i can't plant it squarely on them. but the thing is that
>their material became increaingly designed in and for the
>studio, to be on records and not to be performed live

the reason it couldnt be performed as it was *recorded* on stage is because technology wouldnt allow it. but if you stripped the songs down, any song on sgt. peppers through to let it be could be performed live.

>to me, that is the test of the durability of a song, btw...
>can it be performed live, and can it sustain numerous
>different cover versions. i love cover versions... i've
>noticed that a lot of people in our generation don't like
>cover versions... i think it's because we grew up on records
>and "production" rather than live performance.

as the thousands of covers have shown, you can cover the beatles songs quite easily. they did it the right way - they worked on the songs on piano/guitar etc, and then went in to produce it.