Review: Derek Taylor's autobiography 'As Time Goes By,' old favorite of Beatles fans, returns
It was a nice and welcome surprise for fans of The Beatles to see Derek Taylor's book, “As Time Goes By,” making its return to bookshelves April 5 and, for the first time, in digital form after many years out of print. It was originally published in 1973 and U.S. readers back then were likely familiar with the version put out by Rolling Stone's now-defunct Straight Arrow Press. The new version is from Faber & Faber, and has a new introduction written for it by Jon Savage. Taylor died in 1997 at age 65.
Much of the book about Taylor's time with the Beatles and their Apple Corps Ltd. company, but he also discusses working with others, like Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Beach Boys, The Byrds and Danny Hutton. The text is anything but dry but has the whimsical, spirited tone that Beatles fans saw in his sleeve notes on the Fab Four's “Beatles For Sale” album. It was on that album that he wrote when trying to explain the Beatles to the next generation of fans, no one should try to explain it, but “just play the child a few tracks from this album and he'll probably understand what it was all about,” and the result would find “the same sense of well-being and warmth as we do today.”
Savage, in his new introduction, goes back through how “As Time Goes By” came to be. He calls it “angry and confused, fluent and blunt, erudite and crude,” saying the book has “all the urgency of a burden shared and thus lifted.” But it wasn't an easy time for Taylor, originally a newspaper man, who became a public relations man, which brought a world of new challenges.
“As Time Goes By” transforms the reader to the bygone era it pictures. It's also the picture of a man whose name today is cherished by those who knew him. It's nice to have him back again thanks to the pages of this book.
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