The Beatles' music, up to the time of their first movie, still belongs in the earlier tradition of rock 'n' roll. Each new album had one or two really remarkable songs that today seem to anticipate the later pieces. But I have the feeling that there was a real change at about the time of A Hard Day's Night, and that the seeds of that change were literary rather than musical. They came essentially from Lennon's acute sensitivity to the spiritual world and to the hang-ups of the British middle class. While most critics were surprised by how good A Hard Day's Night was (where had they been?), Lennon's In His Own Write and the later A Spaniard in the Works brought about mixed reactions. Many reviewers who had apparently enjoyed reading the books appeared embarrassed to say so. The Joycean surface of the writing, thin though it...