[The initial meeting between John and Paul] in the late 'fifties led to events that shook the world.

This is no exaggeration. How many of us can look around and deny that the Beatles at least seemed to initiate many of those changes in our social attitudes and tastes that took place in the 'sixties and which still reverberate today? Possibly it was just the group's good luck to be so closely identified with these mass changes in consciousness. Yet many who still view the whole Beatle Phenomenon through wistfully pink-lensed spectacles will always secretly be convinced that the Beatles were behind the whole thing from the start. (p. 5)

With the release of [the] superb and historic single ['I Want to Hold Your Hand'], the Beatles proved themselves masters of the difficult art of writing original, memorable and commercial pop singles. The musical structure of 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' is full of subtle tricks and adventurous ploys that reveal a rapidly growing maturity in their work. From the deliberate stumble of the opening time-signature to the calculated dissonances of the chorus, the whole conception of this song was unlike anything attempted before—and owed little or nothing to their well-published tap-root American influences.

America, until now a sealed market for British rock acts …, sagged to its alpaca knees in awe. Thus is history made. (p. 21)

['With the Beatles' (British title)] is the only LP from the primitive early 'sixties that, well over ten years later, still retains all the freshness and breadth of musical vision that was instantly apparent on the day of issue. It was a simply staggering achievement from every point of view, a landmark par excellence, and one of the four best albums the Beatles ever made. (p. 22)

[The] almost flawless album ['Revolver'] can be seen as the peak of the Beatles' creative career. They were later to undertake more ambitious projects which would be crowned with equal critical acclaim, but 'Revolver' is the kind of achievement which any artist would be more than satisfied to regard as some kind of culmination to his career. No less than that. (p. 54)

The overall effect of 'Revolver' is majestic. A subjective opinion: the Beatles were never to surpass the standard of writing and playing which can be found on almost every track. (p. 58)

'Sgt. Pepper' is surely the Beatles' greatest technical achievement and if hindsight reveals many of the contrivances, they weren't in any way apparent in June 1967, high-water-mark of the psychedelic era. (p. 64)

[The] 'White Album'—as it became rapidly known—also indicated the passing of the Beatles as a group and the termination of any real desire to feed ideas into a communal pool. On this double LP, they each act as each others' session men; didacticism is rampant and it is more of a selection of solo tracks that we hear.

'The White Album' is an odd, patchy collection: informed critics opine that there is enough material here to make one really good single album. Certainly many of the tracks are dispensable, but the best are easily as good as anything they'd done….

McCartney's material reveals the eclecticism which had always dogged him—but this time to creditable effect. From the Beach Boys/Chuck Berry-styled opener 'Back In the USSR' (one of the best Beatle rockers ever written) to the whimsy of 'Martha My Dear' and the curious but extremely beautiful 'Blackbird' (held by many to be a sympathetic gesture towards the then-emergent Black Power movement), he hardly ever falters on this album, except on those tracks which are obvious inclusions for the sake of filling the enormous recording commitment necessitated by any double LP. His rooty-toot persona whisks past in the form of 'Rocky Raccoon' (a Mack Sennett movie set to music) and 'Honey Pie', a speakeasy special with charming flapper overtones. And nobody but McCartney could get away with the closing track, 'Goodnight'….

On the other hand, Lennon's unhappiness and resurgent iconoclasm come through powerfully. Swinging wildly (but sometimes accurately) at almost everything in sight, he scores telling hits on the Hippie Heaven of '67 ('Glass Onion'), a white hunter he'd met in Africa ('Bungalow Bill'), America's National Rifle Association ('Happiness Is a Warm Gun'), the British Blues Boom ('Yer Blues'), the Maharishi ('Sexy Sadie') and activists everywhere ('Revolution 1'). He attacks his own background even more strongly on 'Julia', a wistful blueprint for his later primalscream recorded histrionics. Lennon's best song on the album is the magnificent 'I'm So Tired', almost a direct continuation of the dream-sequence commenced with 'I'm Only Sleeping' on the 'Revolver' LP. The voice control and dynamics displayed on the later bars of each verse are quite astounding and reveal him as by far the most gifted vocalist in the group. (p. 74)

The brilliance was certainly there but the Beatle Dream was almost over and, try as they might, they could't prevent an uncomfortable amount of the sordid world outside from creeping in.

They were no longer invulnerable. (p. 75)

'Abbey Road' is the last real album the Beatles ever made; and it was certainly the last time all four were co-operating together in the studio.

It was actually recorded after 'Let It Be'—but continuing problems with the latter delayed editing, then programming, and finally re-mixing; meanwhile, the issue of 'Abbey Road' took place. (p. 80)

Prominent on the first side, McCartney practically carries the second side by himself—and this particular series of tracks still stands as one of the Beatles' supreme recorded achievements….

