The Beatles toured Europe, Australia, New Zealand and China in the summer before a full tour of the United States for the first time. When confronted with the news that a show in Jacksonville, Florida would be segregated, the Beatles did what any sane group of people would do. They refused to perform. As Lennon said, "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now."
In July of 1964, the Beatles released the album Something New, which peaked at #2 in both the U.S. and Canada and has gone Double Platinum.
This song was first recorded as "Match Box Blues" by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927. Several Blues musicians reworked the song, and the Beatles version is influenced by the Carl Perkins version.
Pete Best used to sing lead on this song until he was fired. Lennon took over on lead in performances in Hamburg, but Ringo sang lead on the recorded version. Perkins was on hand for the recording session of "Matchbox".
"Slow Down" was originally written and recorded by R&B artist Larry Williams. Lennon always liked the song and the Beatles performed it several times in Hamburg. The group recorded it during the sessions for A Hard Day's Night and included it on the flip side of "Matchbox".
Lennon overdubbed his lead vocals and Martin added a pounding piano part to it. Lennon's screaming vocals reflect the days in Hamburg when the Beatles turned up their showmanship to attract passersby into the Indra and Kaiserkeller, where they performed. Lennon essentially recreated that Hamburg environment on the recording.
While the Beatles were playing an 18-day residency at the Olympia Theatre in Paris, the group had a piano moved into the George V Hotel so they could start writing songs for the upcoming movie. The group wrote "Can't Buy Me Love", "You Can't Do That", "If I Fell", "And I Love Her" and "I'll Be Back" during that stretch.
During their first trip to the United States in February, feeling they needed some more upbeat songs, the group wrote "I Should Have Known Better", "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You" and "Tell Me Why". Here is the latter song.
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After completing filming of A Hard Day's Night on April 24, Epstein made sure the members had a month off to themselves. Paul and Jane Asher joined Ringo and girlfriend Maureen in the Virgin Islands. The two couples enjoyed the peace and quiet and sailed in a yacht, but Paul knew just the same that when they got back, the Beatles would need to record some songs for side two of the album.
The ever-conscious Paul wrote "Things We Said Today" while on the trip:
I remember writing "Things We Said
Today" in one of the cabins below deck
one afternoon on my acoustic guitar. I
got away from the main party but it
was a bit queasy downstairs; you
could smell the oil and the boat was
rocking a bit and I'm not the best
sailor in the world, so I wrote a little
bit of it downstairs and then the rest of
it on the back deck where you couldn't
smell the engine. I don't know why the
engine was on, I suppose we were
moving.
Up to this point, the Beatles were doing what many of the other acts at the time were doing (churning out hit records), only they were doing it much better than anyone had ever done it to this point. Beginning with the 1965 album Beatles for Sale, the songwriting of Lennon and McCartney began to mature, and the group not only blossomed but changed music forever. That is the good news.
The bad news is that Lennon and Harrison began to regularly use LSD. McCartney too experimented with it beginning in 1966.
Here is one of countless examples of the innovations this group made that we take for granted today. This song begins with a single, percussive feedback note produced by McCartney plucking the A string on his bass, and Lennon's guitar, which was standing up against Paul's bass amp, picking up feedback. It was the first use of feedback on a Rock & Roll record. McCartney talked about what it was like to be there:
John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar. It
had a pickup on it so it could be amplified...
We were just about to walk away to listen to
a take when John leaned his guitar against
the amp. I can still see him doing it...it went
"Nnnnnnwahhhh!". And we went, "What's
that? Voodoo!" "No, it's feedback." "Wow,
it's a great sound!" George Martin was
there so we said, "Can we have that on the
record?" "Well, I suppose we could, we
could edit it on the front." It was a found
object, an accident caused by leaning the
guitar against the amp.
Lennon wrote the guitar riff while the Beatles were recording "Eight Days A Week". "I told them I'd write a song specially for the riff," Lennon said for the book The Beatles Anthology. "So they said, 'Yes. You go away and do that', knowing that we'd almost finished the album Beatles for Sale."
