Bryce Zabel’s ONCE THERE WAS A WAY and a Writer’s Most Important Tool
The Beatles have always been a part of my life, though I was born a certain number of years after they broke up. There are so many reasons that The Beatles have stood the test of time and will continue to be an important part of human culture. Beatlemania ushered in the rise of youth culture in the West, the reverberations of which continue to this day. The Beatles’ music was a beautiful mash-up of classical influences and the lively rock-and-roll (and soul and Motown) that were blossoming when John, Paul, George, and (eventually) Ringo were learning to play and write.
At the heart of it, The Beatles were a partnership of four young men who went from obscurity to vast fame and fortune. Such partnerships can never last forever, no matter how much we wish that were the case. Bryce Zabel must have had a lot of fun writing his new book, Once There Was a Way, a work of alternate history in which the author wonders what would have happened had the Fab Four found a way to get back homeward.
