Book review: The Gospel According to the Beatles

The Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that.

gospel according to beatlesIn March 2015, the youth director of our church is putting on a musical review based on The Gospel According to the Beatles, which will feature The Daughter. This compelled me to buy and read the book. Author Steve Turner, as the book sleeve, informs me, has been writing about pop music for over three decades. This is, and I don’t want it to come off as a pejorative, a scholarly book, well-researched; I’ve read enough Beatles-related tomes to have read more than a few useless ramblings.

The general premise that they all grew up in the church, particularly John. Indeed, his description of the “flaming pie” man that gave the group its name – “From this day on, you are Beatles with an A” – was a mock Biblical story, possibly borrowing from Acts 10 or another story.

The group moved away from the “rather stuffy Christianity of their childhoods.” Initially, it was the attraction to nihilism, where the goal was not to have a job like their fathers had and to attract female attention, that motivated them.

When they first made it big, they did not hide their agnostic sentiments. Soon, though, it was as though they asked themselves, with all the “wealth, fame, sex, and acclaim,” is that it? “George and John were the most disappointed by fame.” One can see this in the title, and on the dour cover picture of the Beatles for Sale album.

From Rubber Soul, a pot-driven album, I thought nearly 50 years ago that The Word [LISTEN] was at least reminiscent of New Testament scripture. Nowhere Man [LISTEN] had clear elements of philosophy. But I hadn’t realized that Girl [LISTEN], at least the section about pain and pleasure, came from a book John read about Christianity, a notion he thought was rubbish.

Revolver was full of LSD references. I find it interesting that’s long been my favorite album, and Tomorrow Never Knows my favorite song. It was acid, and its ultimate lack of fulfillment, that led George to look to the East for enlightenment. The Catholicism he grew up with seemed too compartmentalized in most people’s lives.

It is unsurprising that John is in the foreground on the cover. The book goes into great detail about the 1966 Lennon quote about the popularity of the Beatles vis a vis Jesus, which was almost certainly true in Britain at that time, and even more so now, with the steep decline of the church in England.

(Yes, Paul and Ringo get plenty of coverage too.)

My takeaway is that the Beatles hadn’t set out to be gurus, but in their very public quest for a spiritual…something, they became just that, in a way that Elvis, for instance, was not. This is a function of being better educated, writing their own songs, and that protection that being one of four provides. While there were stories I knew, there was a lot more I did not.
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Yes, I DID know which Beatle visited the United States first, but did you? Here’s a nice story about that first trip.

Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

5 thoughts on “Book review: The Gospel According to the Beatles”

  1. It always makes me sad to hear how stuffy Christianity ruins deep, spiritual faith in people. Authentic faith always answers the question about whether wealth, fame, sex and acclaim is all there is in life.

  2. That’s a real stretch labelling the Beatles as a secret Christian band. But the four guys started out together as teenagers and ended their association together as they entered middle age. The world has a permanent musical record of their development as individuals during that time of their lives. So naturally we see their spiritual development from childhood to adulthood.

    Perhaps Paul, who wrote “Let It Be,” had Christian leanings. There’s an interesting Wikipedia article titled “Religious beliefs of the Beatles.” From the article: ‘McCartney pursued a kind of secular spirituality later in life, …declaring in the 1990s “I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.” ‘ But back in 1965 Paul, who was often startlingly honest with interviewers, said of the band “We probably seem antireligious because of the fact that none of us believe in God.”

  3. Even when I was 11, I was convinced The Word, in particular was a secular Christian song.

  4. Really? Hmm… (The word in that song is “love.”) The Beatles went through a period when they considered “love” the end all and be all, beyond their earlier songs where “love” was a euphemism for sex like most pop songs of that era. That’s interesting Roger, that you automatically saw the word “love” as a Christian word. That must reflect your upbringing.

    For me as a kid “love” had nothing to do with Christianity so that could never have occurred to me. For me religion was and has always been “obey these arcane rules that have nothing to do with life or else you’ll get in trouble.” However, like Mr. McCartney, I consider myself very spiritual, but that to me is the exact opposite of organized religion.

    I’ve had this notion for a long time that half the people in the world consider religion a source of life, while the other half considers religion a source of oppression or anti-life. You fall into the first category, I fall into the second.

  5. “in the beginning was The Word….” John 1:1. “In the beginning I misunderstood. But now I’ve got it, the word is good.” -The Word, the Beatles.

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