Now animals can be said to inhabit a world with four dimensions: the usual three dimensions that constitutes the height, depth, and width of space, and a fourth time dimension (ie. the here and now). So animals are aware of the sensory world around them (ie. of objects and events), but they are not really conscious of time (in the of sense of being aware of their movement through time). For them, the world is always and only the immediate sensible world around them in the eternal now. Being thus creatures of the moment, animals react to the world, but they cannot be said to act (in the sense of initiating a deliberate series of actions whose outcome lies in the future).

  For this reason we can say that while animals have will, they do not have FREE will. Human beings, on the other hand, live in a world having five dimensions: the three space dimensions, the present, and an expanded time dimension emanating away from the eternal now (ie. past and future). We "see" into the future by anticipating events that are not yet visible to our eyes, and we "see" into the past by the remembrance of events that are no longer available to our senses. Here then is the chief difference between animals and humans: animals see the world through their senses, whereas human beings see the world chiefly through the complex filter of their minds.

  One way to illustrate this essential distinction is to liken animals to a surfer. Animals are trapped within a narrow slice of reality; like a surfboard riding the edge of the eternal-now, and pushed about by the waves (ie. endless chains of causality), having little control over where they are going. Human beings, however, are more like the scuba-diver, in that being time-travelers they are not trapped upon the surface of reality (being constantly pushed this way and that), but can move about in any direction. And so they have some small measure of control over their movements and the general direction of their lives. Therefore, people are able to act (rather than simply react) only by virtue of the fact that (for us) time is an essential element within the fabric of self-aware human realities. If we were not time-travelers in this fundamental sense, then our minds simply could not function the way that they do.

  Now along comes George Harrison saying that the future is not - and therefore forms no part of reality (which is arbitrarily restricted within the limits of the eternal now) - and that the past is gone (and therefore forms no part of reality). For Mr Harrison (if I'm reading his ancient Eastern philosophy correctly), all 'Reality' is fully contained within the present passing-moment, such that the past and future are nothing more than mere illusion: "Beware of Maya", sayeth George (in 'Beware Of Darkness', 1970).

  In other words, Harrison would unwittingly empty us of our very humanity by reducing our existence of the level of the surfer-like animals. For we address ourselves to the future not by making predictions, but rather by making rational (or semi-rational) choices and decisions that carry us into the future. In the same way, the present can be thought of as the sum total of all prior present-moments that have come and gone, yet still linger on.

  Now I don't for a moment believe that Mr. Harrison means to say that human beings are incapable of free will; yet this is the inevitable result of the notion that the past and future are unreal. The chief problem here is that George is not a philosopher, and so was undoubtedly unaware of where these basically religious ideas actually lead. Yes, absurdity is what happens when musicians attempt to be something that they are not.

  Take the Beatles, for example. They started out in the early sixties with a rather simple philosophy: "All you need is love!" And with their lively sounds they rocked the world, and in the process initiated a musical and cultural revolution. But Beatlemania was soon followed by an anti-Beatlemania when John's messiah-complex leaked out in the form of an offhand statement claiming that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. Needless to say, this statement caused great offense everywhere, even among Beatle-fans. Fortunately, the inevitable backlash was deflected somewhat by a timely, but insincere, apology.

  In any case, the group went on to bigger and better things. As musical artists the band continued to improve; with each new record being better than the last. 'Rubber Soul' and 'Sergeant Pepper' were vastly superior to their earlier albums, and in fact sent rock-and-roll in a new direction. Having thus succeeded in reshaping rock-and-roll, the Beatles did not simply coast along (as other bands do), but continued to push themselves hard in their relentless pursuit of musical perfection. Then came the double 'White Album', which again surpassed all their previous efforts, and not long afterward they finally reached the summit of the musical mountain with 'Abbey Road' (1969), their last and greatest album.

  Now it is no surprise to me that the Beatles promptly fell apart after 'Abbey Road', for there really was no longer any reason for the band to continue. They could not hope to surpass the achievement that 'Abbey Road' represents (as the later release of 'Let It Be' demonstrates), and so their creativity as musical artists could not be sustained under the form of the Beatles. That the Fab-Four should all go their separate ways is, in fact, the only sensible response to 'Abbey Road'.

