Image and Popular Music

The Beatles are regarded as arguably the most influential band of the British Invasion period largely because they were the first and received extreme success. The Beatles' success was due to their ability to blend rock with wholesome pop lyrics and maintain a clean cut image whereas the Rolling Stones are seen as the antithesis of all that the Beatles "stood for". Mick Jagger's larger than life persona on stage combined with drug use and sexual lyrics made their image the opposite of the Beatles' wholesome appeal. However, the Beatles had many songs that contained suspected drug references like the line "found my way upstairs and had a smoke / and somebody spoke and I went into a dream" from "A Day in the Life" and "I need a fix, 'cuz I'm going down / Down to the bits I left uptown" from "Happiness is a Warm Gun". Also, although nowhere near as suggestive as lyrics from Rolling Stones songs, the song "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" is clearly a sexual song that did not fit into the clean cut image. John Lennon also famously made the comment about being "bigger than Jesus" which was extremely controversial. Why were the Beatles considered to be so wholesome despite this?