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As Time Goes By: Living in the Sixties with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Brian Epstein, Allen Klein, Mae West, Brian ... Los Angeles, New York City, and on the Road
Derek Taylor's iconic memoir is a rare opportunity to be immersed in one of the most whirlwind music sensations in history: Beatlemania. As Time Goes By tells the remarkable story of Taylor's trajectory from humble provincial journalist to loved confidant right at the centre of the Beatles' magic circle. In charming, conversational prose, Taylor shares anecdotes and reminiscences so vivid and immediate that you find yourself plunged into the beating heart of 1960s counterculture. Whether watching the debut performance of 'Hey Jude' in a country pub or hearing first-hand gossip about a star-studded cast of characters, Taylor's unique narrative voice forges an autobiography like no other. Reissued here in a brand new edition with a foreword by celebrated writer Jon Savage, this long-admired memoir is a cult classic of the genre awaiting a new readership.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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391 people want to read
About the author
Derek Taylor
7 books4 followersDerek Taylor was an English journalist, writer and publicist. He is best known for his work as press officer for the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 2, 2018
“There is no comparison between a mouth and a mouthpiece…”
Originally published in 1973, this book is really a series of vignettes, written by Derek Taylor, Beatles publicist and insider. When Apple was crumbling, and there seemed nothing else to do, George Harrison suggested Taylor go home and write a book and this was it.
In many ways, this is a disjoined affair, with dated language and snippets which jump around. As such, it shouldn’t work. However, as a Beatles fan for most of my life, it is fascinating to read of events, written down at the time, or thereabouts, with honest reactions.
Much of this book surprised me. For example, I was interested to read how kindly Taylor viewed Allen Klein – in fact paving the way for Klein to find his way to the Fabs. Indeed, there is a lot about Taylor’s admittedly difficult loss of identity, with everyone wanting to know him, in order to meet The Beatles. . Although there is a lot about other stars, and his musing on fame, it is the Beatles who are central to this book.
Taylor was always loyal, but he is honest about the un-sentimentality of the Beatles themselves. People, he states simply, were un-mourned when they went and Taylor himself went, after a huge argument with Brian Epstein, in the early Sixties, only to return to England, and the Beatles, almost as though he had never left. From the madness of the Apple office, through drug busts, going to record, “Thingumybob,” in Bradford, and returning through a village who opened its doors to Paul McCartney, to juggling the press, John and Yoko facing hostility on television talk shows, and more, this is a fascinating account of an extraordinary time. I am delighted to see his first book being re-printed for fans to enjoy.
Originally published in 1973, this book is really a series of vignettes, written by Derek Taylor, Beatles publicist and insider. When Apple was crumbling, and there seemed nothing else to do, George Harrison suggested Taylor go home and write a book and this was it.
In many ways, this is a disjoined affair, with dated language and snippets which jump around. As such, it shouldn’t work. However, as a Beatles fan for most of my life, it is fascinating to read of events, written down at the time, or thereabouts, with honest reactions.
Much of this book surprised me. For example, I was interested to read how kindly Taylor viewed Allen Klein – in fact paving the way for Klein to find his way to the Fabs. Indeed, there is a lot about Taylor’s admittedly difficult loss of identity, with everyone wanting to know him, in order to meet The Beatles. . Although there is a lot about other stars, and his musing on fame, it is the Beatles who are central to this book.
Taylor was always loyal, but he is honest about the un-sentimentality of the Beatles themselves. People, he states simply, were un-mourned when they went and Taylor himself went, after a huge argument with Brian Epstein, in the early Sixties, only to return to England, and the Beatles, almost as though he had never left. From the madness of the Apple office, through drug busts, going to record, “Thingumybob,” in Bradford, and returning through a village who opened its doors to Paul McCartney, to juggling the press, John and Yoko facing hostility on television talk shows, and more, this is a fascinating account of an extraordinary time. I am delighted to see his first book being re-printed for fans to enjoy.
November 21, 2018
As Time Goes By is astonishingly variable and extremely scattershot but still worth reading if you're interested in Derek Taylor, The Beatles, or their era more generally.
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor was originally published in 1973. A new Faber and Faber reissue came out on 5 April 2018.
