Neither the Beatles nor the producers and music directors with whom they worked did not publish their music in score form. Hal Leonard Corp. addressed that situation by paying Fujita, Hagino, Kubo, and Sato to painstakingly listen to every Beatles recording and transcribe the what they heard into notation. The notations are not perfect, but they provide an important starting point for discerning the musical details.

Everett heads the music theory program of the University of Michigan's School of Music and is a widely recognized scholar on the music of the Beatles. These two volumes provide ample analysis of the Beatles repertoire and of material that he argues influenced the Beatles. They also represent the first truly examples of serious academic scholarship on this repertoire.

Babiuk has devoted considerable attention to the various instruments the Beatles used in the recording studio and on the road. Beatles Gear will provide you with more information about the instruments they used than you might have known existed.

The editorial team that put the Anthology together sifted through hundreds of interviews and then had McCartney, Harrison, and Starr supplement these with their own interviews. Very often, the editors have pieced together interviews from different years (indicated by the year in a square bracket) in an attempt to create an interview that might have happened. Simply be aware that the interview bits are almost always out-of-context.

Lewisohn has had unparalleled access to Beatles files and recordings and his three-volume history of the band (the first volume of which is expected sometime in 2012) will be a landmark study on the subject. The two books mentioned here provide considerable detail on the Beatles' work in the studio and their day-to-day schedules, including numerous interviews with musicians and engineers.

As the Beatles' producer, George Martin has considerable understanding of what happened in the studio making his books important places to consult when trying to understand that part of the process. The two books mentioned here derive from interviews with two authors who have then converted the information into book formats and given Martin lead authorship.

Barry Miles was one of the owners of the Indica Book Shop where the Beatles sometimes gathered to find the most interesting latest publication. His book with Paul McCartney is the musician's unofficial official take on the songs he, Lennon, and Harrison wrote. The book serves as an important source on McCartney's thinking about this repertoire; but his memory may also play the occasional trick with him as well. Often, McCartney is responding to statements that Lennon made in his interviews with David Sheff. (See below.) The Diary serves as an alternative to Lewisohn's Chronicle with sometimes different dates and additional information.

Pollack provides a straight, old-fashioned musical analysis of the songs as recorded and presents his findings in direct prose. You may disagree with his analysis, but his analysis can provide a point of departure for your own findings.

Ryan and Kehew's exhaustively researched book has information you probably didn't know existed. Want to know what kind of compressor George Martin used on a recording in 1966? This is your book. They also have had access to George Martin's calendar and notes so they have been able to reconstruct some of the recording sessions in great detail.

Sheff and Golson conducted a major set of interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono shortly before Lennon's assassination in 1980. The original edited version appeared in Playboy; but subsequently, longer unabridged versions have appeared. Unfortunately, they are unindexed so you have to read through much of the books to find the information you want, but the books are also relatively short.

The Rolling Stone interviews from 1970 capture Lennon at his most spiteful as regards McCartney and the Beatles; but his memory is also very fresh in terms of the songs they wrote and the recordings they made.