Eminent NPR critic Tim Riley takes us on the remarkable journey that brought a Liverpool art student from a disastrous childhood to the highest realms of fame. Riley portrays Lennon's rise from Hamburg's red light district to Britain's Royal Variety Show; from the charmed naïveté of "Love Me Do" to the soaring ambivalence of "Don't Let Me Down"; from his shotgun marriage to Cynthia Powell in 1962 to his epic media romance with Yoko Ono. This narrative draws on numerous new and exclusive interviews with Lennon's friends, enemies, confidantes, and associates. Riley explores Lennon in all of his contradictions: the British art student who universalized an American style, the anarchic rock 'n' roller with the moral spine, the anti-jazz snob who posed naked with his avant-garde lover, and the misogynist who became a househusband. What emerges is the enormous, seductive, and confounding personality that made Lennon a cultural touchstone.--From publisher description.

Pre-Beatles, 1940-1959. No reply ; Something to hide ; She said she said ; Nobody told me ; Pools of sorrow -- Beatlehood, 1960-1969. Well well well ; I found out ; A man you must believe ; Isolation ; Hold on ; Thick of it ; One sweet dream ; Watching the wheels ; Another kind of mind ; In a play ; I should have known better ; How? ; Thank you girl -- Beyond Beatles, 1970-1980. Just we two ; I'll cry instead ; You can't do that ; I'm a loser ; Get back ; Three of us.