Aspects of Idolatry
The views on the Beatles of anyone as closely identified as I am with the avant-garde of con- temporary thought and fashion are, I should suppose, bound to command respect. 1 have never actually set eyes on these able fellows, even on TV, but I have quite often heard them yowl- ing away on steam radio, where the melodies they render are not, by a square ear, readily dis- tinguishable from those rendered by their rivals. I do not share the disapproval and alarm with which everybody over the age of thirty seems to regard the 'frenzied adulation which the Beatles arouse, and which everywhere imposes on the constabulary a major diversion of effort. I ask myself only two questions about them: 1. If they were, say, Papuan folk-singers (but made exactly the same noises), is it not probable that their vogue would be treated with a good deal more tolerance than it is?
2. Has anybody thought of using them as a weapon in the Cold War and sending them on a tour of the Soviet Union? As disrupters of Russian society I would back the Beatles against Rasputin. any day.
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