The Beatles surprised the world in the 1960s and took the United States by storm, introducing a new era in popular music. And many of us were pleasantly surprised by the deep insights expressed in rather direct and poignant lyrics. In "Eleanor Rigby," for example, they sing of a woman picking up rice at a church where a wedding has been. Holding the rice, peering through a window, living in a dream she someday will wed, death comes instead. As she lived alone, so she died alone. And so the Beatles lament,

All the lonely people,
where do they all come from?

So sang the Beatles in the '60s. And so they sang again in the television Beatles' Anthology, reminding us of how they expressed a mood, introduced a revolution, and shaped an era. With almost simple innocence the Beatles expressed a u…