Beatles For Sale was first published in 2002 but is now out of print. However, an improved, revised version of the book is planned for 2009. Any comments or enquiries about this book can be left at rdhrowley@yahoo.co.uk

Here is an example of the revised text.

IN MY LIFE
(Lennon/McCartney)

The greatness of this song was stumbled upon by trial and error. While John knew he wanted to create a song that was more meaningful than the early boy-girl romances of his early work his first impulse was to write something literary. In its first draft the lyrics were a rambling description of the Liverpool landmarks he remembered from his youth and of his regrets over how some were now knocked down. The lines referred to docks, trams and statues, but read more like leaden poetry than a good pop song. Such scenic songs came to life for Bob Dylan, because he was happy to mix them with surreal and playful imagery, while John‘s travelogue was sincere and plain. Defeated he lay down to ponder what to do next. Then in a flash of inspiration he lined out these lines and resurrected the song’s message by using a succinct universal account, that there simply would be ‘places�Ehe would always remember. That such brevity proved so powerful was a lesson John would take to heart on all his future work.

The lyrics also refer to his childhood friends, particularly Pete Shotton and Stuart Sutcliffe. Shotton, John’s oldest friend witnessed the song’s creation, personally felt that the lyrics resolution as a love song was dishonest to its original intentions. But both John and Paul, while looking to break away from writing purely love songs, were still only in a transitory phase and perhaps John was cautious before plunging in. A year later this fear was gone when he would write another nostalgic look at his youth in Liverpool with ’Strawberry Fields Forever' this like Dylan would resort to surreal imagery and would not seek to justify itself as a love song. While John contested Paul’s claim to have written the entire tune for ‘In My Life' Paul’s recollection of writing the tune on a mellotron on John’s landing sounds too vivid to be made up. Paul recalled basing the tune on a Smokey Robinson; the tempo and spindly guitar line suggests ‘Tracks of My Tears' as a template, particularly as it was in the US charts at the time.

Another happy accident occurred during the song’s recording. Unable to decide on an instrumental break to this unorthodox song, John left George Martin to improvise something while the Beatles were out of the studio. Martin played a piano solo at half the tempo of the song. The recording was then speeded up to normal tempo. This changed the tone of the piano so much that it sounds like a harpsichord. The effect impressed the Beatles deeply and they would go on to create many such experiments themselves.