Early in the book Derek Taylor explains how much difficulty he had writing it. He had to return one advance as it was taking so long and then got a second commission. Days would go by when he wouldn't write a word.
I thought I'd find the stories about his time working at Apple for The Beatles most fascinating however it is when telling these tales his writing seems to be at its most achingly clever and hip, and the stories, are often just not that interesting unless you want to know about day to day details of being in their offices.
The book does contain some wonderful stories, many are ones which do not involve The Beatles. For example, there's a somewhat odd but nonetheless charming chapter on Derek's brief period working as Mae West's press agent. It contains a wonderful description of Mae deciding to make herself a cup of coffee, having never made one in her life, which is worth the cover price on its own.
One interesting chapter details how the wife of an American mayor demanded Derek wake the Beatles up so she could meet them. Another chapter chronicles Derek's spontaneous visit to Harrold, Bedfordshire with Paul McCartney where they end up carousing with a dentist, his wife and most of the village.
So, whilst there's plenty of interesting stories in this 220 page memoir (which provide quirky and informative insights into Derek's working life at Apple, working for the Byrds and The Beach Boys, helping to organise the Monterey Festival, working with Allen Klein, and more), the quality is inconsistent and sometimes I had the impression that he wrote anything that came into his head.
3/5
The blurb.......
As Time Goes By is Derek Taylor's iconic memoir is a rare opportunity to be immersed in one of the most whirlwind music sensations in history: Beatlemania. As Time Goes By tells the remarkable story of Derek Taylor's trajectory from humble provincial journalist to loved confidant right at the centre of the Beatles' magic circle.
In charming, conversational prose, Derek Taylor shares anecdotes and reminiscences so vivid and immediate that you find yourself plunged into the beating heart of 1960s counterculture.
Whether watching the debut performance of 'Hey Jude' in a country pub or hearing first-hand gossip about a star-studded cast of characters, Derek Taylor's unique narrative voice forges an autobiography like no other.
Reissued here in a brand new edition with a foreword by celebrated writer Jon Savage, this long-admired memoir is a cult classic of the genre awaiting a new readership.
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor was originally published in 1973. A new Faber and Faber reissue came out on 5 April 2018.
Early in the book Derek Taylor explains how much difficulty he had writing it. He had to return one advance as it was taking so long and then got a second commission. Days would go by when he wouldn't write a word.
I thought I'd find the stories about his time working at Apple for The Beatles most fascinating however it is when telling these tales his writing seems to be at its most achingly clever and hip, and the stories, are often just not that interesting unless you want to know about day to day details of being in their offices.
The book does contain some wonderful stories, many are ones which do not involve The Beatles. For example, there's a somewhat odd but nonetheless charming chapter on Derek's brief period working as Mae West's press agent. It contains a wonderful description of Mae deciding to make herself a cup of coffee, having never made one in her life, which is worth the cover price on its own.
One interesting chapter details how the wife of an American mayor demanded Derek wake the Beatles up so she could meet them. Another chapter chronicles Derek's spontaneous visit to Harrold, Bedfordshire with Paul McCartney where they end up carousing with a dentist, his wife and most of the village.
So, whilst there's plenty of interesting stories in this 220 page memoir (which provide quirky and informative insights into Derek's working life at Apple, working for the Byrds and The Beach Boys, helping to organise the Monterey Festival, working with Allen Klein, and more), the quality is inconsistent and sometimes I had the impression that he wrote anything that came into his head.
3/5
The blurb.......
As Time Goes By is Derek Taylor's iconic memoir is a rare opportunity to be immersed in one of the most whirlwind music sensations in history: Beatlemania. As Time Goes By tells the remarkable story of Derek Taylor's trajectory from humble provincial journalist to loved confidant right at the centre of the Beatles' magic circle.
In charming, conversational prose, Derek Taylor shares anecdotes and reminiscences so vivid and immediate that you find yourself plunged into the beating heart of 1960s counterculture.
Whether watching the debut performance of 'Hey Jude' in a country pub or hearing first-hand gossip about a star-studded cast of characters, Derek Taylor's unique narrative voice forges an autobiography like no other.
