The Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows: A Biography

From the Author's Notes "Tomorrow never knows" was a Ringoism, one of the marvelously pithy phrases he used to come out with on a regular basis that used to charm and fascinate the other Beatles. One writer called it his variation on the well-known phrase, "Tomorrow never comes." To me it means, "one never knows what tomorrow will bring," but as the title for this biography of the band, I've chosen to think of it differently, as in, "those to come tomorrow will never know what actually happened today." Despite my best efforts, and those of hundreds of other writers and biographers, there are many, many events in the history of The Beatles that will forever remain shrouded in mystery. At first, I planned to call the book The Mystery Of The Beatles for precisely that reason, but that title would be subject to such a wide variety of mistaken assumptions about the book's actual content that it had to be discarded. For every witness to the events in the Beatles' career, there is a different version of those events, and in this book I have relied most heavily on the accounts given by those who were actually present at each point in the band's history. That approach lessens considerably the task of sorting through the hundreds of differing versions on offer, but still left me with the problem of reconciling descriptions of events that often vary widely. I've tried to do my best, and to admit when the incident in question has so many conflicting stories about it that it's impossible to know the real truth. And then there are the considerations involved concerning the motivations of various authors and their willingness to have their accounts censored or edited by the principals who have agreed to cooperate. The credibility of those who have authored many books on various celebrities is certainly suspect, since they have nothing other than a passing interest in the subject at hand. Then there are those whose books are really about themselves and their supposedly superior insight that they just happen to be focusing on the Beatles at the moment. Then there are the ones who have treated their subjects with kid gloves in hopes of preserving a relationship that could contribute to their bank accounts well into the foreseeable future, many of whom have been required to submit their books to those who've cooperated for approval. Unfortunately, the types of books mentioned above cover almost all of the major biographies and reference works on the band and its individual members. One might be tempted to ask, "Does the world need another biography of a band that has had thousands of books written about them already?" The answer is yes. In recent years there has been so much new information that has come to light that the many of those who refer to themselves as The World's Leading Authority On The Beatles have inadvertently published inaccurate and misleading "facts." Accuracy has been my first priority, and I have spent many hours and days searching for single quotes that clarify or illustrate the various stories that I felt needed to be told. But I've also tried to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible. One thing I've discovered in the course of my research is that the more a book about the Beatles tries to do, the more inaccuracies creep in, and the more that author loses credibility. For example, there is one biography that is well-written and occasionally insightful, but every few pages just gets things wrong, consigning itself to the discard bin. To keep things as simple as possible, I've narrowed the scope of Tomorrow Never Knows to the four Beatles, the personal relationships among the band members, and to their music. Any other information is included only as it directly relates to those topics, or to maintain the continuity of the narrative.