A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BEATLES MAGAZINE

How The Beatles Magazine -- launched in 2023 as a 1960s print-only relic, with real-time reporting on the band from a fictional, ragtag team of hungry young journalists -- ended up on Substack.

In the summer of 2023, I launched The Beatles Magazine. I guarantee you’ve never heard of it, because no one subscribed. Oh, wait, I forgot. My therapist bought a subscription. For her dad.

That figures, in retrospect. My decision to quit a perfectly good job in part to pursue this misbegotten mission — in print, no less! — lacked some basic common sense, at least from a circulation standpoint. The Beatles had broken up more than a half-century ago. Two of its members are now dead, along with most of the millions who saw them perform live. What the hell was I thinking? Demos don’t lie.

I bought the Fab Four’s first American album — Meet the Beatles! — in the spring of 1964, when I was in the third grade. It cost $3.98, which meant lifting two singles from my dad’s wallet to supplement my savings. I don’t regret it. Six decades later, I still treasure the LP’s every groove and scratch. I now own most Beatles albums, and know the words to every Beatles song except Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. But unlike many Beatles-besotted sixtysomethings, I’ve also privately nurtured a lifelong, deep-seated fascination with the band’s sordid interpersonal history, perhaps past the point of acceptable adult behavior.

Having recently shed the shackles of full-time employment, I now had too much time on my hands. My restless mind began to wonder what it might have been like if Kaitlan Collins had been assigned to cover The Beatles back in the day. I dangeously coupled that concept with my outmoded allegiance to print magazines, and suddenly I had an idea no one understood. I envisioned a fictional imagining of a 1960s Beatles fan magazine, as though written and edited by a small band of young Beatles fans, living in Liverpool, who doubled as eager, hardworking investigative reporters. And who told true stories about The Beatles known only to as-yet-unborn generations of journalists, historians and fans.

When I shared the notion with friends, they usually tried to dissuade or deter me from my plan. “How about Dylan?” one normally supportive friend gently pleaded. I wouldn’t hear of it.

Somehow or another – copious amounts of red wine may have helped – I managed to persuade my friend Luke Hayman, the renowned magazine art director and partner at Pentagram Design, to create a glorious visual look for my chaotic concept. Luke was under the mistaken impression, left by me, that at least I had a coherent business plan that involved selling lots of subscriptions and funding future issues. He kindly crafted a gorgeous vessel to serve my garbled vision, at no charge.

After The Beatles Magazine’s epic, instantaneous failure within days of its July 1, 2023 launch, Luke suggested turning the whole thing into a Substack. That was a truly generous proposal, considering that meant carting most of his artistry to the curb. But I somehow saw Substack as a betrayal of my loyalty to print, and it took me two years to own my mistake.

You were right, Luke. I was wrong. I’m sorry.

I’m at last offering the contents of Volume 1, Number 1 of The Beatles Magazine free of charge via Substack. Once I’ve rolled out the stories from that issue, I’ll continue my journey backwards in time, with more revelatory Beatles coverage beginning with the events of 1965 — all as though written exactly 60 years ago by my fictional team of reporters, led by editor-in-chief C.J. Baxter of Liverpool.

Who is C.J. Baxter? I’ll let her explain, in my next Substack installment -- her “Letter from the Editor” that appeared in Volume 1, Number 1 of The Beatles Magazine. I should clarify here that C.J. Baxter doesn’t actually exist. But that’s a matter between me and my therapist.