"The darkness at the center" of every book about the Beatles.

John Lennon.

[Beatles biographer Bob Spitz] hits the Lennon-as-drug-addled-emotional-cripple note with jarring frequency, a riff that often obscures the bad-boy rock expressionist's outright genius—just listen to a bootleg of the "Strawberry Fields Forever" demos recorded only weeks prior to what Spitz calls Lennon's "apogee of drug taking and self-abuse."

Here's the Spitz book on Amazon, open to the Search Inside function. Find something interesting and post it in the comments. I found this on page 336, describing the recording of "Come Together":

"Shoot me!" The taunt was indicative of the way John was feeling at the time. If Yoko helped reinforce his contempt for Paul, the heroin made their differences more irrational. Convinced that Paul was stealing his thunder, if not his soul, John fought his resentment with numbness.

Not really that well written, is it? "Convinced that Paul was stealing his thunder, if not his soul" is awfully bad.

Note: "Spitz" should not count as bodily-fluids blogging. Or should it?

That gives me an idea. Hmmm.... No references to semen or pus in the entire book! There is blood, though:

[M]uch of [Yoko Ono's book] Grapefruit [John] found infuriating, scattered with outrageous instructional “pieces,” such as “Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.” John, who loved nothing more than to whip up controversy, saw in Yoko a kindred spirit. She refused to play by anyone's rules. Yes, there was the "avant-garde crap" she perpetrated as art, but she was unlike any woman he'd ever met, a real challenge to figure out. She excited him.