[What] kind of world did [the Beatles] evoke in their early years, from [their] interfusion of American black blues and white rock and Country-Western, of Anglo-Irish folk music and song and dance from music-hall and pub? From the start the Beatles were individualities who sought a corporate identity. Though only during the first year or two did Lennon and McCartney actually compose together, there's point in the ascription of the songs to their joint authorship. They needed one another for their fulfilment: needed, in a rather different way, the other two Beatles; and the separate ways in which they grew up were affected by the identity they'd sought for in the early years…. [Their] 'group' sense—their corporate identity—is complemented by the themes of the early songs; which concern the euphoric happiness of togetherness, though it's significant that this togetherness is identified with the two-way relationship of heterosexual love—which sometimes becomes synonymous with 'home', security, mum.
One of the most famous of early Beatle songs—She loves you—is also quintessential. It is simply an affirmation, epitomised in its 'Yeah yeah yeah' refrain; and it exists in the moment, without before or after…. The timeless, present-affirming modality is instinctive; and the words, if … perfunctorily vacuous, are no longer merely magic talismen, abracadabra. They do concern a basic, life-affirming human experience; and the conjunction of the words with the music makes evident that this experience matters because it is true; and is true because—even in the face of the commercial pressures and discords of modern industrial life—the Beatles are, through their music, as though new-born. It's this pristine quality that helps us to understand the potency of their appeal, the relevance of their mythology. (pp. 32-3)
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