[The] Beatles are now in a position to do anything at all and have it listened to. Their recent oeuvre, notably Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Magical Mystery Tour, is a great eclectic circus of Indian raga, Salvation Army, Benjamin British, tailgate, gutbucket, and aleatoric chance-music, all handled without hang-ups or uptightness. There is a lovely lawlessness about it that reminds one of the "indeterminacy" experiments of John Cage, the father of random music-making. Cage did this sort of thing for years, but he had to explain himself. The Beatles do it without explaining: "You don't say love, you do it" is an old psychedelic proverb. (p. 56)

Rhythmically [the] early Beatle numbers were lineal descendants of "race records," Mississippi blues, Alabama field hollers, and such. But while the thumb was playing with blues tension, the windpipe was enunciating British sentiments closer to Bea Lillie than...