In the course of doing this series on the Beatles, the thing that strikes me the most is just how open the band was to change, and how quickly they were capable of adapting to new ideas.

The Beatles of 1962 were distinctly different from the Beatles of ‘63, or ’64, or ’65, etc. They continually evolved, literally growing up in public while the rest of us stood in awe. The remarkable thing about all of this growth and change is that there is substantial documentation to cover their evolution – the group released two full albums for each year of their professional lives, and each release portrayed a vast difference in the maturation of the group’s sound.

Between “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, the change was so drastic that it defied plausibility. Whereas one of ‘Rubber Soul’s most inventive characteristics was the use of a sitar on one track, now we suddenly have the psychedelic intensity of “Tomorrow Never Knows”, coupled with the extraordinary playfulness of “Yellow Submarine” and the gut-wrenching sadness of “For No One” and “Eleanor Rigby”.

The juxtaposition is jarring but we must remember that for the first time since the band started making recordings, they took some time off and allowed themselves more than six months to make their next record. As fans, we could discern this maturation over each period of six months. Now that nearly a year had passed, it is only natural that the change would seem more drastic, because the band’s growth remained apace with their own history. This time, we just had to wait a bit longer between dispatches.