? What actually lies behind the seemingly innocuous Yellow Submarine? Behind the 'pacifist' All you need is love. What is the real message of 'Imagine'? What are the overt and subliminal messages of so many modern, even Italian, music 'idols'? Who were the four baronets from Liverpool and all that and more around them born and developed who were they really? What lies behind rock, pop, Italian and international songwriting itself? What 'fever' was Saturday night really about? What lies behind the apparent 'innocence' of ballroom dancing? Who is actually the conductor of this variegated, colourful, phantasmagorical orchestra that once plays Rock'n Roll, (discover the true meaning of the word!) once Pop, once invites us to Woodstock, another to White's Island, then lures us to the disco. Inspired by all this music? You will read in this book a unique and shocking testimony.

 

 

 A Day In The Life : the music and art of the Beatles / Mark Hertsgaard. - Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, c1995. -

"A Day In The Life" takes the reader inside the creative process that led to classics such as "Eleanor Rigby", "Yesterday" or "I Want To Hold Your Hand". We discover how George Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' was transformed, after forty-four versions, from a delicate acoustic piece into an overwhelming rock song. And we penetrate the alchemies of the less than idyllic collaboration between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It is often forgotten that the Beatles, cultural icons of entire generations and celebrities 'more popular than Jesus Christ', as one of them once said, were first and foremost musicians. Paul McCartney was not exaggerating when he said that 'a hundred years from now people will listen to Beatles music in the same way we listen to Mozart today'. Hertsgaard shows us why.

 

 

  Lennon dossier : the secret FBI documents / with a testimony by Walter Veltroni; introduction to the film by Carlo Antonelli. - Milan: Feltrinelli: Mikado distributor, 2007.

The book, introduced by a testimony by Walter Veltroni, contains a series of documents from the dossier that the FBI had opened on the 'special guard' John Lennon, considered a 'pacifist', an 'extremist' and therefore 'dangerous'.

 

 

 

 The fabulous Beatles : life, career, recordings / Roy Carr, Tony Tyler. - Milan: Sonzogno, 1980.

The first and only critical guide to the Beatles' songs, from their early days to their most recent recordings. An illustrated anthology: life, loves, successes, controversies and legal battles of the Liverpool 4 in 250 selected pictures.

 

 

 Imagine this : me and my brother John Lennon / Julia Baird ; translation by Ilaria Arcà. - Rome : Giulio Perrone, 2008.

This story begins in Liverpool. It is the story of a family and its secrets, and of a fate, most often mocking. John is still a child. When he is only five years old, Aunt Mimi snatches him from his mother's arms and tries to keep him away from the woman she considers immoral and unfit. This volume is the story of a tender and poignant love between mother and son that no one can stand in the way of. John will run to his mother as soon as he can. With her he will play his first chords, he will discover in music an absolute passion. He will have in that woman and in his little sisters, born from a later relationship, his first passionate audience. And when everyone seemed convinced that they would soon become a real family, the death of his mother disrupted those plans. The impact it will have on 17-year-old John and his sisters will be devastating. It is Julia Baird, John's sister, who tells the story. In her pages we relive her brother's first loves, the passion for music that devoured him, the small band put together back in his school days, when they played in the bathroom, the kitchen, wherever they could. What emerges is an affectionate and unedited portrait, an emotional map punctuated by John's first loves, his marriage to Cynthia, the discovery of fatherhood. And then the Beatles, the planetary success, John's estrangement and violent death. A long biographical account, the story of a complicated and tenacious relationship.

 

 

 John Lennon: the encyclopaedia / Bill Harry; translation by Valeria Cozza Caposavi, Luca Piccirilli, Nicoletta Sereggi. - Rome: Arcana, c2002, print 2001.

Everything known and less known about the life of the most beloved of the Fab Four. From his difficult childhood to his encounter with the other Beatles, from his detachment from the group to his solo work and his sentimental and intellectual communion with Yoko Ono. John Lennon. The Encyclopaedia is the complete map of the man and the myth, built by analysing all the elements that made him the supreme popular icon. It is the only book that every true Lennon fan really needs.

 

 

The Beatles' songbook / edited by Alan Aldridge; translated by Umberto Santucci. - Milan: A. Mondadori, 2001

Getting to know the Beatles is not only about listening to catchy and pleasant tunes, rhythms whose original sound marked an unprecedented turning point in the history of contemporary pop music: it also means understanding their words, interpreting their poetic message. This is what Alan Aldridge and his other collaborators set out to do. A manifesto of neo-liberty, pop, beat graphics juxtaposed with the Liverpool quartet's most beautiful songs.

 

 

 

I me mine / George Harrison. - Milan: Rizzoli, 2002.

