So, about that fanboys versus fangirls thing...

Curious phenomenon: despite a fanbase with, to put it mildly, a lot of women through the ages, biographers both of the Beatles as a group and of individual members tend to be male. (I never got into the biographical industry of another group or rock star enough to tell whether this is true for others as well.) They also tend to be journalists. Now, if you go by certain gender clichés still popular in many a fandom, this should make for restrained writing, but no. It never fails to amuse me that there is almost invariably one point in the saga at which said male journalist biographers throw caution in the air, indulge their inner novelist and make, say, your avarage Kirk and Spock tale penned by fans look positively restrained. (Other fanfics are available, to parody the disclaimer parodied by certain hilarious Doctor Who actors in their audio commentaries.) No, it's not the Hamburg era with the Reeperbahn attractions. Or Beatlemania (and groupies). Or the gory break-up tale (and drugs). The point where all these earnest gentlemen get starry-eyed and throw themselves in purple prose is:

( July 6, 1957 in four versions, or: when writers go wild )