  When we now turn to their individual post-Beatles careers, some very interesting things sneak into the light of day. Firstly, Ringo Starr managed to come up with several good albums; which are still a lot of fun to listen to, even today. So even Ringo, it seems, has a small spark of the Spirit-of-Music in him. But his carefree philosophy of music obviously lacks the seriousness of the later Beatles, and is far more like that of the Rolling Stones: "It's only rock-and-roll, but I like it." Ringo and the Stones, in other words, have no "message" to pass along, no gospel-of-love-absolute to preach to the world. For them, music is just plain fun, and need not be anything more than that. This nakedly non-political philosophy of music has kept the Stones going for longer than any rock band in history, but it also prevents them from creating a truly great album of a stature similar to 'Abbey Road'.

  On the other hand, the other three remaining ex-Beatles all take their music somewhat more seriously than this. George Harrison also made quite a few albums on his own (just over a dozen), and while none of these can be considered truly outstanding, they do contain some dozen or so songs that are of exceptional quality (eg. 'My Sweet Lord'). Harrison's musical-spark is thus much brighter than Ringo's, and his vision of music is far more like John Lennon's: "We were talking about the love we all could share, when we find it. To try our best to hold it there, with our love. With our love we could save the world; if they only knew" (from 'Within You Without You' by G.Harrison, 1967). That is, they both saw music as a transformative force that could and would change the world for the better; hence 'The Concert for Bangla Desh' (1971).

  Now many people like to say that Lennon and McCartney were the heart and soul of the Beatles, but when we look closely at 'Abbey Road' we see that 'Here Comes the Sun' is the best track there (and by extension the best Beatles song period), and that song was NOT written by Lennon and McCartney, but by the much overlooked George Harrison! How the hell does that work? Clearly the popular evaluation of the Fab-Four leaves much to be desired.

  [ Note: The reader should be aware that when I say things like "Here Comes the Sun is the best Beatles song" I am speaking objectively as a semi-dispassionate philosopher, and not merely spouting off a set of purely personal opinions that the reader can simply disregard as a 'matter of taste'. But if these judgments and observations were about my own personal opinions and tastes, I would argue that 'Piggies' (another Harrison tune, by the way) is the single greatest Beatles song: "In their styes with all their backing, They don't care what goes on around. In their eyes there's something lacking. What they need's a damn good whacking. Everywhere there's lots of piggies; Living piggy lives. You can see them out for dinner, With their piggy wives; Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon." :) ]

  For Paul McCartney the music is everything, such that the message is almost incidental and can be virtually meaningless as long as it serves the music: "If I live to a hundred and two, I won't let nobody sting me but you. I'll be buzzin' 'round your hive; Ev'ry day at five. And I'm never gonna leave once I arrive. I'm done, ah-ha, I got stung. I got stung, yeah, I got stung, yeah" ('I got Stung', from 'Run Devil Run', 1999). Contrast this with rap-music, where the message is everything, and the music is nothing more than the vehicle for carrying the message, and is incidental almost to the point of irrelevance.

  And John is the same way. For him the message comes first, last, and always. The Beatles philosophy of music is thus a spectrum with Paul at one end (the positive pole) and John at the other end (the negative pole), and this is precisely why they complemented and completed each other so beautifully. They were stronger as a team because when working together they compensated for each other's personal weaknesses and deficiencies. The Beatles were thus much more than the sum of their parts, and this is why none of the ex-Beatles, in their solo careers, could ever produce a record as brilliant as Abbey Road or the White Album; although McCartney undoubtedly comes closer than the others: especially with the outstanding 'Tug of War' (1982).

  But as individual musical artists it was George Harrison who turned out to have the most surprising and fascinating post-Beatles career. He also has a good claim to a large measure of the Spirit-of-Music precisely because he stood squarely in the middle of the spectrum such that he gave both the sounds and the lyrics an equal share. The Spirit-of-Music was thus more perfectly balanced in him than in either Lennon or McCartney, and that is why some of the best Beatles (and post-Beatles) songs came out of him.

  So while Paul McCartney is undoubtedly a great musician, he is not, alas, very interesting to the philosopher. 'Silly love songs' may keep the die-hard Beatles-fans happy, but there is really precious little there for the philosopher to sink his teeth into: "In my green metal suit I'm preparing to shoot up the city. And the ring at the end of my nose makes me look rather pretty. It's a pity there's nobody here to witness the end; save for my dear old friend and confidante: Mademoiselle Kitty" ('Rock Show', from 'Venus and Mars', 1975). Fortunately, John and George are quite a different matter because their music can usually bear the weight of their sometimes heavily-laden messages.

