POPULAR: In Our Lives: 30th Anniversary of the Beatles' First U.S. Visit

POPULAR: In Our Lives: 30th Anniversary of the Beatles' First U.S. Visit
▪ 1995

      The frenzied fandom known as Beatlemania was already in full swing in Britain when the Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) landed on Feb. 7, 1964, at the New York City airport renamed for Pres. John F. Kennedy, whose November 1963 assassination the nation still mourned. The lovable mop tops from Liverpool, England, proved to be a sensation. Some 5,000 teenaged baby boomers greeted their arrival, but it was two nights later, when 73 million Americans watched the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show," that an explosion in popular culture occurred that was still sending shock waves 30 years later.

      Popular music had been in a pallid state. Elvis Presley had returned from the U.S. Army "tamed," Buddy Holly was dead, and wholesome white performers flourished with sanitized cover versions of rock-and-roll songs whose African-American originators were still mostly denied radio play. Rock and roll survived in Liverpool, however, and seamen brought in records from the U.S. The Beatles—influenced by Presley, Holly, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and the Everly Brothers—claimed rock and roll as their own and reintroduced it to American teenagers, who had become a new social class with leisure time and money to spend.

      By writing their own songs, the Beatles changed the role of pop performers. Initially, Lennon-McCartney and Harrison compositions were straightforward love songs, but in the "serious" folk songs of Bob Dylan the Beatles recognized new possibilities for the themes, language, and imagery of pop songs. Where once pop music had perhaps aimed principally to entertain, it increasingly became intimately involved in the most contentious political and social issues of the day.

      In the process the Beatles became standard-bearers for a cultural revolution in which youth was the common denominator. From 1964 to their breakup in 1970, they seemed to be at the forefront of not just pop music, fashion, and film but also young people's politics and thought. Their albums were like messages from the front, somehow perfectly capturing the zeitgeist. Chameleon-like, the Beatles also appeared to lead the way toward higher consciousness, experimenting with hallucinogens, Eastern mysticism, and the politics of peace. Ultimately, whether they led or were just the most conspicuous followers is perhaps less important than their status as a symbol of their generation.

      In 1994 the three remaining Beatles (Lennon was assassinated in 1980) collaborated on a 10-12-hour documentary of their history for British television. They also were recording together again, with—on at least one song—Lennon's voice provided by tracks made before his death. Moreover, Live at the BBC, a double CD featuring 56 songs the Beatles recorded for British radio between 1962 and 1965, and Backbeat, a feature film chronicling the band's early days, were released in 1994. (JEFF WALLENFELDT)

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Universalium. 2010.

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