A unique and valuable portrait of George Harrison, full of the intelligence, warmth and grace that characterised his life and songs. The conversation between George and Derek Taylor ranges from his childhood in Liverpool and the beginnings of Beatlemania to his love of India, gardening and car racing.

 

 

 

 

  In the name of the Beatles: past and present of a modern mythology / Salvatore Pettinato. - Milan: Rusconi, c1997.

Looking to the Beatles' 230 songs to explain their fame and greatness is a sterile adventure. The Fab Four themselves never let their production go to their heads: never smug, never triumphant, completely different from the easy stars the pop music world is chock-full of.

The reasons for an overwhelming and indisputable supremacy lie elsewhere, in a favourable combination of time and youth 'mode' of an entire era, which the four boys from Lirverpool were able to symbolise. If rock and roll constituted a bridge between a black sense of music and white youth, the Beatles had the same function as a bridge between rock and roll and the common culture of pop music. It is this dual mediation that made their 'recipe' the unsurpassed benchmark of all that youth music produced in the West in the second half of the century. They did not compose the best pop music, nor did they play and sing the best: they decided, like prophets, the methodology of rock artists of international standing. This book brings together and examines everything that revolves around the Beatles.

 

 

 The Quarrymen: the true story of the group from which the Beatles sprang / Hunter Davies; translation by Stefania Cherchi. - Rome: Arcana, 2002.

They were an unknown bunch of kids from Liverpool, one of whom, looking like a rocker, answered to the name of John Lennon. One Sunday afternoon they had a gig at a parish party and in the audience was one of their contemporaries, Paul McCartney. Here is the story of the myth-making.

 

 

 

   Shouth! The true story of the Beatles / Philip Norman. - Mondadori, 1982.

When, in 1969, he was asked to cover the affairs of Apple, Philip Norman could hardly have imagined that this close encounter with the Beatles would define his career as a writer. Nine years later, in fact, he would begin the 'obsessive' research that would later result in 'Shout! The Beatles in their generation', the first version of what would remain in the annals as the 'definitive' and unsurpassed biography of the Beatles. "Shout!" traces the life and music of the Fab Four from the messy and often comical beginnings in Liverpool and Hamburg to the heights of Beatlemania, and then accompanies them through the chaos of Apple, the collapse of hippy ideals and finally the band's break-up. The difficulties of the Beatles' stifling legacy and the solo careers of John, Paul, George and Ringo are also explored. Already extensively revised at the turn of the millennium, the biography has been updated to 2020 exclusively for this new Italian translation.

 

 

  Strawberry fields forever : John Lennon remembered / by Vic Garbarini and Brian Cullman with Barbara Graustark ; special introduction by Dave Marsh. - New York [etc.] : Bantam book, 1980.

Contents: Introduction by Dave Marsh - 1) The dream is over - 2) Seven days in December - 3) Sometime in N.Y.C. - 4) All the lonely people: the early years - 5) Strawberry fields - 6) The plastic ono band - 7) Two virgins: the exclusive newsweek interview . A chronological biography Liverpool to New York 1940-1980

 

 

 

 

True love: drawings for Sean / John Lennon; introduction by Yoko Ono; translation by Anna Martini. - Turin : Einaudi, c1999.

For Sean, born in 1975, John Lennon was the father. A dad who preferred to stay at home to look after Sean. To play, and to draw together. There was a time in the Lennon family's life, says Yoko Ono, that the whole New York flat was wallpapered with Sean's drawings. As happens in every family with a child, of course. From this happy normality comes this book that collects the drawings John did for Sean. With John's funny, witty captions that sound like verses from a Beatles song; but which, above all, resemble the light threads woven by every father for every son, in that happy moment when creativity, simplicity and joy are still a small land where one can live.

 

 

 Vivendo Cantando: racconti & lennonsense / John Lennon; edited by Antonio Taormina; Italian adaptation by Donatella Franzoni and Antonio Taormina. - Rome: Arcana, 1990. - (With original drawings by John Lennon).

In 1964, 'John Lennon in His Own Write' was released in British bookshops and in 1965, 'A Spaniard in the Works', both written by John Lennon. The two works soon became a literary case and were a great sales success. This book re-presents the two texts today, rediscovering the great relevance of the most unpredictable, sarcastic, bizarre and funny Lennon.

 

 

 

Yesterday... : images of the Beatles between symbol and myth / Harry Benson. - Legnano : Crealibri, c2003.

The photographic story of Harry Benson, a great photographer, for what remains to this day the most extraordinary musical phenomenon of the 20th century: The Beatles. Unique and unrepeatable shots collected in this book characterised by its large format.