  Now the almost total lack of any political and philosophical depth to Paul's music may be attributed to the suggestion that McCartney never bothered himself to grow up. But this would be a serious error since the apolitical nature of his music appears to come from a conscious and deliberate decision. Moreover, there are notable exceptions to this policy of non-involvement; as with the 1993 album 'Off the Ground' where Paul and Linda push their favorite causes (eg. deforestation, vegetarianism, animal testing, and ecology). And in his public life, Paul has, on rare occasions, ventured forth into the real world.

  For example, I seem to recall that McCartney once signed a public statement (along with many other famous persons) calling for the decriminalization of marijuana. Later on, after Paul became Sir Paul, he even went so far as to explain his pro-pot activism: "I support decriminalization. People are smoking pot anyway, and to make them criminals is wrong." That's putting it rather too mildly, I think. But even this inoffensive observation of Paul's was enough to outrage the pot-haters, who think it better for pot-smokers to suffer all manner of sadistic abuse in prison than that they should maybe develop some slight lung-problems half a century hence. And the government's wise and considered response was that Paul's comments were "unhelpful". Unhelpful to the idiocy of an irrational and uncaring government perhaps?

  In any case, Sir Paul is to be commended for standing up for what he believes, even though knowing full well that the morons will yowl "foul" at him. Nor can we fault him for making his music meaningless and essentially irrelevant; for it is the right of every artist to do so if that is the way they wish it to be. After all, if musical variety is the spice of life, then McCartney's flavor is available in an impressive abundance, since he has about as many records as the other three ex-Beatles combined. We're talking something like approximately fifty records in all (of varying quality, of course) for the total post-Beatles production of the ex-Fab-Four. That's quite an impressive achievement by any standard.

  Having thus disposed of Sir Paul, we can now turn our attention fully upon the far more (philosophically) interesting John Lennon. He produced about the same number of albums as George before his untimely death from a madman's bullet (ie. approximately thirteen LPs, not counting live albums and collections). Also like George he too has some good songs scattered among his post-Beatles records, but on the whole, I think Harrison actually did slightly better. The problem here is that John tried to make his music do things that rock-and-roll is ordinarily unsuited for. Thus his "political" songs are almost too political (eg. 'John Sinclair' and 'Power to the People'), and his pseudo-religious songs are too anti-religious:

  "I'm sick and tired of hearing things, From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. I've had enough of reading things, By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians. All I want is the truth. Just gimme some truth. No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky, Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me, With just a pocketful of hope" ('Just Gimme Some Truth', from 'Imagine' 1971).

  John did not merely try to change the world, he wanted to save it; just as George did, but what a difference between their attitudes and approaches to this noble project! For example, Harrison was always a collaborator. He knew he could accomplish little on his own, and he was always willing to work with others, and let them carry part of the load (as with the Concert for Bangla Desh), and he did this right to the end of his life (as with the Traveling Wilburys). But Lennon wanted to save the world all on his own, and to do it all his way (with only Yoko to help him along).

  And so his music is meant to be a vehicle for spreading the Gospel of Lennon, the Musical-Messiah of Peace & Love. In a very real sense John simply did not know his limits, and so he tried to be something that he was not (and could never be), and the spiritual contradiction was to cost him dearly: "People say we got it made. Don't they know we're so afraid? Isolation. We're afraid to be alone. Everybody got to have a home. Isolation. Just a boy and a little girl. Trying to change the whole wide world. Isolation. The world is just a little town. Everybody trying to put us down. Isolation" ('Isolation', from 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band', 1970).

  At first, the cost was only some embarrassment and disillusionment, but later it cost him his very life. Lennon did indeed die a prophet's death on 8Dec1980 (ie. wrongful death by violence), but in and of itself this does not make a man a saint, let alone a world-savior. So Lennon's death was truly tragic, but in one (very odd) sense the timing of it couldn't have been better; for if John had lived on to see the release of 'Tug of War', that brilliant album would surely have killed him because that record in and of itself finally settled the question of which ex-Beatle held the greatest measure of the Spirit of Music.

