How the Beatles Coped the Moment in Ed Sullivan

In the days before everyone cut the cord because no one had cable yet, there were these things called networks. Only a handful of these networks existed, which meant that people couldn’t help but see the same things. Sometimes there would be something very big and almost everyone who could would sit and watch.

The Beatles’ debut in The Ed Sullivan Show February 9, 1964 is the first seismic event in the history of American television. Americans had been married to their sets the previous November, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but there had not been an event like this, one that people knew was coming.

Then the people gathered. And reunited. People of all ages. Children tended to be frantic with excitement about something novel and new, as children always have been. While members of the older crowd seemed determined to practice tolerance towards the follies of youth and set a good example, or perhaps conjure up an anecdote of how things were better in their time.

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Certain things will simply never change. However, popular culture (and, for that matter, the world) changed that winter night when most of America met these four young men from Liverpool.

The Beatles had landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport two days earlier. Only one of them, George Harrison, had been to the United States before. They were guys who loved American culture. In his opinion, this was where the gods had originated: Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and, above all, the god of gods, Elvis Presley.

Think about this for a moment: You come to this place, all eyes are on you thanks to one of the most successful and buzz-generating marketing campaigns in history. You’ve never played a note in this new land, and then you appear on television to perform for seemingly everyone in four dozen states.

We know what will happen next. The Beatles became as big as any entertainment act in history, although they wouldn’t have made it without being able to deliver the goods; Never underestimate the staying power of those who are given a chance and are able to deliver the goods.

Here’s a question that’s rarely asked: How good were the Beatles at The Ed Sullivan Show?

There were three initial appearances. That first on February 9, a second on February 16 and a final performance broadcast on February 23, until The Beatles’ return to the program in August 1965.

George Harrison was ill with tonsillitis upon the band’s arrival in New York, which meant that at rehearsals on February 8 and the morning of February 9, road manager Neil Aspinall took Harrison’s place so that it could be determined the camera configuration. For two different audiences that day, February 9, The Beatles played a total of eight songs. All three from the afternoon filming were used for the February 23 appearance. The February 16 appearance was recorded at the band’s hotel in Miami.

It is estimated that 73 million people saw the Beatles in The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, and although they couldn’t have known it, they were experiencing a band that had become a confident, driving beast born from beer-and-vomit-splattered clubs, constant gigs, and who knows how. -a lot of rehearsal time.

The much-needed final piece of their puzzle, drummer Ringo Starr, had only been in place a year and a half earlier, but if ever there were four people born to make music together, here they were, and you can play and play that music they made in The Ed Sullivan Show just as you can do with a proper album.

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They begin with “All My Loving,” one of Paul McCartney’s first major compositions, but with a complicated rhythm guitar figure that requires these fast John Lennon triplets almost relentlessly. Lennon nails the role and of course you want McCartney front and center beating these Yankees. Harrison plays the country and western infused guitar solo to perfection, while Starr, who can’t get too much credit for what he brought to this band, propels them all forward.

The Beatles made beat music, hence the play on words in their name. And it was as if here they were making sure that no one would ever forget him, no matter that everyone was just getting to know each other.

“Till There Was You” served as romance and charm for those who thought these “guys” might be too wild with that hair on their necks, and then we have “She Loves You.”

There is arguably no Beatles or rock ‘n’ roll song better written by anyone. It is mostly in the second person. Do you know many songs like that? It’s a song about searching for a friend, possessor of wisdom that will never disappear. And it just so happens to start with an incredible chorus and a transition into the verse that can honestly become one of the most exciting moments of your existence the first time you hear it.

There is nothing better than “She Loves You” when it comes to musical energy and it was with that song that The Beatles conquered America. You can point out that event. Now, they might have been forgotten six months later if the Beatles hadn’t done what they could do, but here in the winter of 1964, this country was almost theirs.

After a break, The Beatles returned with two more songs: “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Rock ‘n’ roll, which had largely disappeared from the American scene in the early 1960s, was back, but it was different. Rock had been a driving musical language; What The Beatles presented instead was an alternative musical world of chords and chord changes that created a unique sense of the euphonious. Yes, they had the power, but they had something that went beyond finesse. It was theirs and no one else’s.

There has been much talk that America needs what the Beatles offered after Kennedy’s death. The Beatles certainly had many gifts, but one of them (as their producer George Martin said) was not of their choice: it was timing.

The Beatles were ambitious. Lady Macbeth could have looked at the four of them and been intimidated. The Ed Sullivan Show It was a beginning, a first step, and it had been successful. It is no coincidence that Lennon and McCartney elevated their writing to another level after this first visit to the United States. It was time to go. Things were developing.

You can’t blame anyone who saw that first appearance on American television and thought it was the best anyone would ever see of these guys. Whereas the Beatles themselves would have thought, “We’re just getting started, mate.” We listen to those February 9 performances now, and what we hear is not just the sound of a beginning, but the sound of guys already on the right track.