“Did you know there’s a Beatles statue in Kazakstan?”

This simple sentence—not so much a question as a statement of fact—served to launch a unique journey, one that led author Jack Marriott to set off around the world to visit monuments to The Beatles. Doubly inspired by a bus driver who suggested instead of walking from Paul McCartney’s childhood home directly to Lennon’s, he should walk the other way, traveling around the world, seeing the sights between the two homes via the longest way possible. That’s exactly what he did, and now his story is told in the hilarious and highly interesting Beatles Blackouts.

Armed with a forged BBC Press pass and a dubious story to go along with it, Marriott set out on an Eastward journey for Beatles monuments, unsure of what he would find and with no real goal set on what he would do with the information he gathered. He set about befriending Beatles fans in the areas he planned to visit and making contact with local officials that might have any stories for him. 

And find stories he did. Beatles Blackouts is full of tales of varying level of credibility and people of different levels of sketchiness. Rather quickly, you soon realize that it’s not the monuments that are the story here, but the people he encountered. The people he meets are of various interest and of all levels of sketchiness; some have fantastic stories that should be heard—such as the retired school teacher who befriended John in Spain, to whom Lennon promised all Beatles lyrics would thus be printed on every forthcoming album, which did in fact happen. Other stories are fantastic not for the people, but for the story, such as the Russian hippies who held a Beatles concert that the local government would have balked at, but the band changed the lyrics to the songs to make them pro-communist. Along the way, you’ll encounter shady Moroccans who may or may not have had ulterior motives, club owners who can hardly be bothered, and an overenthusiastic steak house employee who solicited McCartney and Starr for an endorsement of their Beatles-themed eatery. 

There are lots more tales to be told to be had in Beatles Blackouts; each page introduces wild, funny, and peculiar people and places. It’s truly a travelogue of a unique walkabout worthy of reading, as this shows how the Beatles impacted the world, without having to hear the same old Beatles stories. 

Purchase Beatles Blackouts: Microcosm Publishing

Tagged as: Book Reviews, George Harrison, Jack Marriott, John Lennon, Microcosm Publishing, Paul McCartney, The Beatles