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One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize Paperback – March 18, 2021

by Craig Brown (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,509 ratings
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WINNER OF THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2020

A Spectator Book of the Year • A Times Book of the Year • A Telegraph Book of the Year • A Sunday Times Book of the Year

From the award-winning author of Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret comes a fascinating, hilarious, kaleidoscopic biography of the Fab Four.

John Updike compared them to ‘the sun coming out on an Easter morning’. Bob Dylan introduced them to drugs. The Duchess of Windsor adored them. Noel Coward despised them. JRR Tolkien snubbed them. The Rolling Stones copied them. Loenard Bernstein admired them. Muhammad Ali called them ‘little sissies’. Successive Prime Ministers sucked up to them. No one has remained unaffected by the music of The Beatles. As Queen Elizabeth II observed on her golden wedding anniversary, ‘Think what we would have missed if we had never heard The Beatles.’

One Two Three Four traces the chance fusion of the four key elements that made up The Beatles: fire (John), water (Paul), air (George) and earth (Ringo). It also tells the bizarre and often unfortunate tales of the disparate and colourful people within their orbit, among them Fred Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Maharishi, Aunt Mimi, Helen Shapiro, the con artist Magic Alex, Phil Spector, their psychedelic dentist John Riley and their failed nemesis, Det Sgt Norman Pilcher.

From the bestselling author of Ma’am Darling comes a kaleidoscopic mixture of history, etymology, diaries, autobiography, fan letters, essays, parallel lives, party lists, charts, interviews, announcements and stories. One Two Three Four joyfully echoes the frenetic hurly-burly of an era.

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  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Fourth Estate
  3. Publication date
    March 18, 2021
  4. Dimensions
    5.08 x 1.65 x 7.8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    000834003X
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0008340032
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Fourth Estate (March 18, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 000834003X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0008340032
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.01 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 1.65 x 7.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,509 ratings

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Craig Brown

Craig Brown

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4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
3,509 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

curmudgeon
5.0 out of 5 stars If you hate books with long chapters, you’ll love this one.
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2021
Verified Purchase
There are 150 chapters, most 3 pages or less. No new theories here on who broke up The Beatles (it was John, Paul just publicly announced what had been the status quo for months after John told the group he wanted a divorce). But there are shocking stories you don’t hear much about like the time John beat the crap out of someone at a birthday party, or about Magic Alex the mad Greek inventor who was given millions by Apple to develop far out things like musical wallpaper, or the time George invited Hell’s Angels to London where Apple was obliged to put them up in their offices, or Magic Alex again who turned The Beatles against the Maharishi, or George’s refusal to cleanup his vomit in Hamburg in the tiny room they all shared. Along the way there are head-shaking stories about Beatle-maniacs and various Beatle nostalgia tours the author went on in Liverpool and Hamburg. The book ends with a day-by-day account, in reverse order, of Brian Epstein’s time with the Beatles from the sleeping pill overdose that killed him (was it suicide?) back to the day he first saw in them something no one else did at the Cavern Club.
9 people found this helpful
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Tom Schouweiler
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but...
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2022
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Craig Brown is good at putting the Beatles in context -- of their time, of the society around them, and among their peers. He's obviously dug through tons of material to present stories even hardcore fans won't have heard before. He also talks about the various people in the Beatles' orbit, names you hear but don't know much about.

Less interesting are his tales of writing the book itself, such as anecdotes about his difficulties with the tour guides at Paul's and John's boyhood homes. It seems he rubbed them both the wrong way, and it's not hard to see why.

Also, he's a Yoko hater and goes beyond simple reportage to bash her when he can.