"I Feel Fine" spent five weeks at #1 in the U.K., three weeks at #1 in the U.S. and also topped charts in Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden and sold over one million copies. In the U.K., the song was the fifth-highest selling single of the decade and as of 2018, ranked as the #53 best-selling single of all-time there according to the U.K.'s Official Charts Company.
This song is one of a handful of Lennon/McCartney songs that were fully recorded the same day they were written (October 8, 1964), joining "Birthday", "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" and "All Together Now". "She's A Woman", a #4 smash on its own as the B-side to "I Feel Fine", was a staple in the group's live shows for the next two years. In his biography Many Years From Now written by Barry Miles, McCartney talked about the song:
This song was written the morning of the
session. I have a recollection of walking
round St. John's Wood with that in my
mind so I might have written it at home
and finished it up on the way to the
studio, finally polished it in the studio,
maybe just taken John aside for a second
and checked with him. "What d'you think?"
"Like it." "Good. Let's do it!"
Lennon's choppy off-beat guitar chords drive the song, most of which was recorded in an afternoon session. "John did a very good thing: instead of playing through it and putting like a watercolor wash over it all with his guitar he just stabbed on the off-beats," McCartney said. "Ringo would play the snare and John did it with the guitar, which was good, it left a lot of space for the rest of the stuff."
Harrison, who didn't play that afternoon, overdubbed his lead guitar part, McCartney overdubbed piano and vocals, and Starr recorded the sound of a chocalho, a cylindrical metal shaker, that evening.
The Beatles released the album Beatles for Sale, their fifth album of 1964, with the corresponding U.S. release being Beatles '65. The former, #1 in the U.K., Australia and Germany, went Platinum, while Beatles '65 went Triple Platinum and topped Album charts in the U.S. and Canada.
The Beatles made another revolutionary change on their first single from the album Beatles VI. "Eight Days A Week" marks the first time that a song opened with a fade-in, and it was also the first unfinished song the group took into the studio, something that would become common place for the band. The group did all the recording in two recording sessions on October 6.
When "Eight Days A Week" reached #1 (#1 in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands), it gave the Beatles seven #1 songs in a calendar year, still a Rock Era record.
We thank Beatlesebooks.com for invaluable behind-the-scenes information on much of the songs we are featuring!
When Martin talked about an up-tempo, energetic song, the word he frequently used was "potboiler". Martin wanted the first track on every Beatles album to be a "potboiler" that would generate excitement. Hence, "I Saw Her Standing There" led off the Beatles British album Please Please Me, "It Won't Be Long" began the second British album With The Beatles, and "A Hard Day's Night" led off that album.
The task proved a bit more challenging for this album as the group were writing mostly mid-tempo songs. "I Feel Fine" or "She's A Woman" would have worked perfectly except they were chosen for the A and B-sides, respectively for the first single and wouldn't be on the album, counterintuitive to today's thinking. "Kansas City" and "Rock And Roll Music" also would have worked, but they weren't original songs.
The one left was in fact this mid-tempo song. John and his wife Cynthia were on a month-long vacation to Tahiti in May of 1964 with George and his future wife Pattie Boyd. During this break from the busy Beatles schedule, John took time to write out several new songs, including "Any Time At All" and "When I Get Home". And, since "No Reply" was first recorded on June 3, it seems logical that it was written during this vacation as well.
John habitually underestimated the quality of his work and apparently he didn't have confidence in "No Reply" as he first offered it to an artist named Tommy Quickly. Fortunately, the Beatles also recorded it, as it turned out not only to be the choice to lead off the album but it is one of their most popular songs. Released as a single in Germany, "No Reply" jumped to #5.
The Beatles performed and recorded this Lennon song on a British edition of the U.S. television show Shindig! on October 3, 1964 at the Granville Studio in London. London residents of the Beatles Fan Club watched the show and cheered their heroes. "I'm A Loser" was nearly chosen as a single before "I Feel Fine" won out.
