The Beatles Anthology 4: charts in America's top 10

I first discovered The Beatles through my father. In what I can only assume was a moment of madness, he loaned a teenage girl his copy of The Blue Album. Looking back, it was a gesture. A man who found sentiment and emotion difficult wanted to share his love of music with his daughter. I was hooked at first play, spending hours in my bedroom, volume turned full blast: “A Day in The Life”, “I am the Walrus”, “Strawberry Fields” on repeat. They played as I cried over boys, smeared-on lipstick in the mirror and pretended to revise for my exams. Then, one day, The Blue Album was gone. Those faces peering over the balcony of an apartment block on the cover had disappeared. Not a word was spoken but I knew of its fate – my father had come to his senses. How could his precious vinyl survive in the hands of an angst-filled 15-year old? He was no doubt right. Neither of us mentioned “the disappearance” again. I was bereft but, as teenagers do, moved on quickly, discovering new albums, alternate tribes.

Only many years later, when I was much older – and supposedly wiser – did he present that album to me again. The only words spoken: “I want you to have this.” But no other words were needed. That’s been my experience of The Beatles: everyone has a story to tell: a song, a memory, which is shared and entrusted to others. 

All this came flooding back with the news that the documentary The Beatles Anthology, newly restored and remastered, would be aired by Disney Plus. The documentary was first presented on TV in 1995 as a ground-breaking three-part feature-length series on ABC in the United States and a six-part series on ITV in the UK (later expanded on VHS in 1996 and DVD in 2003). The big draw of the 2025 series was a new ninth episode, which finally aired on the 28th November. It was both uplifting and heartbreaking, a glimpse into the band’s 1990s reunion without Lennon, when any artistic differences were forgotten and their bond strengthened as they came together to record Lennon’s “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” as a group. It’s been said that new content in this series had been thin on the ground – so much is readily available in the digital era – but watching it felt like a gathering, a glorious homage, made all the more poignant given George Harrison's death of cancer in 2001. For me, it was like spending time in the company of old friends.

If you missed it, watch the rerun, or better still buy the music (a reissued and expanded version of the three double-album Anthology records, the Anthology Music Collections, has just been released). It has just moved into America's Top 10 Album slot. There’s also a book – just in time for Christmas – a re-release of a bestseller that has been out of print since 2000. Billed as a  “book about The Beatles by The Beatles” its pages recount stories in the band’s own words, complemented by rare photographs, letters and memorabilia, intended to ignite a spark within a new generation. And reignite the fire in lifelong fans…