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 enlarge | Author: Tim Riley
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $11.59
You Save: $8.36 (42%)
New (20) Used (16) Collectible (3) from $5.92
Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 103967
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 475
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.4
ISBN: 0306811200
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780306811203
ASIN: 0306811200
Publication Date: May 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not for the Casual Fan or Non-Musician December 31, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
"Tell Me Why" is a good look at the Beatles for what they are remembered for: the music. Long after all the gossip and backbiting and innuendos are forgotten, that is all that remains. And if you are a casual fan and only have "Tell Me Why" to guide you, I wish you the best luck in the world.
Tim Riley is a professional music critic, which means apparently that he thinks his audience will understand every musical notation cited in the text. If you really love discussing the difference between G chords and A chords, this will make your day. But for the rest of us, it's a bit much at times.
To be fair, though, if you get through the musician-speak without beating your head against the wall, you'll find that the book does a fairly fantastic job of getting at the heart of the music. By eschewing flowery discussions of the Beatles' history and concentrating on the music itself, Riley ends up creating a look at the creative process rarely dissected with such skill.
Riley has his opinions and isn't afraid to state them, especially in regards to what he considers the "fallow" period of late 1967 (after the release of the much-hyped Sgt. Pepper). Riley also pulls no punches in holding Paul McCartney's feet to the fire for his abandonment of the risk-taking that characterized his partnership with Lennon, instead becoming the pop-song behemoth that we all love to hate. The portrait that emerges of the Beatles as a group is that of a multitalented band with endless streams of talent on which to draw, with even their lesser efforts (Magical Mystery Tour, Let It Be, etc) having some worth not found in other music from the era.
Mark Hertsgaard's masterful "A Day In The Life" is probably a better selection for those who are casual or half-hearted fans, because it covers much of the same territory with little of the dedication to music-speak that colors some of the best passages in this book. But for a simple, nuts-and-bolts look at what made the Beatles' music special, and as a discussion of each and every song they ever recorded, "Tell Me Why" is hard to beat.
In the end, there is just the music. And it is a body of music worthy of such discussion as to have countless books written about it. But "Tell Me Why" is a nice one-book source for much of the motivation behind each song the Fab Four committed to vinyl, even if it's overboard with the musical composition language. If you can overcome that, you might find a good book about why the Beatles matter long after their last performance together.
Good for musicians October 2, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was the first Beatles book I ever bought, and it nearly put me off them for life.
This book is or musicians only!
I don't say that because the book is bad - it isn't - but it's very focused on the musicianship. General readers who approach this with a mind to finding out the meaning behind the songs, or the history of the band, will be sorely disappointed. Riley concentrates almost entirely on the musical structure. That is great if you are playing along on your guitar, but not if you're tone deaf like me.
So I recommend you steer clear of this book if you don't know your semi-quavers from your elbow. But if you know what he's talking about, then it's probably a great read.
 Please Stop This Author September 7, 2005
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
If you read anything substantial with regard to John Lennon. You realize he didnt particularly care for intellectuals that had the need to impress people by attempting to show everyone how intelligent they were, especially those who had the audacity to intellectually over analyze his own songs. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with Mr. Tim Riley, the author of this Book. I too, am a huge fan of the Beatles and I am probably aware of every song they ever wrote and have listened intently to all the songs that John and Paul wrote as Beatles. I listened, Not only for the purpose of analyzing their style but more for the pure musical enjoyment and happiness that they brought to me and the rest of the world at such a special time in History. I have also been a musician for over 40 years....... But the Ego of Mr. Riley, to pontificate with such subjective and self proclaimed knowledge of the thoughts of each of the boys from Liverpool, as though he knew exactly what was going through each of their respective minds with every note they played and every drum beat that came from Ringo's Ludwigs, and his use of adjectives describing John's Pain in particular phrases of individual songs on certain recordings was beyond preposterous. He made Howard Cosell sound like a Humble Pubescent. Notwithstanding this dramatic egotistic turn off style of writing, there is no doubt that Mr Riley certainly has considerable knowledge of music from a technical perspective And the book is informative with regard to the historical dates and times songs were written and recorded. But there are so many more objective books with that information and happily dont require you to suffer the self inflated pomposity of such an egotistical musical intellectual. Try The Beatles Day by Day (etc:)by Craig Cross or even Beatlesongs by William Dowlding...
 The Best Book About The Beatles' Music June 29, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I read "Tell Me Why" years ago, and I still pick it up from time to time because it is an insightful, but not pedantic review of The Beatles' music, not their cultural or sociological significance, not their dirty laundry, not their relationship with each other and with the social discontent of the 1960s, etc. So much has been written about The Beatles, as phenomena, as cultural icons and almost everything imaginable, except there is a surprising scarcity of good criticism of their music, which after all of these years, has withstood the test of time. There is Wilfred Mellers' book "Twilight of the Gods," but that is written from the perspective of a professor of classical music, and the results are amusing if not unintelligible. Riley is spot on with his insights into their music, and that is the only aspect of The Beatles that is meaningful to me.
 This book is terrible, let me Tell You Why May 20, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
This book looks so deeply at the songs The Beatles wrote that it actually takes away from the magic of the music. The author grants such genius for the way someone claps on a backing track or offers a dull explanation of the teenage longing felt in the lyrics of some of their earlier songs. If The Beatles themselves had given this much thought to the music they were making then the magic would have surely been lost during the recording process. Even John Lennon thought the critical press overanalyzed their music on many occassions. He would probably turn over in his grave laughing at the amount of thought Tim Riley put into his song descriptions. Make no mistake, I am a huge Beatles fan and wanted to like this book. But I could not get through the boring overanalysis of each track by the author. He did something that I thought was impossible. Take the fun out of The Beatles music.
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