Cute? Hardly. Beatles subverted the American way of life-Their Platform: "Joy/Excitement/Pleasure"
Cute? Hardly. The Beatles subverted the American way of life.
Half a century ago, they led the British invasion of American pop music and changed everything.
By Michael Tomasky
February 9, 2014
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Fifty years ago Sunday, the Beatles first appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show." You'll almost surely see clips of them on the news this weekend, or on tribute shows, japing with the press, smiling those cheerful smiles, singing "All My Loving" — and you'll probably think, "Oh, they were so cute."
That's today's conventional wisdom: The Beatles were cute and unthreatening. The Rolling Stones — now, there was your threat. And the Who, smashing their instruments. And numerous others, against whom the Beatles were supposedly a dish of vanilla ice cream.
It's ridiculous. If there's one canard I'd like to see these anniversary festivities flip on its head, it's that one. To the America that existed then, the Beatles were plenty threatening. To understand why, you have to understand the music scene of the time, and how utterly new the Beatles were in every way, how totally uncategorizable.
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The 1964 Beatles may not have been overtly anti-authority, but covertly, they certainly were. They were even, in their way, political. Their platform? Joy, excitement, pleasure. Within their aura, the future — that distant and sober thing for which the young people of 1964 were supposed to plan, so they could inherit the responsibility of upholding the greatest way of life the world had ever seen — evanesced. That fact alone made many in the establishment nervous, and rightly so.
So celebrate this anniversary, but celebrate it the right way. Don't call them cute.
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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-tomasky-beatles-20140209,0,3678198.story#ixzz2sqVKjCem
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/09/1276243/-Meet-The-Beatles-and-what-they-replaced
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Their lyrics were easy to learn and sing and for the years that they were a band, my friends and I knew every one of their songs. 
and for the very reasons given. However, their impact was made greater BECAUSE of the TRULY subversive groups like the Stones. They allowed the parents and teachers and other authority figures to embrace the Beatles as acceptable. At least in a relative sense.
It's the same in American politics. The far left groupings make left groups more acceptable. As a revolutionary socialist of the Trotskyist tendency, I'm proud to serve as an example of what could be worse for the capitalists without some reforms. Of course it won't work because the system is set now into auto-pilot mode, but if you liberals want to use me as a scarecrow, have at it.