'Abbey Road' is certainly not unlike 'Pepper'. Both albums have the same glossy finish, noticeably lacking on all subsequent product apart from one or two singles. Both appear to follow a concept, though neither do in actuality and, in each case, the high standard of the master tape was arrived at by careful selection and juxtaposition, with effects added afterwards in the studio.

Lennon is strangely subdued once again, surfacing as a prominent vocalist only three times on 'Abbey Road' but with his unmistakable voice prominent on many of the backing layers. 'Come Together', the first song on the album, is his—and is one of the best of the set. Lennon's sardonic voice urges, through a barrage of free association, the exaltation of the simultaneous orgasm….

McCartney himself appears … with the rascally 'Max-well's Silver Hammer', an effortless little tune about a psychotic medical student. McCartney's all-purpose children's TV-style voice makes Maxwell's homicidal progress sound almost banally normal. 'Oh! Darling' (the next track) is McCartney again, aping a Paul Anka two-straws-in-one-malted doo-wop lament. This slight sag in the texture and tension of 'Abbey Road' is given a further weight to contend with in the form of 'Octopus's Garden', a remake of 'Yellow Submarine' with further subnautical noises and little else to commend it.

'I Want You—She's So Heavy' signals Lennon's return; it's a tortuous two-part piece which starts off like an agonised version of Mel Torme's 'Comin' Home Baby' and fades out amid the retreating footsteps of the Grim Reaper, as evoked by several instruments playing the same ominous riff in uncompromising unison. (p. 82)

A slower essay at the same craft, which displays, in parts, some really fine close harmonies, is the Hawaiian-sounding 'Because'. This segues sharply into the piano opening for McCartney's 'You Never Give Me Your Money' 'You only give me your funny paper', he mourns as the piece builds and further vocal harmonies are layered on top. Graceful and very delicate, it drops abruptly into a boogie centre which leads away from the main theme into 'Sun King', which in turn immediately recalls 'Because' with its rich layers of harmony (and nonsense Spanish).

At this point McCartney leaps to the fore. With one exception, all the remaining tracks on Side Two are his. The sequence in which they are welded produces some of the most accomplished—and surprising—music in Beatle repertoire. 'Mean Mr Mustard'—who, if not a psychopath, is certainly extremely unsavoury—is once again passed off as a whimsical character, a sort of Elder Steptoe. Following very closely is Lennon's final track, 'Polythene Pam', his contribution to that gallery of weirdos who have detailed portraits in 'Abbey Road'. The closing three chords patter along for a while until they usher in McCartney's 'She Came In Through the Bathroom Window'. The 'significance of the symbolism'—'She came in through the bathroom window / protected by a silver spoon'—was another nail in McCartney's supposed coffin, but he survived long enough to reprise 'You Never Give Me Your Money' as 'Golden Slumbers'; a beautiful coda. 'The End', acts as a final decorative touch to the album (and particularly to his own final closing suite). Luckily, he had the necessary irreverence to puncture the effect thus created by adding a postscript. 'Her Majesty' lasts precisely twenty seconds.

The overall effect of 'Abbey Road'—especially when seen in its true scheduled context—is one of superb mockery, especially directed at the proliferating numbers of Beatleologists who were busily dissecting all Beatle LPs back to 'Rubber Soul' in a frantic search for Revelation. The music is some of the most polished and most memorable the group ever produced…. The album dissatisfies because it is not perhaps their most honest record—but Beatle honesty veered perilously close to masochism on occasion and 'Abbey Roads' slickness is also its salvation. (pp. 82-3)

['Let It Be'] is characteristic for the abandonment of the overdubbing and purely studio effects which had been notable on every LP since 'Rubber Soul'. It is a starkly simple record (as was intended for proper verité) except in one or two curious places. Accordingly, the quality suffers, though the authenticity of what comes across is held, in some quarters, to be of greater interest…. (p. 90)

[John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band' is a] majestic album and, with Paul McCartney's 'Band On the Run' …, one of the two best-ever Beatle solo LPs.

Lennon's solo work had, until now, taken the form of collaborations with wife Yoko which reflected more of her influences than of his. But two years in the wilderness had produced a strong undercurrent of feeling in Lennon which could not be satisfied by lying on art-gallery floors inside large paper bags. His own splintered childhood and his recent discovery of primal scream therapy techniques encouraged him to use the LP medium as confessional, thereby laying some of the ghosts which had haunted him since early adolescence. The result is a remarkable and often moving album, almost brutally honest, and which, though obsessed with personal pain, was a complete artistic statement of great courage and typical candour.