 

 

Audio CD:

 

 

The Beatles anthology [Audiorecording] / produced and directed by George Martin. - London: Apple Corps; Hayes: EMI, 1996. - 2 compact discs.63 min., 34 sec.; 64 min., 19 sec.

Anthology is a collection of recordings by the British music group The Beatles. It was released in November 1995, and includes tracks from 1958 to 1964, including some of the failed auditions at Decca. The album also included the song Free as a Bird, produced by Jeff Lynne, which is practically the first real new Beatles song produced in 25 years.

 

 Live 1969-1972 [Audiorecording] / John Lennon. - Milan: Curcio, 1992.

1) Woman Is The Nigger Of The World. 2) Cold Turkey. 3) Blue Suede Shoes. 4) Give Peace A Chance. 5) Attica State. 6) The Luck Of The Irish. 7) Imagine. 8) Dizzy Miss Lizzy. 9) John Sinclair. 10) Yer Blues. 11) Money. 12) We're All Water.

 

 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [Audiorecording] / Beatles. - Italy: EMI, p1987.

Fifty years after its release in 1967, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band remains a milestone in the Beatles' career and in the history of pop music. Always considered the greatest album of all time, it is an album deeply immersed in the 1960s, whose splendour, sound and atmosphere it evokes, at the height of the joyful psychedelia that characterises them.

 

Tripping the live fantastic [Audiorecording] / Paul McCartney. - [italy]: MPL Comunications LTD, [1990].

Tripping the Live Fantastic is Paul McCartney's first solo live album. The tracklist covers much of McCartney's career with the Beatles and as a solo artist. The album, edited to sound like one big concert, occasionally features some tracks recorded at soundcheck: some unreleased improvised tracks and covers from various eras. The title alludes to the phrase 'tripping the light fantastic' from John Milton's poem The Allegro, meaning dancing or moving to musical accompaniment.

 

Filmography:

 

 

Imagine : John Lennon [Electronic resource]; written by Sam Egan and Andrew Solt. - Milan : Warner home video, c2005. - 2 DVDs (ca. 102 min.) : sound (Dolby digital 2.0 stereo), colour.

"Imagine: John Lennon Special Edition" celebrates the life of one of the most fascinating and complex visionaries of our time. The release of this new DVD version coincided with the 25th anniversary of his untimely death on 8 December 1980. Although he was best known as a founding member of the Beatles, John Lennon still retains a powerful influence as a musician, writer, philosopher, artist, pacifist and poet, which transcends the Beatles' own immeasurable celebrity. Produced by David Wolper and Andrew Solt, 'Imagine: John Lennon' was made at the initiative of Yoko Ono, who felt the time had come to open John's personal archives of videos, writings and photographs in order to create the definitive film of his life. Narrated by Lennon himself and supported by an impressive soundtrack of no less than 36 songs (including the work in progress of the recordings that would make up the 'Imagine' album), the film, which makes use of John's immense personal video collection (totalling more than 240 hours!), offers an unprecedented glimpse into the public and private life of the great Liverpool artist. The special 2-DVD edition is intended for all Lennon audiences, but not only...

 

 

U.S.A. v. John Lennon / a film by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld. - Milan: Feltrinelli : Mikado distributor, 2007. - 1 DVD video (ca. 96 min.): sound, colour.

 

"All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance". John Lennon's mantra was one of the pacifist revolutionary anthems with the highest penetration capacity in the Anglo-Saxon world and beyond. The most 'political' of the Beatles (who would go on to write and set to music the evergreen that is Imagine) had at the time already entered the 'Yoko Ono phase' that would later lead to the dissolution of the group, unleashing the wrath of the fans and triggering accusations against the musician's oriental partner.

All the books, CDs and DVDs listed (and much more material on the subject) are available in our libraries. 

Sitography: 

 

 

 

 

Videography:

 

 

 

                 First Beatles video in Blackpool in colour

 

 

The Beatles - best moments

 

When Italy snubbed the Beatles

 

Paul is dead. The legend of the 'fake' Paul McCartney

 

The Beatles in 5 minutes

 

BeatleMania

 

Last Beatles concert

 

The Beatles. Interview

Let It Be

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.

Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

Let It Run

When I find myself in moments of distress
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking wise words, she lets go
And in my dark moments
She stands right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it run

Let it go, let it go
Whispering wise words, let it go

And as soon as the broken-hearted people
Who live in the world will agree
There will be an answer, let it run
For even if they are disunited there still remains
An opportunity that they will seize
There will be an answer, let it run

Let it run, let it run, yes
There will be an answer, let it run

And when the night is clouded over
There is still a light shining on me
It will continue to shine until tomorrow, let it run
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking wise words, let it run

Let it go, let it go
There will be an answer, let it run

Let it go, let it go
Whispering wise words, let it go.