THE INVASION OF AMERICA

But that was still to come. On February 9, 1964, people of different circumstances, beliefs and cultural backgrounds witnessed a happening; a glimpse at a possible future when it was possible for the world to stop for an instant in order to appreciate something that was intrinsically good. There is a sense of bittersweetness to realize such an event of that kind will probably never happen again. But then again, maybe that's another reason to celebrate it.

February 7, 1964: Four young men are onboard Pan Am Flight 101. Their outward appearance is that of a confident and witty quartet, but in their private thoughts, each of them questions why a country like the United States will be that interested in them.

Sure, the group had the No. 1 U.S. single – I Want To Hold Your Hand – and yes, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were vaguely aware that Beatlemania – which had overtaken Britain and much of Europe – was showing signs of erupting in the United States.

"The thing is, in America, it just seemed ridiculous -- I mean, the idea of having a hit record over there," Lennon later recalled. "It was just something you could never do."
Or, as George Harrison would later remember thinking on the flight, "They've got everything over there. What do they want us for?"

This wasn't the first trip to the states for one member of the band. George and his brother Peter had flown to the U.S. in March 1963 to visit their sister Louise in Benton, IL. One month before, the Beatles Please Please Me had been released in America but didn't come close to making a dent in the charts, so it was natural for Harrison to have some doubt about the band's success this time around.

On February 5, the Beatles had returned to London Airport, following a successful string of shows over 15 days at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, France. While in Paris, the Beatles learned they were #1 in the American charts for the first time with I Want To Hold Your Hand. Paul McCartney would later remember, "We got a telegram in the evening after one of the shows. We were having a drink at the hotel so we all hit the roof."

But still, there was apprehension on that airplane to New York. They were concerned the reception would be nothing special. Their fears were unfounded.

Eager kids were glued to radios as up-to-date reports came flooding in: It's B-Day! It is now 6.30am, Beatle time… They left London 30 minutes ago… They're out over the Atlantic Ocean heading for New York… The temperature is 32 Beatle degrees.
A reporter for the Saturday Evening Post noted: "Anyone listening to a pop radio station in New York would hear a Beatle record every four minutes and anyone listening to a juke box might hear one right after the other."

"On the airplane, I felt New York," Starr remembers. "It was like an octopus grabbing the plane. I could feel like tentacles coming up to the plane it was so exciting. I mean, we'd pulled big crowds and we'd had big airport receptions, but of course America is bigger than anywhere else in Europe, so therefore the crowds are bigger. So we got off the plane, and we were used to ten, twelve thousand people, you know. It must have been four billion people out there, I mean, it was just crazy! We couldn't believe it! I mean, I'm looking out the car saying, 'What's going on? Look at this! Can you believe this?' It was amazing."

"It’s phenomenal," said a witness of the crowds that greeted the Beatles’ plane, "that people would come out here for this and wouldn’t come out to see President Johnson who landed here a couple of days ago and there was nobody here but reporters and photographers."

The press conference immediately following their arrival was a publicist’s dream come true. Undaunted by the American press, the group's charm and humor was never more in evidence:

Q: "How many of you are bald, that you have to wear those wigs?"
Ringo: "All of us."
Paul: "I'm bald."
Q: "You're bald?"
John: "Oh, we're all bald, yeah."
Paul: "Don't tell anyone, please."
John: "And deaf and dumb, too."

Q: "Who chooses your clothes?"
John: We choose our own. Who chooses yours?"
Q: "My husband. Now tell me, are there any subjects you prefer not to discuss?"
John: "Yes. Your husband."

Q: "Which do you consider is the greatest danger to your careers, nuclear bombs or dandruff?"
Ringo: "Bombs. We’ve already got dandruff."

The Beatles left the airport in four Cadillac limousines, heading for the Plaza hotel in Manhattan. Cars filled with screaming girls followed in hot pursuit all the way into town. One fan caught up with George Harrison's limousine at the lights and shouted out the window, "How does one go about meeting a Beatle?" to which he replied, "One says hello!"

When they finally arrived at the Plaza, they were met by hundreds of fans, mounted police and 100,000 letters stacked up in their rooms The evening was spent in their Plaza suites greeting guests (in numbers 1209 to 1216 – if you want to pursue that dream).

February 8 was set aside for a rehearsal for the Ed Sullivan Show, followed by more interviews before John, Paul and Ringo ventured out to Central Park for publicity photos. George, who was suffering from the flu, returned to the Plaza Hotel.
If they had found the time to think about it – doubtful with their hectic schedule – the Beatles would surely have found something very amusing about the fact that exactly one year prior to this date, they had been ejected from a ballroom in England for wearing leather jackets while on tour as the opening act for Helen Shapiro. A lot had changed in one year.

When the Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, it became and remains among the most important events in the history of rock music.

In these days of wall-to-wall satellite dishes and thirty-thousand lousy channels, it is easy to underestimate the impact that the Beatles had. But remember, way back in 1964, even New York – the biggest entertainment market in America – only had three main networks (CBS, NBC and ABC). There was no MTV. No cable. No wide-screen TV. So when 73 million people tuned in to watch one British band play, that was a big deal. Over 50,000 people applied for the 728 tickets. The studio was packed (inside and out). If the Beatles were going to conquer America, then this was their moment.

As Ed Sullivan walked onstage to begin his broadcast, little about his demeanor revealed what this night was to become. Yet surely he felt it. In retrospect this evening's show would be a cultural capstone, a black and white snapshot that defined the era as much as any of the decade's moments. Its video footage would be replayed endlessly, as if it were some kind of visual mantra that contained the essence of its tumultuous period.

