The most important episode in the history of the Beatles is what happens to them in the late ‘50s and early ’60s when, for some totally random reason, they are just a garage band in Liverpool. They were invited to Hamburg, Germany, to be the house band for a strip club and so they go to Hamburg and they’re, you know, they’re barely old enough to have, like, work permits or whatever you need, and they play in these strip clubs in Hamburg and they play seven days a week, eight hours at a time, eight-hours sets for months on end, right? Can you imagine if you’re, you know, if you’re forced – when they start off they are not a good band, they are a terrible band, but they are forced by virtue of having to fill eight hours every night, night after night, week after week, month after month, they are forced to master the popular-music repertoire, forced to play together compellingly as a band, forced to be inventive, forced to compose music, forced to become complete musicians. And by the time they leave Hamburg, their apprenticeship is complete and they are finally at a level where they can start to explore popular music in the genius way that they do. You know, by the time the Beatles come to America in 1964 at the start of the British Invasion, they have played together live 1200 times. We could go down tonight, to the Lower East Side and stop in at every bar where some promising young band is playing and I would submit to you, we would not find a single band that has even played together live 400 times. Beatles are off the charts in terms of the amount of time and energy they devote to their craft and that is a powerful and fundamental reason for why they did as well as they do.