So, I went for a drink with Mark Lewisohn... | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I had the enormous pleasure of meeting one of my heroes yesterday. I’ve been pretty obsessed with Mark Lewisohn’s books since a kindly aunt gave me a copy of the Complete Recording Sessions for my 15th birthday. He’s one of the greats, but we all knew that.

I went to the Laugharne Weekend yesterday. It’s a literature/comedy/music/drinking festival in a small town in west Wales where Dylan Thomas used to live. Mark was one of the speakers. I bought a ticket just for his appearance, which was supposed to be accompanied by a screening of Snodgrass. In the end they couldn’t get the film to work so it was an extended Q&A with Mark and Snodgrass’s writer David Quantick.

The talk covered a fair amount of stuff that’s in Tune In (the George Martin/Norrie Paramor rivalry, the background to the EMI deal etc), but there were a lot of other little anecdotes and facts I’d not heard before. Mark said he’d recently been given access to the NEMS/Epstein archive so he’s been poring through the documents, and is currently researching the Japan tour. He said he’s looking forward to untangling the Apple story and the Maharishi episode in book three, both of which are already offering previously untold stories. All These Years will finish “some time in the 1970s”, so won’t go up to Lennon’s death (unless he changes his mind between now and 2028, of course).

He said that his first book, The Beatles Live!, caught the attention of Paul McCartney , who said it was the best Beatles book he’d ever read. Mark started working for Paul on the latter’s autobiography (!), but the project came to nothing – he suggested it was because Paul didn’t like being contradicted when his recollections conflicted with the facts. This was part of a wider discussion about Early Days on the New album, George telling him “You weren’t there, so how could you know?” and how a historian is able to evaluate and analyse evidence as an outsider.

After the talk Mark was signing copies of Tune In. I’d brought along my copy of the extended special edition (ESE) and we had a chat which went something like this:

“Could you sign it to Joe please? Um… we actually follow each other on Twitter. I run a website called the Beatles Bible.”
“Oh, you’re Joe? Well I’m pleased to meet you. Are you here for the weekend?”
“No, I came just to see your talk. I’ll be heading home soon.”

Then he said one of the greatest phrases in the English language:

“Well, we should go for a pint then.”

So we did, me and my friend Adam, and Mark and his lovely wife Anita. He was very generous with his time, and we had a good chat about The Beatles, writing about The Beatles, and other things Beatles. He’s a great guy, very affable and warm, curious and interested in what other people have to say. For someone who knows he’s at the top of the tree and the effect he’s had on other people (he said several people told him they’d been inspired to become studio engineers/producers after reading the Complete Sessions book) he’s remarkably unaffected.

I won’t go into everything that we discussed, but he did say the ESE is currently being reprinted. It’s expensive to make and the publishers are worried they’ll have unsold stock, so the print run is quite limited (he and Anita weren’t sure of the exact figure but suggested it’s just a few thousand). So if you’re interested, don’t hang around. That said, I think Little, Brown have committed to reprinting it as long as there’s demand, so there may be future runs after this one.

He knew we had two Tune In threads on this forum (info and spoilers), so he pays attention to what’s being said online (he said he absolutely doesn’t ever join in anonymously on discussions about his books). He much prefers people to talk about the revelations within rather than the artwork, availability, formats or whatever, but that’s an author’s perspective rather than a reader’s.

I didn’t think to ask him about Carnival Of Light . Sorry. I did get his email address (I Photoshopped it out of the business card) but I promised not to bug him with day-to-day stuff. I’m sure someone in his position could field queries from curious Beatles fans all day and never get any work done.

In the end I had to leave the pub as I had to get home to put the kids to bed (yes, some things are even more important than The Beatles). No regrets.

<warm, fuzzy glow>