We're sadly relatively close to a time when there will be no living Beatles, Paul and Ringo now both into…

We're sadly relatively close to a time when there will be no living Beatles, Paul and Ringo now both into their 80s. Why I think there's a lot more meaning to this socially and culturally than is often said. /1 https://t.co/yshh7YOhfn

Yes Starr and McCartney both use modern techniques to look younger, like hair dyes, possibly some cosmetic surgery, who knows. That's helped to create an impression that the Beatles era never really ended. That they're still a major force in modern culture (and they are). BUT. /2

The much bigger reason this continuity exists is that in many ways they took the culture along with them. The social and cultural explosion that was Beatlemania transformed all culture. It was a key milestone in the transformation of adult into adolescent culture. /3

Beatlemania wasn't just a very popular pop/rock band. It was a cultural shift. Music mobilised the masses in new ways. Suddenly rock stars were dominant players in modern social life. This was the 1960s, the famous 'counter-cultural revolution'. /4 https://t.co/CYzfmyFUoB

Freddie Mercury was once asked about some vexed political issue. He shrugged and said something like 'I dunno, I'm a musician'. That's a window into the culture that we've lived in since Beatlemania, that anybody would even ask a rock star about politics. /5

Mercury was rare in many ways, including his total lack of interest in politics. Historically that represents extreme sanity. But not in the era of Beatles culture, where rock stars are granted more credence than elected politicians. /6

And this is where no living Beatles will represent something a bit profound, maybe. It's quite difficult to imagine them not being here, because everything about our culture now discourages any meaning being given to the passage of time. Adolescence is immortal in outlook. /7

Look at that pic again. While other famous pre-Beatles musicians like Louis Armstrong passed on, it seemed the inevitable passage of time, sad but part of the natural order of things. But a world without a Beatle feels very different. Like how can this be? /8 https://t.co/X7zH2F5Aem

Many are flocking to the current McCartney tour for this very reason, to try to get that last physical connection with a Beatle. They're icons for an entire way of life, a culture. An adolescent culture. Now all culture, increasingly. /9 https://t.co/8iil1Ms85e

Lennon once joked The Beatles were bigger than Jesus, and while he copped a lot for saying it, he was making a social and cultural point. That they were invested with an importance and meaning far beyond what they were actually doing. They were/are musicians. /10

They'd stumbled into a profound cultural shift that even today we're mostly not seeing. The one I Tweet about all the time, the replacement of life as a series of stages of maturation, from infant to child, to adolescent to adult, with permanent adolescence. /end