  On the whole, then, Lennon's post-Beatle career must be judged a relative failure, chiefly because John was unable to resolve this untenable contradiction within his own soul, a contradiction that he was aware of (if only subconsciously): "Who am I supposed to be? Look at me. What am I supposed to be? ... What am I supposed to do? Here I am. What can I do for you? ... Who am I? Nobody knows but me. Nobody knows but me. Who am I? Nobody else can see. Just you and me. Who are we?" ('Look At Me' from 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band', 1970).

  And Paul was more than happy to agree: "They say nobody knows, nobody knows. Which one of you can tell me what it is I'm looking at? Anyone who can has got to be a crazy cat. 'Cause I believe that nobody knows, no, nobody knows. Yeah, nobody knows. Lord, I cannot tell you. Well, that's the way I like it. Yeah now, nobody knows" ('Nobody Knows', from 'McCartney II', 1980).

  Now it's a curious fact that some of the post-Beatles music of Lennon and McCartney can only be properly understood within the context of the ongoing dialogue between them. A dialogue (that literally transcends death owing to the timeless quality of music) between two musical titans; two rival musicians trying to outshine each other in the eyes of the world. Paul calls it a 'tug of war':

  "It's a tug of war. what with one thing and another, it's a tug of war. We expected more; but with one thing and another, we were trying to outdo each other, in a tug of war. ... It's a tug of war. Though I know I mustn't grumble; it's a tug of war. But I can't let go; if I do you'll take a tumble, and the whole thing is going to crumble. It's a tug of war. ... We expected more. But with one thing and another, we were trying to outscore each other, in a tug of war. Pushing pushing, pulling pulling, pushing and pulling" (from 'Tug of War').

  But how did this whole tug-of-war business get started? No doubt the rivalry goes way back, but it surely entered it's most powerful phase during the making of Abbey Road. John and Paul both had different visions of what that album should be, but producer George Martin favored McCartney's ideas for the record, and this decision created more than a little tension between them and John. But in  retrospect, it was obviously the right way to go; for if Lennon had had his way there can be no doubt that Abbey Road would have suffered for it.

  But John didn't quite see it that way. All he saw was that the spirit and style of Abbey Road was more of McCartney than it was of Lennon, and he deeply resented that fact. He brought Yoko into the sessions, knowing full well that this only increased the tension and animosity all around. George and Ringo were caught in the middle of the conflict, and perhaps suffered the most from the unhealthy atmosphere in the studio. They sometimes protested by not showing up for work at all. But when they all got together they were able to (temporarily) put aside their differences and just be the consummate professionals they had become. None of the Fab-Four were particularly happy under these conditions, but they (perhaps perversely) never sounded better.

  And when it was all finished and done, John walked away determined to prove that those two had made a serious error in judgment. He would show the world who the better man, and the better musician, was. But it didn't turn out the way he had hoped. Paul and George had both had some commercial success with their earliest solo efforts, but the world didn't seem to appreciate his and Yoko's radical experimentation that pushed beyond the boundaries of conventional music. Which is hardly surprising since these meaningless noises can, by no stretch of the imagination, be ennobled by calling them music. And this failure (on the part of the world, of course) only deepened John's anger and bitterness. So he changed direction, because he was forced to, but he remained as determined as ever to show the world who he really was.

  Now for a philosopher, trusting in what you see is a very rational virtue. But for the prophet, such a radical circumcision of faith is enormously self-defeating and counter-productive. However, honesty is a necessary virtue in both philosophers and prophets, and it is this virtue that John had in abundance. He also had other virtues that the prophet needs: good intentions, vision, a love of peace, intuition and imagination, and a firm conviction in the primacy of love. John's awareness of the presence of all of these laudable qualities served to convince him that he was uniquely qualified to carry out his self-given mission of transforming and saving the world through the power of music.