The show opened with Sullivan saying, "You know something very nice happened today and the Beatles got a kick out of it. We just received a wire, they did, from Elvis Presley and Colonel Tom Parker, wishing them a tremendous success in our country, and I think that was very, very nice.
Our theatre's been jammed with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers from all over the nation, and these veterans agree with me that the city has never witnessed the excitement stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool, who call themselves the Beatles. Now tonight, you’re going to twice be entertained by them. Right now, and again in the second half of our show. Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!”

And with that, the roof blew off.

On that night, 73 million people watched. Their appearance had such an impact that most normal activity in America came to a standstill watching their performance. Crime in most of the major cities and towns in America was put on hold and getting a taxi or bus in New York City was almost impossible until their performance was over. Mass hysteria resulted wherever the Beatles appeared. Beatlemania had overtaken the colonies.

However, the next morning's newspapers were full of stories about the Beatles record-breaking appearance the night before and not all were convinced.
The Herald Tribune: The Beatles are 75% publicity, 20% haircut and 5% lilting lament.
Newsweek: Visually they are a nightmare: tight, dandified Edwardian beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair. Musically they are a near disaster, guitars and drums slamming out a merciless beat that does away with secondary rhythms, harmony and melody.

What those critics didn't understand was American rock & roll was at a nadir. Buddy Holly had been dead for five years, Little Richard had found God, Elvis had come back from the Army all grown up, and both Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were embroiled in scandal. The Beatles, with their driving rhythms and an edge honed in the ragged clubs of Hamburg and Liverpool, had brought rock & roll back to America.

The Beatles boarded a train to Washington, DC on February 11. That evening was taken up with a concert at the Washington Coliseum. This was their first-ever live concert in the U.S. and they experienced the pain that came with the fans' knowledge that the group loved jelly babies. Unfortunately, Americans didn't have jelly babies and instead pelted them with jellybeans.
George remembered the event as frightening: "We were absolutely pelted by the things. And they don't have soft jelly babies here; they have hard jellybeans. And to make matters worse, we were on a circular stage, so they hit us from all sides. Imagine waves of rock-hard little bullets raining down on you from the sky. It's a bit dangerous, you know, because if a jellybean, traveling about 50 miles an hour through the air, hits you in the eye, you're finished. You're blind aren't you?”
Ringo also recalls that night but his memory of it is mixed: "Some of them were throwing jellybeans in bags and they hurt like hailstones, but they could have ripped me apart and I couldn't have cared less. What an audience! I could have played all night."

After the concert was over they were shuttled off to dinner at the British Embassy, in aid of the National Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But the only kids who got beat-up were the Beatles. One woman tried snipping off a lock of Ringo's hair. "I was just talking and then 'Snip'. There it goes. I looked around and there was around four hundred people just smiling. Well, what can you say?"
John Lennon did have something to say. He stormed out shouting, "These people have no bloody manners!" Lennon later said, "One had to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were. It just happened bit by bit, you know, until this complete craziness is surrounding you, and you're doing things that you don't want to do with people you can't stand, you know, the kind of people you hated when you were ten."

The next morning brought a return trip to New York City for two concerts at Carnegie Hall. Once again, some in the media weren’t convinced, despite the overflow crowds.
Washington Post: They are imported hillbillies who look like sheep dogs and sound like alley cats in agony.

Clearly the fans had no interest in the media's bashing of the group. The Beatles flew to Miami On February 13 to prepare for their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show three days later. Seven thousand kids were waiting at the airport, and so many chairs were chucked and windows smashed that a reporter said, "They had a smashing welcome: smashed doors, smashed windows, smashed furniture, a smashed auto roof."

Two days after their second Sullivan appearance, the Beatles met Cassius Clay (before he changed his name to Muhammad Ali) at his training camp, where he was preparing for his championship fight with Sonny Liston.
Clay started the show by reciting one of his famous couplets: "When Liston reads about the Beatles visiting me, he'll be so mad I'll knock him out in three."
The conversation then turned to earning potential and Clay cracked a gag by saying, "You guys aren't as dumb as you look," but after goofing around and posing for photos, he walked off, saying, "So who were those little faggots?"

"How in the world are we going to top this?" Ringo asked a reporter while boarding the plane that would carry the group back to England. That was a question that the band kept asking itself over the next five years, constantly evolving, exploring new musical techniques, styles and identities.

"Obviously I thought about America in connection with the Beatles for a long time," Brian Epstein later said, "because I was always quite sure, really, that the Beatles would make it over there. We were all rather unsure, however, about it because we seemed to be issuing the records and nothing much was happening. I believe it was just the right moment for the interest of I Want To Hold Your Hand. I can't say I timed it for that moment, but it was right. Going over for those Ed Sullivan shows couldn’t have been more right."

Rubber Soul, released a year after that first U.S. visit, clearly showed signs the band was maturing. Gone were the poppy anthems to teen love, replaced by the classic Norwegian Wood and the cynical I'm Looking Through You. The complex Revolver followed in 1966, and then the group reinvented itself yet again with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 before disagreements began to slowly tear apart that fragile fabric.

But hey, just for a moment, flash back to that night in 1964. If you were around forty-five years ago, try to recapture a little of that magic in your mind. Chuckle if you want, at the critics who said they would never last. Now jump ahead to what followed; a full-fledged British Invasion, folk-rock, Woodstock and the flower power that came with it, the psychedelic era, and most of all, remember peace and love.

There can be no question the Beatles' arrival in 1964 was the catalyst for all of it, but forty-five years ago, they were just four young men traveling to the United States and asking themselves, "What do they want us for?"