Paul wrote this song when he was 16 years old. The sound of the song was different and the bridge words and melody were slightly different. When the Beatles were putting together songs for the new album, Paul remembered "I'll Follow The Sun" from six years earlier. He and John changed the feel and tone of it by adding acoustic guitar, rewrote the bridge and added a harmony melody for John in the studio. To go along with the acoustic feel, instead of playing the drums, Ringo hit his legs with his hands to provide the beat.
The Beatles' cover of the Chuck Berry song "Rock And Roll Music" was released as a single in some countries with it going to #1 in Australia and Norway and #2 in Germany.
This special is designed so that each artist can be heard all in one day, one segment after the other. Only by doing that can one truly appreciate the artist, and we highly recommend it. Join us for Part Four!
The group recorded this song on January 29, 1964 in Paris, France. But when the Beatles returned to London, Harrison decided to overdub another lead guitar part. The original solo is still audible in the background. "Can't Buy Me Love" was another Gold single and #1 song of five weeks and another of The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*.
The band recorded this in nine takes on Harrison's 21st birthday. The performance was filmed for the upcoming movie A Hard Day's Night but did not make the cut. It was, however included on the movie soundtrack and released as the B-side of "Can't Buy Me Love". Here is "You Can't Do That".
Making up for lost time, and the deficiencies in the American radio industry, the floodgates were opened. The Beatles re-released a slew of singles that American radio stations had mistakenly avoided. One of them, sung by Harrison, was released a year earlier in the U.K. and included on the album Please Please Me. George and John each played acoustic guitars in different channels. On the stereo mix, Harrison's part was panned to the right channel while Lennon's was sent to the left.
"Do You Want To Know A Secret" peaked at #2 and went Gold.
"Love Me Do", a big hit in Europe in 1962, was released as a single in April of 1964. It was a #1 hit that has sold two million copies in the U.S. alone.
Compilation albums were released in March to clue Americans in on the worldwide sensation that had already originated that they, thanks to the ignorance of the powers that be at their radio stations, were oblivious to. The Beatles Story went Gold and The Early Beatles has gone Platinum.
Interest in the Beatles' music soared, leading to a crescendo on April 4, when the group occupied an unprecedented 12 spots on the Hot 100 chart and all the spots in the Top 5, a record which still stands to this day. Unlike today, when a few artists place multiple entries on the chart in the same week against very limited competition and then those songs drop off the chart like a lead balloon, 9 of those 12 songs were big hits still being played often on the radio in 2021. In Canada, the Beatles occupied 9 of the spots in the Top 10 during April.
You will note on the above chart the high level of competition that week, already present when the Beatles debuted, but which got stronger each year because of them. Owning every spot in the Top 5 is an incredible achievement never equaled, but what is especially significant in relation to today's charts and others at different points in the Rock Era is that the band did it against a high level of competition.
Glancing at the chart, you see the Beatles did it against classics like the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun", "People" by Barbra Streisand, "My Guy" from Mary Wells and "Dawn" by the 4 Seasons, all out at the same time and competing for airplay. Other high quality songs that still receive airplay today such as "Hello, Dolly!" by Louis Armstrong, "Glad All Over" and "Bits And Pieces" by the Dave Clark Five, "Dead Man's Curve" by Jan & Dean, Terry Stafford's "Suspicion", "Needles And Pins" by the Searchers and "The Way You Do The Things You Do" by the Temptations are also on that list. That's 12 other songs from that week's snapshot of popular music that still receive significant airplay 57 years later.
As you have read, the competition that a song faces is critical in determining its relevance and position in history and is a key factor in determining both The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era* as well as this special, The Top 100 Artists of the Rock Era*. Numbers are just numbers unless they are measured against competition at the time before being compared to other numbers from different eras, and the Beatles had plenty of competition throughout their reign.
