While he may have some competition for the title of Fifth Beatle, few individuals can more justly claim to have made their mark on the band’s music than Geoff Emerick, who served as the recording engineer for Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album and Abbey Road. Even before he was manning the board, Emerick was a junior employee at EMI’s studios, and his memories stretch back to the band’s earliest singles, although he skips over eras, like the acrimonious recording of Let It Be, he wasn’t personally involved in. Emerick’s close friendship with Paul McCartney, whom he casts as the group’s undisputed leader, openly colors his recollections: He paints John Lennon as a vague conceptualist with little idea how to realize his own vague notions (he wanted his vocal on “Tomorrow Never Knows” to sound like “the Dalai Lama shouting from mountaintop”), and George Harrison as a fumbling guitarist who had to struggle mightily to lay down a simple solo. (Don’t even get him started on Yoko.) But the book is crammed with lively and fascinating anecdotes which make it possible to hear some of the most familiar songs in musical history with a fresh set of ears.