How the Beatles changed the world in seven years

Craig Brown’s One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time explores how, in less than a decade, the band redefined not just pop music but fame.

By David Hepworth

UNITED STATES - APRIL 22: During a visit to the training room of the boxer in Miami, the BEATLES were acting as they were knocked out by the American boxer Muhammad ALI, became recently boxe World Champion. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The Beatles walked into EMI’s studio at Abbey Road via the goods entrance in 1962. They left it through the front door and across the zebra in 1969. That’s a mere seven years, during which time they redefined not just pop music but also fame.

They walked in as nonentities. Two years later they were the most famous people on Earth. Two years after that they were so famous they could no longer function in normal life. Much as Craig Brown’s previous book about Princess Margaret dealt with the impossibility of being royal, One Two Three Four, which follows a similar structure of viewing its subject largely through other people’s eyes, deals with the impact of fame arriving with fearful suddenness.