On April 10, the band released the album The Beatles' Second Album, consisting mostly of leftovers from their U.K. album With the Beatles. It replaced Meet the Beatles at #1 on the Album chart in the United States and Canada and has gone Double Platinum.
"I Call Your Name" was an unsung track on the album at the time, but has since garnered significant attention. Lennon wrote it before the Beatles, perhaps as early as 1957:
That was my song, when there was no
Beatles and no group. I just had it
around. It was my effort as a kind of
Blues originally, and then I wrote the
middle eight just to stick it in the album
when it came out years later. The first
part had been written before Hamburg
even. It was one of my first attempts at
a song.
The chart success in 1964 was unprecedented and highly impressive, but chart numbers alone do not tell the full story. The Beatles not only changed the sound of music forever and the Rock Era; they changed pop culture and even the way music was promoted--in short, they changed the entire industry, nearly overnight.
This was slated to be the Beatles' third single until they recorded "From Me To You". "'Thank You Girl' was one of our efforts at writing a single that didn't work. So it became a B-side or an album track," Lennon said to David Sheff for the 1980 book All We Are Saying.
The Beatles showed what proper merchandising could do--Beatles badges, dolls, and chewing gum flew off the shelves of retail stores. By rejecting material from other songwriters in favor of their own, the group broke the Tin Pan Alley monopoly on songwriting, and began revolutionary trends that would turn the music publishing industry on its head.
Of course, that is just the beginning of what they accomplished.
This song by Lennon features three-part harmony by John, George and Paul. Included on the Meet the Beatles! album, the Beatles performed "This Boy" on their second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 16.
Beatlemania was noticed far and wide, and United Artists Records urged their film division to offer a motion picture contract, which they believed would help sell soundtrack albums as well. Epstein and the Beatles signed a deal for three films and began filming A Hard Day's Night in March and April. The movie premiered in London and New York City in July and August, respectively, and was a hit throughout the world.
The movie, which presented the Beatles as four distinct personalities, changed the way the group was marketed. Previously, they had been presented as a unified group, but it became clear that fans loved seeing their differences and began to identify them as individuals.
A Hard Day's Night was nominated for two Oscar awards (Best Score by Martin and Best Screenplay) and was loved by audiences as well as critics. At the time, there were many movies which starred musicians, but most were not very good (think Elvis Presley movies). A Hard Day's Night was an exception; it had cinematic value and even sold well upon its DVD release many years later. Phil Collins was one of the extras brought in for a scene in the movie in which the Beatles performed.
In June, Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four members Order of the British Empire.
The Beatles released both a full soundtrack album as well as their third album, A Hard Day's Night, (a #1 album in the United States, the U.K., Australia, Canada and Germany that has sold over four million units), which contained songs from the movie on side one and new recordings on side two. Increasingly, the group was including more of their own songs on their album releases, taking their audience and the public at large into uncharted territory.
Lennon & McCartney wrote all of the songs on the album, including the title song, which used an expression Ringo used to say. "We went to do a job, and we'd worked all day and we happened to work all night," Starr explained in a 1964 interview with DJ Dave Hull. "I came up still thinking it was day I suppose, and I said, 'It's been a hard day...' and I looked around and saw it was dark so I said, 'Night!' So we came to 'A Hard Day's Night'".
The song was the last to be composed for the soundtrack and had to be written quickly as Ringo's statement caused the movie producer, Walter Shenson, to change the movie title from Beatlemania to A Hard Day's Night. Shenson told PBS that he said to John, "You need to write a song that will incorporate the movie's title," and he was shocked but pleasantly surprised when John came in the very next day with the song!
"A Hard Day's Night" was written and recorded in a little more than 24 hours.
The title song became the group's fifth #1 song and sold over one million copies.
Everyone can agree that the Beatles' music has always been incredible, and now their lyrics took on a new dimension. The shift can be attributed to being exposed to the music of Bob Dylan. While they were in Paris in January, the group obtained a copy of Dylan's Freewheelin' album, which they played constantly. "I'd started thinking about my own emotions," Lennon said regarding Dylan's impact on his own songwriting. "Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I'd done in my books," John said. "I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that - not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work."