Indeed, so many and so horrendous were the chances taken by Lennon on this LP that, with any lesser talent, the result could have been disastrous. In the word of a review of the time, he placed his balls defiantly on the line; out of sheer respect, the train ground to a halt.

A quick scan of the track titles reveals much of the subject matter: his rejection by the community as an adolescent; his rejection by the world (and his fellow-Beatles) in recent months; his loss of his mother in childhood—nothing is spared the listener, and the fact that such harrowing material succeeds artistically without falling into the trap of sentiment is entirely due to Lennon's natural feeling for economy and sparseness which preclude all forms of conventional musical sentimentality.

Dry-eyed, he sings of his mother, Julia ('Mother', 'My Mummy's Dead'); of painful growing-up and equally painful later rejection ('Working Class Hero'); of sham idolatry as personally experienced ('I Found Out', 'Isolation', 'God')—and, occasionally, of discovery and hope for the future ('Hold On John', 'Love', 'Look At Me')….

This period of Lennon's creativity has recently been harshly parodied—probably because of the excess of agony to be found in the songs. All the same, it was the most worthwhile Beatle LP since 'Abbey Road' and was not to be equalled by any other until late 1973. (p. 93)

'Imagine' … still stands as a classic of its kind and the most positive recorded statement Lennon has yet managed to make without the collaboration of Paul McCartney—though certain aspects of its premise have undergone some reassessment.

Pain, the stock-in-trade of the archetypal singer / song writer—and featured in pallid technicolour by Lennon himself on his earlier album—found itself subtly muted in favour of melody, polish, and a surprising sense of optimism. This was his White Period. He wore white, played a white piano, laundered his thoughts to breath-taking freshness (with one curious exception) and breathed white fumes in the white room of his white house at Ascot.

Because of the blanched nature of the publicity surrounding 'Imagine', the album itself seems full of colour. Lennon runs a full gamut of emotions, from 1970 agony to 1971 ecstasy with a sideswipe at arch-litigant Paul McCartney thrown in for good measure and malicious intent. 'How Do You Sleep?' is the most extraordinary song on the entire album. It is a vitriolic open letter, full of nasty insinuations and contemptuous insults….

All the more surprising then, that the majority of the remaining nine tracks display a gentleness and sensitivity far removed from the crude personal level of 'How Do You Sleep'. In fact, Lennon's rediscovery of melody—and it is nearly all melodic music that we encounter on this album—is gratifying in view of his almost total abandonment of this quality, both before and since. But for 'How Do You Sleep?' one would almost declare 'Imagine' a loving album. Perhaps the most lyrical tracks are 'Jealous Guy' and the title track itself. 'Oh My Love' and 'Oh Yoko!' are also tender little tunes. There is some of the 'Plastic Ono Band' period self-flagellation ('Crippled Inside', 'I Don't Want To Be a Soldier' and 'Give Me Some Truth') and, of course, the unique 'How Do You Sleep?'. (p. 97)

If Paul McCartney had been … in the wilderness for the previous three years, ['Band On the Run'] certainly re-instated him in the public eye and in the eyes of the numerous critics who had long previously dismissed his talent as 'lightweight' and 'overstylised'….

It reveals McCartney, not unnaturally, producing what McCartney produces best: disciplined arrangements; a strong sense of melody allied to a natural feel for exotic rhythms, the whole thing coupled to a resurgence of self-confidence. He also avoids the use of Beatle stylistic devices: devices are certainly present, but they are McCartney's personal property, and on 'Band On the Run' he uses them in a perfectly satisfactory manner.

Humour is also present: in (long-delayed) answer to Lennon's cruel 'How Do You Sleep' ('Imagine' LP), Paul fights back—gently—with a beautiful and totally sympathetic impersonation of Lennon's own idiosyncratic vocal/production style, 'Let Me Roll It' (complete with Arthur Janov-style primal whimper at the close). The understatement of this track contrasts with Lennon's misplaced viciousness to a marked degree.

Though 'Let Me Roll It' is the track which attracted most attention, many others stand out. 'Jet', which shortly afterwards became a single, is a thundering piece, featuring obscure lyrics and McCartney's own matchless bass; he also plays Moog synthesiser with more taste than most other exponents of this Frankensteinian instrument. His light-weight touch (which has only proved successful when allied to his natural ebullience) works superbly on 'Bluebird' (which recalls 'Blackbird' from 'The White Album') and on 'Mrs Vandebilt'—where Paul asks 'What's the use of worrying?'. 'No use' he answers himself, and, of course, he's dead right. In fact, it's the self-confidence of this album—especially after his many years in disfavour—which is so refreshing. (p. 110)

Roy Carr and Tony Tyler, in their The Beatles: An Illustrated Record (copyright © 1975 by Trewin Copplestone Publishing Ltd.), Harmony Books, 1975.