This is a clip from Raised by Giants. You can access the entire episode now on our website and all podcast platforms.

In the early days, of course, the Beatles performed on BBC radio live. They had a regular weekly show on the BBC.

As far as I know, you know, they were playing their own instruments.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that's the case.

None of them could read or write music.

That's true, but many great musicians at that time could not read or write music.

But, I mean, I approach it from the point that, yes, they did play

their own instruments. Yes, they were very talented. I think Lenin and McCartney were great

lyricists. But I'll tell you what, writer, I don't know whereabouts you're living in the U.S.,

but I'm in just north of Toronto, and occasionally I will go down into the subway and I will hear

performers down there who are playing for quarters and and loonies. That's what we call our $1 up here.

They're buskers. And I see some amazing musicians and I say to myself, you know, why isn't that

person performing at Roy Thompson Hall or at Massey Hall or,

you know, I don't know, in Las Vegas, they are so good. And the reason is they don't have the

machine behind them. And so you've got this, I don't know, not an unseen hand exactly, but these

A&R people, these recording executives who anoint certain people and they don't others.

Now, why is that, you know, we could sit here all day and argue about why certain people get selected for greatness.

And others do not, who are clearly great in their own right, but they never achieve celebrity or fame or fortune

because they don't have the machine behind them. So this, I think there's some credence to the

idea that the machine, not only EMI, but for example, I mentioned the Tavistock Institute,

which was this sort of,

well, think about it, think of it as Sigmund Freud

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