Reissued here in a brand new edition with a foreword by celebrated writer Jon Savage, this long-admired memoir is a cult classic of the genre awaiting a new readership.
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor
March 31, 2008
This book by Derek Taylor is a total surprise. First of all the late Mr. Taylor is famous for being the Beatles press agent during Beatlemania and then went off to work for The Byrds, Captain Beefheart among others as a press agent as well as one of the original organizers for the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. He eventually went back to the Beatles as a press agent when they started Apple Records and was with them till the end.
Now, what's surprising is how gutsy the writing is - I was expecting it to be a puff piece of sorts - and he's not putting down his clients, but in very harsh matter he portrays early Beatlemania as a very scary world - especially in America where he meets the Mayor's wife who insists that The Beatles wake up from their sleep to meet her and her daughter. Also when Derek Taylor takes a ride with someone who not only wants to meet the Beatles with his son but is also a horrible and violent racist. Incredible snapshots of that period of time, and all of it has a tinge of disgust or a real heavy darkness.
In many ways it is a good companion to Andrew Loog Oldham's great Stoned and 2SToned. Both deal with the underbelly of the music business. And like Oldham's favorite film "The Sweet Smell of Success, Derek Taylor sort of reminds me of the Tony Curtis character in that film. He's hard as nails dealing with the teenie-pop world of 16 Magazine, etc. Fascinating document and Taylor is a very good writer on top of that.
So this book is not only an essential read for Beatle fans but also for those who like to smell the cigar smoke in the back room of deals, etc. Totally fascinating!
Now, what's surprising is how gutsy the writing is - I was expecting it to be a puff piece of sorts - and he's not putting down his clients, but in very harsh matter he portrays early Beatlemania as a very scary world - especially in America where he meets the Mayor's wife who insists that The Beatles wake up from their sleep to meet her and her daughter. Also when Derek Taylor takes a ride with someone who not only wants to meet the Beatles with his son but is also a horrible and violent racist. Incredible snapshots of that period of time, and all of it has a tinge of disgust or a real heavy darkness.
In many ways it is a good companion to Andrew Loog Oldham's great Stoned and 2SToned. Both deal with the underbelly of the music business. And like Oldham's favorite film "The Sweet Smell of Success, Derek Taylor sort of reminds me of the Tony Curtis character in that film. He's hard as nails dealing with the teenie-pop world of 16 Magazine, etc. Fascinating document and Taylor is a very good writer on top of that.
So this book is not only an essential read for Beatle fans but also for those who like to smell the cigar smoke in the back room of deals, etc. Totally fascinating!
July 2, 2009
totally brilliant and a different take on the 60s, includes great Beatles inside information (he was their press officer). The best, almost magical chapter describes a trip (in more than one sense of the word) with McCartney to play with a brass band up north (the track 'thingumybob'), on the way back they stop at a village and treat the people in the pub to a rendition of McCartney's new song 'Hey Jude' on the pub piano.
May 23, 2023
This reads like it was written on drugs.
November 30, 2018
I read two books by Derek Taylor this year and I really should have known better. The second one was just as disappointing as the first. As the Beatles publicist, he was probably a lovely guy to have a drink with and he has an interesting take on the 60s and stardom and the Beatles.
He probably has some great stories - some of which he tells here (the story of Paul McCartney stopping by the little town of Harrold the same week he wrote “Hey Jude” is magnificent), some of which he only hints at here.
Derek Taylor may have been a great publicist but he’s not a writer.
And this book desperately needed an editor - he admits as much in the first chapter when he says “I don’t think that if you have a tidy mind you will find this book easy to follow.”
He probably has some great stories - some of which he tells here (the story of Paul McCartney stopping by the little town of Harrold the same week he wrote “Hey Jude” is magnificent), some of which he only hints at here.
Derek Taylor may have been a great publicist but he’s not a writer.
And this book desperately needed an editor - he admits as much in the first chapter when he says “I don’t think that if you have a tidy mind you will find this book easy to follow.”
January 12, 2024
John Lennon once said that everyone who knew the Beatles eventually wrote a book about them and, unlike some of the things Lennon said, this was no more than the simple truth. Derek Taylor, the Beatles dapper, individualistic and witty former press officer, was one of the first in what became a very long queue with this entertaining memoir published in 1973.
