For a change, this blog post of mine does not have anything to do with current affairs. In fact, it does not even concern the present, but rather hearkens back to the past, to an event that was an earthquake of sorts in the popular culture of the time and still influences our lives in the present.
On February 7, 1964, four clean-shaven, boyish-looking young men from the port city of Liverpool in Northern England landed in a PanAm flight from London’s Heathrow at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, all from working class-Liverpudlian backgrounds, had already achieved success in Great Britain, but were not as established in America. But in the days that followed, they ‘conquered’ it, leading many in the US media to brand them as ‘England’s answer to the American Revolutionary War’.
Two days after landing, on February 9, the Fab Four gave their first performance on American national television. They were introduced by veteran American television personality, Ed Sullivan and performed their latest numbers on the Ed Sullivan Show at the CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City, before an audience of 721, mostly teenaged, screaming girls. Even in those far off days when cable television had not yet taken hold, the show was to found to have been watched by 73 million Americans at 8 PM, Eastern Time, the maximum viewership for any programme on US television.
Another two days later, on February 11, they performed at Washington, DC’s Coliseum, before 8,000 fans. And the next day, at the Carnegie Hall in New York.
They followed it up with performances in Miami, Florida before returning to the UK on February 22.
The group repeated their performances in the States in 1965 and 1966, before giving up commercial performing to concentrate fully on producing new studio content.
But that one February in the States would change their lives (and those of Americans as well as the world forever). Not only did the group’s performance herald ‘the British Invasion’ of the American rock ‘n roll scene but also brought significant changes in American popular culture, which in turn was followed by the world.
Historians and analysts of pop culture have often wondered as to why the Beatles struck a chord with Americans in that first tour. They reason that America at the time was a wounded nation. The Vietnam War was tearing the country apart, dividing public opinion. The very popular American president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had recently been assassinated, saddening and shocking many in the nation. The US Civil Rights Movement, demanding equal rights for African-Americans, was at its height at the time, often degenerating into street battles. And finally, there was the ever-present spectre of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
In such a dark and bleak scenario, the four ‘boys’ from Liverpool, with their boyish faces, exotic accents, strange hairstyles, cheekiness and goofiness and most importantly, their music, brought a whiff of fresh air to a country besieged by sorrow, anxiety and fear.
The Beatles brought with them, a new rebelliousness, and the seeds of the counterculture of the 1960s. In the years that followed, the world in general and America in particular was caught in a great debate on everything from family life, race relations, sexual identity, feminism, environmentalism, US intervention in foreign lands, free love, nuclear disarmament and experimentation with drugs.
The Beatles’ influence on popular culture ranged from cinema to fashion to of course, music.
In fashion, their hair styles, facial hair (later on), apparel, footwear, headgear and things like John Lennon’s round-rimmed glasses were copied and continue to be copied in some cases around the world.
The Beatles also heralded the start of live, public concerts, something that is so routine today, but was a novelty back then.
But it was their music that set them apart the most. The Beatles wrote their own music, led by the very prolific duo of Lennon-McCartney, who have been acknowledged as among the best songwriters of all time. Influenced by older American rock n’ roll acts like Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley and the Comets, the Beatles nevertheless introduced fresh new tunes of their own and came up with something entirely different, novel and unique.
Their entry into the United States marked the ‘British Invasion’. Ever since the end of the Second World War, Britain had been developing a vibrant, new, rock n’ roll scene of its own. Now, with the Beatles ‘crossing the pond’, many others followed suit: Dusty Springfield, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Dave Clark Five, The Troggs, Donovan, Lulu, The Searchers, Billy J. Kramer, The Bachelors, Chad & Jeremy, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Honeycombs, Them, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Zombies, and The Hollies…they all followed in the footsteps of the Beatles.
The Beatles also played their role in the fight for equal rights. Their concerts in Jacksonville, Florida in 1964, for instance, were performed before an integrated audience. The organisers had told them that they would have to perform before a segregated audience. But the quartet put their foot down and threatened to pull out, resulting in a miracle of sorts.
Today, the world has changed a lot from the one when the band was in its heyday. The group also no longer exists. They split in 1970 and went on to pursue their solo careers. Lennon was brutally murdered in 1980 by Mark David Chapman. Harrison died in 2001 from lung cancer. McCratney (now Sir Paul) and Starr continue to be in the media spotlight now and then, producing new music, announcing newer collaborations, supporting newer causes and getting on with life.
Yes, time has moved on. Yes, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge.
But the heyday of the Beatles, which followed that momentous and memorable February in America and their subsequent lives thereafter continue to enthrall and mystify us. The Beatles have left their mark on time itself and their music will live on till humankind exists.
