Especially when I was starting out writing (for money, as opposed for mental health) I often turned to writers I admired, who wrote in the genre or for the market I was aiming for. So before ---and sometime during-- a magazine writing assignment, I'd skim over magazine articles by writers I liked. Ditto for broadcast writers, humor columnists, fiction writers, etc.

Usually, the style, tricks and techniques of these writers prompted an invigorating, pilot-light-sparking reaction in me, and I'd re-attack my assignment with renewed vigor. Jonathan Gould changed all that. So thanks, buddy. Your jaw-dropping, meticulously researched efforts in Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, And America produced literary vivisections of songs, their inspiration, their internal workings and external ripple affects which all but paralyzed whatever inertia I once (it seems eons ago) believed I could dedicate to music musings and reviews.

If what follows in this book review reeks of juvenile gushing, I won't even attempt to apologize for it. Neither would you or anyone who can appreciate what goes into the analysis of music and music makers. Gould has created in this, his (and it REALLY pains me to reveal this) first publication, what can only fairly be described as the ultimate musician's guide to song writing and producing. Most of the analysis, obviously, centers on the genius and the occasionally not-so-genius words and music of The Beatles. There are, simply put, no throwaway references, analyses, descriptions, explanations, suppositions in these 600 and change pages.

The real kicker? Gould manages to infuse what would otherwise (and by that I mean "in the hands of a lesser craftsman") read like the ingredients panel on a barrel of a taxidermist's bone-cleaning chemical soup, with wit, wisdom and an intellectual spark that burns brighter with each turn of the page. A long-time jazz drummer, Gould's literary rhythm is irregular enough to surprise, refined enough to simultaneously entertain and inform.

And while it may be nitpicked for a glaring lack of juicy, saucy insider dish, Can't Buy Me Love more than makes up for it in a currency that evidently, and sadly, has bottomed-out on both sides of the pond, that currency being: truth. And it may well be that the expression "Truth is stranger than fiction" was the blueprint for The Beatles' story. The story does after all include the behind the show curtain and behind the bedsheet (as in The Great Bed-in) revelations of the "interesting" Yoko Ono. Even here, where Gould could be forgiven for picking at the scab of what many viewed as the virus that infected the band, Gould resists. Instead, he relies on that old-fashioned journalistic foundation of in-depth research, professional experience, reliable industry sources, oh and that all- but-dead tool of the wordsmith's trade: integrity.

But enough of Gould's biographic gold. I'm about to re-read and re-savor this writer's work, this time in an effort to shake-off self-doubt, and siphon off some of that determination and talent. I'm just hoping my attempts don't morph into shameless Gould-wanna be-ism, and that I sub-consciously adopt bits and pieces of his enviable style.

...because if copying is the highest form of flattery, Jonathan Gould will soon be blushing such a deep shade of crimson that he'll be battling off attempts by even complete strangers to slather him in sunscreen with UV Block no. 150.