Born in 1932 Taylor was comparatively old by the youth obsessed standards of 1960s pop music. As Jon Savage observes in his introduction to the 2018 reissue he ‘crossed over the generational divide and never even thought about coming back’. Indeed, Taylor personifies the transformative power of ‘60s pop culture. A Daily Express journalist who had a Damascene experience at a Beatles concert in Manchester in 1963 he ran away from Fleet Street to join the rock ‘n’ roll circus.
His personal journey through the ‘60s mirrors the trajectory of pop culture itself as he travels from the joyous simplicity of Beatlemania to the earnest and anti-establishment counterculture of the late ‘60s. In a few short years commercially driven pop turned into rock and the emergence of the idea of youth culture as a quasi-revolutionary force.
Taylor metamorphosed along with the decade. By 1965, having temporarily split with the Beatles after falling-out with Brian Epstein at the end of their 1964 world tour, he was based in Los Angeles as an industrious and, one senses, fairly hard-nosed PR man to the Byrds, Beach Boys and many others. He wrote columns for pop publications with now deliciously dated titles like Tiger Beat and Teen in which he shamelessly hyped his own acts. Come the Summer of Love he was supporting Californian youth in conflict with the authorities and helping to organise the Monterey Pop Festival which became one of the defining events of the period. He was fully committed to the hippie dream (‘we believed we were going to make everything very beautiful, that it was going to be a wonderful world’) and also the intoxicants and hallucinogens that turned drab reality into glorious psychedelic colour.
The second half of this book is Taylor’s contemporaneous account of his time as press officer at Apple. The Beatles imagined Apple as an idealistic company which would combine the disparate and often conflicting strands of pop culture as it had developed during the decade: work and play, art and commerce, self-interest and altruism. All would come together in a Renaissance like outpouring of multi-media creativity under the aegis of the Fab Four. It went horribly wrong, of course, with high ideals quickly degenerating into low farce as every charlatan and freeloader in the known world descended on Apple’s Savile Row headquarters in pursuit of free money. These were the messy final years of the Beatles: drug busts, bust-ups in the studio and, in the end, lots of litigation.
This is where the book really comes alive mainly because it’s where Taylor seems most emotionally engaged with his subject. His informal yet stylish prose is suddenly injected with anger, melancholy and anxiety. Subsequent writers have concentrated on the financial shenanigans and who sued whom and for how much but Taylor, not caring too much for money, conveys the sadness of the collapse of youthful energy, ideals and optimism. You also sense his disquiet as he anticipates, correctly it must be said, that for the rest of his life he would be known as the man who used to be the Beatles press officer. These final pages have a perplexed and open-hearted quality which is really quite moving.
But let’s not end on a downbeat note. On the Beatles valedictory album, Abbey Road, John Lennon sang ‘everybody had a good time’. It’s clear from As Time Goes By that Derek Taylor certainly did.
Born in 1932 Taylor was comparatively old by the youth obsessed standards of 1960s pop music. As Jon Savage observes in his introduction to the 2018 reissue he ‘crossed over the generational divide and never even thought about coming back’. Indeed, Taylor personifies the transformative power of ‘60s pop culture. A Daily Express journalist who had a Damascene experience at a Beatles concert in Manchester in 1963 he ran away from Fleet Street to join the rock ‘n’ roll circus.
His personal journey through the ‘60s mirrors the trajectory of pop culture itself as he travels from the joyous simplicity of Beatlemania to the earnest and anti-establishment counterculture of the late ‘60s. In a few short years commercially driven pop turned into rock and the emergence of the idea of youth culture as a quasi-revolutionary force.
Taylor metamorphosed along with the decade. By 1965, having temporarily split with the Beatles after falling-out with Brian Epstein at the end of their 1964 world tour, he was based in Los Angeles as an industrious and, one senses, fairly hard-nosed PR man to the Byrds, Beach Boys and many others. He wrote columns for pop publications with now deliciously dated titles like Tiger Beat and Teen in which he shamelessly hyped his own acts. Come the Summer of Love he was supporting Californian youth in conflict with the authorities and helping to organise the Monterey Pop Festival which became one of the defining events of the period. He was fully committed to the hippie dream (‘we believed we were going to make everything very beautiful, that it was going to be a wonderful world’) and also the intoxicants and hallucinogens that turned drab reality into glorious psychedelic colour.