Parts of it will be a fun read for dedicated Beatles fans.
6 people found this helpful
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Lisa Hardy
5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2023
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I liked it. Still looking for one that is more comprehensive.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2020
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I've read several books about The Beatles and it's gotten to a stage where I sometimes wonder whether it's worth reading any more of the newer ones that come out from time to time. Surely, I must know their entire story by now? Apparently not, after reading this book! Yes, a lot of the old familiar tales are in here, told in much the same way as before, but there's also so much more. Brilliant little tidbits that I'd never heard of or read. More than enough to keep even the most well read Beatles fanatic enthralled for 300 pages. It's fascinating, touching, serious and funny all at the same time. The chapter covering the old 'Paul is Dead' conspiracy theory is a particularly hilarious bit.
18 people found this helpful
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Rosemarie
5.0 out of 5 stars absurdly good
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2020
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Brown writes so well that I felt compelled to order his book on Princess Margaret--a subject I've got all of zero interest in on account of I'm all about Citizens Not Subjects. Have read so many Beatles books since I was a little girl I can't tell you: The Longest Cocktail Party, Mark Lewishon's thing, Hunter Davies thing, the massive one just called The Beatles by Bob somebody, Lennon interviews with Jan Wenner, Revolution in the Head, etc. This is the funniest and the most titbit-obscure. The bits on Yoko (for those of us who love to loathe her--not as a woman but as a faux-artiste) are utterly damning and hilarious. Get this thing--it's brilliant!!
27 people found this helpful
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Brian Lewis
4.0 out of 5 stars Beatles Bio as told by British Tabloid
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2023
I sought this book out after seeing it had been highly praised by critics, winning some big awards. I was surprised that a critically acclaimed Beatles book had escaped my attention.

Now that I have read it, I can't really see what all the fuss was about. It is lively, a quick read and all, but honestly it often seems to be experimental just for the sake of being experimental. One chapter is an alternative history in which Gerry and the Pacemakers has the career of the Beatles and vice versa. In another, dealing with the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, time moves backwards - Aug. 29, followed by Aug. 28, followed by the events of Aug. 26, for instance.

The odd time changes were interesting, but I don't see the point.

The author, Craig Brown, is a newspaper columnist in England, and the book sometimes does feel like a collection of columns. Although, to be honest, he clearly did a great deal of research for the book. It also is much stronger when it is set in Great Britain than in the States. Maybe as an American, I just didn't get a lot of it.

Recommended. Certainly Beatles fans will at least like it.

Highly recommended is A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles by Mark Hertsgaard, which in my view remains the best thing ever written about the group. But, to be honest, I am comparing a work of musical criticism with a more biographical approach when I say that.
One person found this helpful
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L. Bowe
2.0 out of 5 stars TINY PRINT
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2023
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Very disappointed. The print is tiny despite wearing bi-focal contact lenses. I will need to use a magnifying glass. Poor quality.
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Top reviews from other countries

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sepia
5.0 out of 5 stars Nie waren die Beatles lebendiger als hier
Reviewed in Germany on December 8, 2022
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Dieses Buch schlägt einen bunten Bogen über die Swinging Sixties und beschreibt die Geschichte der Beatles aus den verschiedensten Blickwinkeln in einer Informationsfülle, die ihresgleichen sucht. Craig Brown schildert die Geschehnisse unglaublich amüsant, unterhaltsam und mit großer Lebendigkeit. Man kann das Buch kaum aus der Hand legen und hört viele beschriebenen Personen förmlich direkt zum Leser reden. Selbst für alte Beatlesfans ein absoluter Lesegenuss. Nie waren die Fab Four lebendiger und uns näher.
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Penultimate46
5.0 out of 5 stars Great fun!
Reviewed in Canada on August 10, 2020
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Not quite as much fun as 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, however, but certainly a novel and entertaining way of approaching biography. Too bad the forthcoming North American edition has such a dull cover. This British cover is delightful.
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Pagespinner
5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece of literary biography, despite its flaws
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2021
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It would be churlish to give anything less than five stars to what is an extremely impressive, comprehensive and enjoyable analysis of the Beatles phenomenon, generously sprinkled with laugh-out-loud quotes and observations and some surprising or even jaw-dropping well-I-never connections and revelations

Mr Brown has many tricks up his sleeve to make his old material fresh and interesting for the reader, effectively creating a mosaic—almost a cubist composition—of his subject with short, overlapping chapters, often trying to sculpt an event from wildly varying accounts, casting doubt on the very validity of biography or history as a discipline—or even the veracity of memory. The inclusion of so many angles and approaches does bloat the book a little—including acknowledgements it weighs in at 642 pages—and occasionally the reader might feel that some material perhaps does not quite merit its place, or some literary technique borders on a gimmick. For example, a couple of stories from fans underwhelm and there is a crude piece of satire from Private Eye at its worst, greatly inferior to what Mr Brown himself writes for that organ.

