Show Business: Other noises, Other notes

It has been three years, one month and two weeks since the Beatles first rocked the U.S. That is about three years, one month and one week longer than many people thought they would last. Yet, despite occasional rumors that they will disband, the boys are still spinning out bestsellers, still at the top of the rock pile.

But they have changed. From the first mewings of I Want to Hold Your Hand, the Beatles have developed into the single most creative force in pop music. Wherever they go, the pack follows. And where they have gone in recent months, not even their most ardent supporters would ever have dreamed of. They have bridged the heretofore impassable gap between rock and classical, mixing elements of Bach, Oriental and electronic music with vintage twang to achieve the most compellingly original sounds ever heard in pop music.

Their first significant break with the big beat was Paul McCartney's wistfully beautiful ballad Yesterday, sung to the stately accompaniment of a string quartet. The recording sold 1,800,000 copies, and almost instantly all the shaggies were on the Bach-rock kick. The Beatles followed with another bestseller,

Eleanor Rigby, also scored for strings but boldly modern in harmonics and urgent cross-rhythms. In Love You To, they incorporated the sinuous sounds of Indian music, which Beatle George Harrison picked up during six weeks of study with Sitarist Ravi Shankar; soon raga-rock was all the rage.

The latest sample of the Beatles' astonishing inventiveness is their new single, Strawberry Fields Forever, the flip side of which is Penny Lane; it is now No. 1 in England. Written by John Lennon and McCartney—who has lately developed a passion for Electronic Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen—Strawberries is full of dissonances and eerie space-age sounds, achieved in part by playing tapes backward and at various speeds. This is nothing new to electronic composers, but employing such methods in a pop song is electrifying. At present, the Beatles are giving up tours and personal appearances, plan instead to devote their time to a new movie, a TV special and recordings. They have just signed a nine-year recording contract, and are working on a new album that will include aleatory, or "chance," music. "Nowadays," explains McCartney, "the two guitars, bass and drums thing tends to be a bit limited when you're thinking of other ideas, other noises, other notes."