The second half of this book is Taylor’s contemporaneous account of his time as press officer at Apple. The Beatles imagined Apple as an idealistic company which would combine the disparate and often conflicting strands of pop culture as it had developed during the decade: work and play, art and commerce, self-interest and altruism. All would come together in a Renaissance like outpouring of multi-media creativity under the aegis of the Fab Four. It went horribly wrong, of course, with high ideals quickly degenerating into low farce as every charlatan and freeloader in the known world descended on Apple’s Savile Row headquarters in pursuit of free money. These were the messy final years of the Beatles: drug busts, bust-ups in the studio and, in the end, lots of litigation.
This is where the book really comes alive mainly because it’s where Taylor seems most emotionally engaged with his subject. His informal yet stylish prose is suddenly injected with anger, melancholy and anxiety. Subsequent writers have concentrated on the financial shenanigans and who sued whom and for how much but Taylor, not caring too much for money, conveys the sadness of the collapse of youthful energy, ideals and optimism. You also sense his disquiet as he anticipates, correctly it must be said, that for the rest of his life he would be known as the man who used to be the Beatles press officer. These final pages have a perplexed and open-hearted quality which is really quite moving.
But let’s not end on a downbeat note. On the Beatles valedictory album, Abbey Road, John Lennon sang ‘everybody had a good time’. It’s clear from As Time Goes By that Derek Taylor certainly did.
August 22, 2018
In 1970 George Harrison says to Beatles' PR man Derek Taylor "go home and write." So Derek did. The result is a collection of essays that are witty and charming much like the man himself. Good Read.
October 10, 2024
Dit was een grotere chaos dan mijn hoofd na twee werkcolleges van elk 3 uur waarvan ik niets begreep. Taylor was waarschijnlijk high toen hij dit schreef en ik moet het denk ook zijn om dit te volgen.
Luna, love you, maar ik neem geen aanbevelingen meer van jou aan...
Luna, love you, maar ik neem geen aanbevelingen meer van jou aan...
February 16, 2024
You really feel like you can look in the head of this guy.
July 13, 2021
A clue to the books content and writing style lies within the first chapter where the author reveals that he was paid an advance to write the book by one publishing house, but had to return it as he essentially couldn't be bothered to settle down to write it. Another publishing contract a few years down the line and he picks up where he left off and it is evident he is still not really motivated enough.
He worked with the Beatles - which is where most of this thin tome derives its content - with The Beach Boys, The Doors, James Taylor, Nancy Sinatra, was one of the founders of the Monterey Festival and had working relationships with a plethora of other well known musicians of the day - but despite this it is evident from his writing that he is clearly just not interested enough to tell us the full story.
There are one or two places where he elaborates a little, he whets the appetite, but fails to deliver anything of any significant interest. He's so laid back, he is almost comatose. Nothing seems to be of any import - considering he was a journalist early on and subsequently the Beatles press officer among others one would expect more, but it doesn't reveal itself. he plays his cards very close to his chest.
There is very little detail about his relationships with anyone on the book, he is name dropping a lot of the time, but obviously not out of any sense of grandeur - just he/she was there we did this and that and that was that, but with nothing behind the story to prop it up. Some of the chapters are extremely pithy and come across as if he was in a drug induced haze - he might have been as he refers to it often enough. He was an old hippy too stoned, I suspect, to remember the details. If you are looking for any new revelations, you won't find them here. That said, if you are a music fan, it's something to have in your collection.
He worked with the Beatles - which is where most of this thin tome derives its content - with The Beach Boys, The Doors, James Taylor, Nancy Sinatra, was one of the founders of the Monterey Festival and had working relationships with a plethora of other well known musicians of the day - but despite this it is evident from his writing that he is clearly just not interested enough to tell us the full story.
There are one or two places where he elaborates a little, he whets the appetite, but fails to deliver anything of any significant interest. He's so laid back, he is almost comatose. Nothing seems to be of any import - considering he was a journalist early on and subsequently the Beatles press officer among others one would expect more, but it doesn't reveal itself. he plays his cards very close to his chest.