Equally, the forays into alternative universes—what if Gerry and the Pacemakers had been the Merseybeat group which had attracted all the fame, what if Paul had got different O-Level results?—are a little awkward. All but two of the pictures in the book are uncaptioned, but the one of Gerry and the Pacemakers ensures that the chapter is redundant. Into the same category falls an attempt to compare six years of the Queen’s Christmas message to that of the Beatles—a paragraph rather than a chapter would have sufficed.

And while Yoko Ono’s sinister—if in the author’s treatment often hilarious—presence becomes a necessary focus as the group becomes increasingly troubled and its members progressively isolated one can be forgiven for wondering what was happening outside the John-and-Yoko circus—to Ringo, say, or George. Plus, despite the encyclopaedic array of characters associated in time and place with the group, omissions do spring to mind—Kenny Everett, for instance. Finally, on a smaller scale, there are a couple of continuity errors, as well as the odd factual one, as already pointed out by fans.

But the problems that this vast wealth of material throws up are, where it counts, astutely and deftly handled. For example, Brian Epstein’s death is shown to precipitate the Beatles’ demise, creating a vacuum filled by charlatans whose exploitation—both intentional and unintentional—of the lads’ winning, but naïve and even gullible ways, sets a giant question mark over the rest of the work as to why on earth at the height of success Epstein should kill himself? Mr Brown in closing the book cunningly attempts to resolve this enigma with a reverse potted biography of Epstein’s life vis-à-vis his charges, exposing the key issue and at the same time finishing the book satisfyingly with the story with which it began.

My only significant disappointments overall were one that the author could have dealt with—that the book has no index—and one that he could not have. Craig Brown was born a few years too late and in the wrong place to capture in essence the exhilarating, astonishing sense that us older folk in the North felt in the advent of this group, of a lifting, a transformation of a drab world into an optimistic future, a sense that we had been elevated to the very place that the Beatles themselves sought in India later in their all-too-short careers as the world’s most phenomenal musical group.

All this said, at its heart One Two Three Four is a true labour of love, an enormous achievement of genuine literary grandeur and, despite its length, both mesmerizing and unputdownable. It’s been a long time since I read anything quite so engaging.
7 people found this helpful
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Hofner Kinfauns
2.0 out of 5 stars Some mistakes
Reviewed in the Netherlands on June 23, 2020
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A nice read, but some big mistakes.
John Lennon stole his mouth harmonica in Arnhem and not in Amsterdam.
Gene Vincent did not die in the accident Eddie Cochran was killed. Vincent got hurt very badly at his leg.
The Beatles were not at some party in England June 6, 1964, because they were in the Netherlands with Jimmie Nicol.
And there are more of these mistakes.
6 people found this helpful
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Ed Haysom
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Books on The Beatles
Reviewed in Australia on September 12, 2020
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I own a lot of books on The Beatles and I rate this one as one of the best because it does not try to emulate the many sequential factual histories by Mark Lewisohn and others, but rather, by its focus on examining significant episodes of their career, it paints a clearer contextual picture of the band and its members. The book follows but does not stick strictly to historical sequence. There are excerpts from interviews, different perspectives told of the same story, views of the band by their contemporaries, a discussion of the cultural milieu in which they operated and how they changed the cultural fabric of the UK, the US, Canada Australia and NZ through their music.

As the idea of The Beatles now fades into history it is worth being reminded of how significant they were, that provides an understanding of why their music has endured and still loved today. What is fascinating is how firstly it was young women who were drawn to their music, then young males and eventually the Academy. It was an artistic expression - music - that was the catalyst for many other things that followed in transforming culture and it shall remain their legacy.

Craig Brown writes beautifully, evoking a time while explaining why future generations will still be listening.

Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand why they are so venerated
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