  But Lennon also had two things that seriously undermined the effectiveness of his prophetic qualities. Firstly, he was blind to his own weaknesses and limitations, and also blind to the rather obvious fact that it is NOT the purpose of music to save the world. Now music can be many different things, to be sure, but world-salvation places more weight upon music than it can properly bear. Secondly, and more serious than even this debilitating blank-spot, is John's almost total lack of belief. If John believes in what he sees around him, he also does NOT believe in what he doesn't see. Indeed, it is more than fair to say that Lennon, if he truly was a prophet, was the Prophet of Unbelief:

  "I don't believe in magic. I don't believe in I-ching. I don't believe in Bible. I don't believe in tarot. I don't believe in Hitler. I don't believe in Jesus. I don't believe in Kennedy. I don't believe in Buddha. I don't believe in Mantra. I don't believe in Gita. I don't believe in Yoga. I don't believe in kings. I don't believe in Elvis. I don't believe in Zimmerman. I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me (Yoko and me). And that's reality" ('God', from 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band').

  John's unbelief is thus his most basic feature as a prophet (along with his blindness to the essential contradiction involved in a disbelieving prophet), and it accordingly perverts the nature and quality of what he does believe. Take the idea of God, for example. John doesn't say 'I don't believe in God'. He simply redefines it: "God is a concept by which we measure our pain" ('God', from 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'). And so it goes. Even peace becomes a negative concept characterized by the absence of strife, violence, hatred, racism, and so forth.

  In other prophets and sages, these ideas have (at the very least) SOME small measure of positive content to give them weight and meaning. But not so for John. Even his understanding of love has this peculiarly empty and fuzzy feel to it: "Love is real, real is love. Love is feeling, feeling love. Love is wanting to be loved. Love is touch, touch is love. Love is reaching, reaching love. Love is asking to be loved. Love is you; You and me. Love is knowing we can be. Love is free, free is love. Love is living, living love. Love is needing to be loved" ('Love', from 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band').

  When we fit all this together (recall that reality is defined as "Yoko and me"), love adds up to only one thing; namely, the dyad (ie. the reality-unit having two parts named John and Yoko). The dyad thus becomes for Lennon the only tangible reality, the only absolute which takes the place of all that he has denied, and fills the void left behind by the enforced expulsion of the entire objective multiverse!

  We may therefore liken John to a ship-wrecked sailor stranded in the middle of the ocean (cast adrift upon the rough and rude seas of Being, as it were), at midnight during the peak period of a massive thunderstorm. This sailor-John is firmly embedded in the very center of a violent and hostile darkness: "How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing? How can I go forward when I don't know which way to turn? How can I go forward into something I'm not sure of? Oh no, oh no. How can I have feeling when I don't know if it's a feeling? How can I feel something if I just don't know how to feel? How can I have feelings when my feelings have always been denied? Oh no, oh no" ('How', from 'Imagine').

  And the only life-preserver he has is the dyad, and so he clings to it with all his might, for he knows that without it he is utterly lost and damned and doomed. From this untenable position Sailor-John looks out and over the horizon to see Paul happily basking in the sunshine, in the warmth of public approval and acceptance, in the rosy glow of a joyful love, and he reacts against the sheer absurdity of it all:

  "... Those freaks was right when they said you was dead. The one mistake you made was in your head. ... The only thing you done was yesterday. And since you're gone you're just another day. ... A pretty face may last a year or two. But pretty soon they'll see what you can do. The sound you make is muzak to my ears. You must have learned something in all those years. Ah, how do you sleep? Ah, how do you sleep at night?" ('How Do You Sleep?', from 'Imagine').

  And here again we come upon the puzzling contradiction that is called John Lennon. Here again the essential paradox shows through, for this thoroughly nasty and negative outburst of raw emotion (now immortalized in song) is also one of Lennon's best solo-efforts. Yes, a very strange sort of prophet this is!

  Now Harrison could not have been very thrilled with Lennon's suggestion that we should "imagine no religion", for he was the only one of the ex-Beatles who was actively sympathetic to religion: "Hmm (hallelujah). My sweet lord (hallelujah). My, my, lord (hallelujah). Hm, my lord (hare krishna). My, my, my lord (hare krishna). Oh hm, my sweet lord (krishna, krishna). Oh-uuh-uh (hare hare). Now, I really want to see you (hare rama). Really want to be with you (hare rama). Really want to see you lord, But it takes so long, my lord. Hallelujah ('My Sweet Lord', from 'All Things Must Pass' 1970).

  Yet these serious differences between the believer and the unbeliever could not overcome their friendship, and George even acknowledged the importance Lennon had in the formation of his outlook: "I'm shouting all about love; While they treated you like a dog. When you were the one who had made it so clear, All those years ago. I'm talking all about how to give. They don't act with much honesty. But you point the way to the truth when you say, All you need is love" ('All those years ago' from 'Somewhere In England' 1981). Yet it was Harrison who fulfilled and realized John's vision of music where Lennon himself (owing to his unbelief) was unable to.

  On the other hand, McCartney's denial of John's philosophy of music as a transformative social-political force is grounded in his understanding that such a vision of music is basically irrelevant and even a sad distortion of the truth: "O-Oh. Yes indeed we know that people will find a way to go, no matter what the man said" ('Listen To What The Man Said', from 'Venus and Mars'). Or again: "Too many people preaching practices, don't let 'em tell you what you wanna be" ('Too Many People', from 'Ram' 1971). Or to put it yet another way: "It doesn't make a difference what you want to do. Whichever way you look at it, I'm still in love with you. If we go on forever, I may never make a change" ('Dress Me Up As A Robber' from 'Tug of War'). Paul is simply too pragmatic to fall for idealism in any form (religious or non-religious).

  But Harrison's acceptance of religion gave his music a mystical element, and a spiritual weight, that the music of Lennon, and the music of McCartney, was seriously lacking: "Without going out of your door, You can know all things on earth. Without looking out of your window, You can know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, The less one knows. The less one really knows. Arrive without travelling. See all without looking. Do all without doing ('The Inner Light', 1968). Harrison's religion also added weight and positive content to his beliefs and values; even those he shared with John.

  And if love is a small and desperate thing in Lennon's dark  understanding, it is something altogether different in George's cosmic-heart: "There in your heart, Something that's never changing. Always a part of something that's never aging, That's in your heart. It's so true it can happen to you all, there. Knock and it will open wide. And it only takes time 'til love comes to everyone ('Love Comes To Everyone', from 'George Harrison' 1979). Even peace is transformed into a force of compassion when filtered through George's expansive soul: "Won't you please, Oh won't you Give me love, Give me love. Give me peace on earth. Give me light. Give me life. Keep me free from birth. Give me hope. Help me cope, with this heavy load. Trying to, touch and reach you with, heart and soul. Oh My Lord. Please take hold of my hand, that I might understand you" ('Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)' from 'Living In The Material World' 1973).

  Harrison's music thus comes closest to embodying the original Beatles-philosophy of music as a force of transformative love precisely because he filled his music with the power of the spirit within him. His understanding of philosophy was weak, to be sure, but his understanding of the heart was strong; and because of this he had a greater wisdom than the hearts of Lennon and McCartney could generate:

  "I left you far behind. The ruins of the life that you have in mind. And though you still can't see, I know you're mind's made up: you're gonna cause more misery. Do what you want to do, And go where you're going to. Think for yourself. 'Cause I won't be there with you. Although your mind's opaque, Try thinking more if just for your own sake. The future still looks good. And you've got time to rectify all the things that you should. Do what you want to do. And go where you're going to. Think for yourself. 'Cause I won't be there with you" ('Think For Yourself' from 'Rubber Soul' 1965).

  The music of those two unrivaled innovators, those two passionate unbelievers, suffers chiefly from their lack of belief. In Lennon, his unbelief meant a lack of positive content to his passions and values and ideals, and this ultimately left him at the mercy of his dark side, which (in the end) was all that remained to him. While in McCartney, the Spirit-of-Music, though undoubtedly strong, could reach no sublime heights (and only occasionally breaks out into seriousness), and thus remains forever stuck in a revolving chorus of 'silly love songs'. But in George Harrison we see the student surpassing even his brilliant masters.

  The Beatles are unique in the history of Rock-&-Roll just because they pushed through the boundaries of what music could be and what it could do. The Fab-Four only got into trouble after the break-up, when the now solo-artists were set free to impose their individual (and conflicting) philosophies upon their music. In the effort to reshape music according to their unique personalities, they all succeeded to some extent. But they could never match the dynamic creativity they generated as a group. The lesson to be learned here is thus a simple one, namely, that we are all stronger when we "come together" than we are as isolated atomic individuals. And so the story of the Beatles, while admittedly a tragic one in many ways, is nevertheless a hopeful story as well. It all depends on how you want to 'let it be'.