There is very little detail about his relationships with anyone on the book, he is name dropping a lot of the time, but obviously not out of any sense of grandeur - just he/she was there we did this and that and that was that, but with nothing behind the story to prop it up. Some of the chapters are extremely pithy and come across as if he was in a drug induced haze - he might have been as he refers to it often enough. He was an old hippy too stoned, I suspect, to remember the details. If you are looking for any new revelations, you won't find them here. That said, if you are a music fan, it's something to have in your collection.
April 16, 2019
A maddening and frustrating book. As Taylor spends a good deal of time informing us at the start of this short memoir he DID NOT want to write this book, he avoided it for years and presumably was forced into it for financial or legal obligations to his publisher. I can't help thinking Taylor was drunk or recovering from alcohol and drugs or still enthusiastically using them during the writing of the book as the writing lacks soul, it has the chemical deadness I associate with so much of Hunter S Thompsons overrated output - it's all show. Nevertheless Taylor was at the heart of the action of my beloved Beatles almost from the beginning so there are many interesting scenes he captures from his time with them. The best part of the book is towards the end when he slows down a bit - perhaps sensing the end in sight and relaxing a little - when he discusses the Beatles and their meaning and his relationships with the different Beatles in tender thoughtful terms, this confirmed for me how poor the rest of the book was by comparison.
I listened to the audiobook version of this book and it was arguably the worst audiobook reading I have ever heard, the reader chose - for some inexplicable and maddening reason - to gasp out the lines in a beathless disjointed staccato presumably in an attempt to get into the "hipster" language. It was a terrible idea and poorly executed. I listened to Taylor speaking on youtube and he sounded nothing like this.
I listened to the audiobook version of this book and it was arguably the worst audiobook reading I have ever heard, the reader chose - for some inexplicable and maddening reason - to gasp out the lines in a beathless disjointed staccato presumably in an attempt to get into the "hipster" language. It was a terrible idea and poorly executed. I listened to Taylor speaking on youtube and he sounded nothing like this.
June 7, 2019
2018 re-issue. Derek Taylor was the Beatles publicist, the publicist for Apple, numerous record companies and was around in the '60's when people were doing all sorts of strange things. He was obviously writing this while under the influence of certain substances since it tends to be rather dis-jointed. When he tried, he gave a lot of insight into what was going on at the time with the Fab Four and their business endeavor, Apple.
Derek Taylor is no longer with us, so it would be unkind to criticize his writing style which is, to say the least, different.
Perhaps the whole book can be summed up best by borrowing a line from the Grateful Dead, What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.
Reads fast since it's short, but is for the true Beatles fan. Those who are casual fans can read something else.
Derek Taylor is no longer with us, so it would be unkind to criticize his writing style which is, to say the least, different.
Perhaps the whole book can be summed up best by borrowing a line from the Grateful Dead, What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been.
Reads fast since it's short, but is for the true Beatles fan. Those who are casual fans can read something else.
May 26, 2018
Published in 1973, and a new edition published in 2018, Taylor presents a, at times sad, insight into the life of being the publicist for the Beatles and Apple. Written in a rambling idiosyncratic style it nonetheless exposes the highs and lows of working for famous people. Would you like to have people express interest in you, only for the purpose of gaining access to your employers the Beatles? Or face each day inane questions from the press about the Beatles. Or be faced with being asked by most people you meet after the Beatles split - what were they really like? In the end you are faced with the question - is anyone interested in me the person?
April 24, 2019
An interesting, stream-of-consciousness style overview of the Beatles and the 1960’s. Contemporary account of someone who really believed in The Beatles as a force of change and a force for good. Interesting view of Apple as an artistic, creative success. Sense of regret and dream being over when writing about Apple.
June 28, 2018
Not as good as I’d hoped, partly because of the dated “hip” nature of the writing, partly because of its scattershot disorganization, but still somewhat interesting.
February 21, 2020
Not what I was thinking, some funny stories, irritating style
July 16, 2021
The next best thing to sitting down in a pub with Mr. Taylor (wait--have I heard that before) I would pick up the tab of course. The sparkle is still there today and I am 64+12. Thanks.
