Stirring the anthill...

The thing that's interesting about this clip goes way beyond the Beatles' performance. It's the B-Roll. It's the dreary people on the streets of London. Look at how consistently miserable they are! How glued to their personas of respectability they remain. It was the order of the day. Look at the older gent climbing the ladder with his pipe. His inner-Curious-George can't resist his ears, and as long as the hat and pipe and trench coat are in place, he thinks he can pull it off! You can see the people scurrying about, confused, sensing a major disturbance to the anthill.

This is one nice thing the Spirit of the 60's did for us - that defiant spirit poured color all over our black and white world. It wore a shiny red raincoat on a rainy gray day in January. It injected emotion into our chilly, stoic ways. And for better or worse, it publicized our private conditions. As a result of that, If something like this happened in London or Tokyo or just about anywhere today, there'd be smiling and dancing and a non-taboo appreciation of joyful absurdity... Actually, I take it back, if this happened today it would likely be Bon Jovi blaring commercial drivel into the streets as part of an over-planned marketing campaign, and sensible people would be running back to their offices for shelter.

You can open a door, but not without opening a can of worms it seems...
Enjoy the clip.