[The Beatles'] format is that of anonymity and role playing. Although this group is comprised of multitalented individuals, nobody thinks of them as anything less than a unity. Their anonymity is purposeful and deliberate. They cultivate their ability to assume many roles but they never do so at the expense of fragmentizing that strong outline of the four of them in any one song or film. It's Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band but Sergeant Pepper is a corporate entity.

They also deal with time and space in terms of their universal implications. Time is important as a medium through which transtemporality can be expressed. The same is true of space…. The Beatles are concerned with age, human improvement and death. Although they are not above a thrust at human foibles such as greed ("Piggies") and immature idealism ("Revolution I") they are for the most part optimists about...