April 17, 2022
I loved this book because of Taylor’s irreverent (yet still kind) writing style. The book is mostly a non-chronological account of Taylor’s career, with some Beatles sprinkled in, yet somehow you feel as if you’ve learned a lot about a lot of people and a lot about the time. What Beatles accounts there are are very behind-the-scenes, like the account of waiting at Apple with bated breath while police searched George’s home for drugs, trying to figure out how to help from a distance. Given his closeness with the four musicians, especially George, he provides glancing insights into their characters and those of other Apple Corps members, but without seeming to trade on the relationships, which, after a decade with the Beatles, he clearly hated. Of John Lennon, he says, with some wonder, that it dawned on him that “John’s only concern was for Yoko and for no one else.” “If John heard that everyone at Apple had been killed in a fire,” Taylor reports, “his mind would turn immediately to the inconvenience of replacing them,” all the more puzzling because “John was such a kind man” (167). He also observed that he never hated anyone as much as he hated Paul McCartney in the summer of 1968, but he shares no other details. Derek Taylor died at age 65, which is really a shame, because there were probably few men as generous, self-effacing, and human as he seemed to be.
October 2, 2018
Interesting, but slim
More vignettes than an autobiography, this book has some memorable tales, but it is extremely short. He hardly mentions the early days in Liverpool at all, His ambivalence about Allen Klein was a bit of a surprise. I would have expected him to detest the guy. Derek Taylor appears to have become a very jaded man, wrung out by the 60's and who lost himself for a while after the Beatles broke up.
More vignettes than an autobiography, this book has some memorable tales, but it is extremely short. He hardly mentions the early days in Liverpool at all, His ambivalence about Allen Klein was a bit of a surprise. I would have expected him to detest the guy. Derek Taylor appears to have become a very jaded man, wrung out by the 60's and who lost himself for a while after the Beatles broke up.
February 26, 2023
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor is a fascinating read for true Beatles fans, as it contains honest reactions to events written down at the time. It has a disjointed writing style and dated language, but it is full of wonderful stories, such as Taylor's brief period working as Mae West's press agent. The book lacks soul and motivation, likely due to Taylor not wanting to write it in the first place.
April 24, 2023
While I initially thought Taylor's book was all about the Beatles, I quickly found out it was really about Taylor's life, in and around the music industry. He has a unique writing style: honest, familiar, and showing tons of dry humor. I enjoyed it, including the many Beatles stories. If you read it, you will find he was much more than that association.
August 14, 2023
I expected to enjoy this more, on the basis of reviews, my impressions of Taylor from elsewhere, the subject matter, etc. It was readable enough, but for me the style, and the quasi-hippie attitude (anti-square, love is all you need, and so on), failed to transcend the time of writing, which leaves it pretty much a nostalgia piece.
June 27, 2018
A hugely enjoyable account of the madness of the Apple experience with additional vignettes of mid-60’s LA music scene and the Monterey festival. I declare an interest knowing one of Taylor’s children which made this all the more fascinating
August 18, 2018
Some fun glimpses of the sixties in this set of short pieces written by the Beatles PR man who left early to work in LA 64-68, then came back to Apple for the last years. He makes it clear that being close to the Fab Four is in no way to know what it was to have been one of them.
November 15, 2018
reignited my love for the beatles music, and this book is definitely best enjoyed when savoured across albums like revolver and abbey road. very funny and comes across like a conversation, without resorting to cliches like dear reader but as something unique. worth a look.
April 6, 2019
Opens with the story of the original publisher (Prentice Hall) demanding the advance be repaid because "this is not a book, and this which is not a book is written by a man who doesn't want to write a book." It was an accurate statement, but it's a good collection of thoughts, nonetheless.
November 6, 2018
Fun and witty and acerbic and a bit amazing in the way it portrays Beatle-tedium. A very good writer, and he knows it, but it still doesn’t show off too much.
January 29, 2019
A bit rambling and unfocused, but still an interesting read.
February 8, 2019
As time went by
A good insight into his mind. Sadly missed. Must read his other books. What would he be eriting now. ?
A good insight into his mind. Sadly missed. Must read his other books. What would he be eriting now. ?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews