Doc: The Beatles Decade

For American teens in the 1960s, the Beatles represented the dawn of unrestrained excitement and parental rejection, a time when screaming, long hair, loud music, risque fashion, snarky humor and drugs mocked authority and convention. But through a British lens, the Fab Four were something more—an escape from glum parents, a bleak economy, a class-conscious society and a country still bound by stuffy tradition and set ways. Yesterday I found a fascinating multi-part documentary on the Beatles and the 1960s as viewed from the British perspective. Here's The Beatles Decade:

Here's Part 1: Teenage Rebels...



Here's Part 2: Sex, Spies and Rock and Roll...



Here's Part 3: Swinging Britain...



(Part 4 has been muted over a rights issue.)

And here's Part 5: The Party Is Over...