The Beat

I've been rereading Tune In, Mark Lewisohn's book about the early days of the Beatles.  It's the best book ever written about the band.

Though it's over 900 pages, it only takes us up to the end of 1962, just before the Beatles broke out.  The idea from the start was he'd write a three-volume work on the group. Presumably, the next book will take us right up to Sergeant Pepper, and the one after that up to their split..

Tune In was published in 2013, so it's turning into a long wait for volume 2.  I think Lewisohn may be running into a George R. R. Martin problem.  Each book in his "Game Of Thrones" series (I know the series has another name, but that's how most people think of it) is longer and takes longer to write.

Martin, of course, writes based on his imagination, but the storyline sprawls out further and further, the character list keeps growing, and he has more and more to say.  Lewisohn's story is based on research, but he was able to dig up so much from the Beatles' early days, before too many were paying attention, that I'm thinking he's overwhelmed with how much there is to say about their recording years.

My guess is he may slice the cake thinner and thinner.  He probably know he could easily do 900 pages on 1963 and 1964, but if the readers expect it go through 1966 there's no way he can keep it under 1000.  So maybe, from this point on, he'll do two years at a time and make it five volumes.  (And if he lives long enough, a final volume on their solo years.)

Actually, that's more like the Mad Men problem.  The original idea was each season would skip ahead and be part of a two-year span, but Matthew Weiner had something big on his hands, so he decided to slow it down and have seven seasons instead of five (though five would probably have been better).