A good example of Lennon's growth as a lyricist is this next song. We hear an outpouring of emotions not heard before from the group, such as anger, self-pity, embarrassment and retaliation.
Originally intended for a scene in the movie where the group "escaped" down an iron staircase and ran around in Thornbury Playing Fields in London, director Richard Lester replaced the song with "Can't Buy Me Love" but it was later restored for an opening collage sequence in the film's 1986 reissue on VHS.
"I'll Cry Instead" peaked at #25.
The mono version of the album Something New contained a longer version of "I'll Cry Instead" with a third verse containing identical lyrics to the first, which extended the time from 1:48 to 2:09.
Paul wrote most of this song in the basement at Jane Asher's parents home. Paul had just moved in with the Ashers and wrote it in February of 1964, either during their two days in between their Paris and America trips (February 5-7) or after their return from the United States (February 22-25). Paul expressed his feelings of the song to Barry Miles in the book Many Years From Now:
It was the first ballad I impressed myself
with. It's got nice chords in it, "Bright are
the stars that shine, dark is the sky..." I
like the imagery of the stars and the sky. It
was a love song really. The "And" in the
title was an important thing. "And I Love
Her", it came right out of left field, you were
right up to speed the minute you heard it.
The title comes in the second verse and it
doesn't repeat. You would often go to town
on the title, but this was almost an aside.
"Oh...and I love you." It still holds up and
George played really good guitar on it. It
worked very well.
While the group was recording the track, both music publisher Dick James and producer George Martin felt it needed a better middle section to break up the repetitive nature of the lyrics. "I think it was John who shouted, 'OK, let's have a tea break," James said, "and John and Paul went to the piano and, while Mal Evans was getting tea and some sandwiches, the boys worked at the piano. Within half an hour they wrote, there before our very eyes, a very constructive middle to a very commercial song."
"And I Love Her" stalled at #12, but its timeless relevance confirms that it is another of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.
Lennon wrote most of this song as a showcase for Harrison, which gave George good exposure in the movie. "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You" is the flip side to "I'll Cry Instead".
The Beatles performed "I Should Have Known Better" during a memorable carriage scene in the movie in which the members mimed the song while they played cards. Actors, including Harrison's future wife Patty Boyd, looked on. It was released as the B-side to "A Hard Day's Night".
The group also mimed to this song in the film while the crew are setting up equipment prior to a "studio performance". The flip side of "And I Love Her", "If I Fell", which topped the Norwegian chart on its own, is regarded as one of the Beatles' best love songs.
On April 8, 1988, Lennon's lyrics for "If I Fell", written on the back of a Valentine's Day card, were sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for £7,800.
The Beatles' schedule was so full in 1964, with concerts all over the world, movies to film, radio and television shows and interviews that often, they needed to finish songs in the studio. This next song is one such occasion.
Knowing the album needed a couple more songs, Lennon (pictured above) wrote these next two with his acoustic guitar while on vacation in Tahiti. The group recorded seven takes of this but believed it was lacking, so they recorded other songs first, then came back after a 90-minute break with the instrumental section led by Paul's piano playing.
In this case, the overdubbing of John's vocal was not something they thought of later. Because of the quick transition from the sixth to the seventh measure of each verse, Lennon couldn't end one phrase and begin the next without it sounding odd. So John omitted the first few words of the second phrase, knowing those would be filled by overdubbing. For example, on the second verse, John sang "there is nothing I won't do...shoulder to cry on." Then on the overdubbing, he sang "when you need a". Here is "Anytime At All".
The Beatles recorded this song for the movie but it was not used. Lennon originally wrote it as a waltz and the demo was recorded that way. John has explained that it is a "variation of chords" from Del Shannon's classic "Runaway", and it is believed this was to pay Del back for doing a favor for the Beatles in their early days when they were struggling to get airplay. Shannon recorded a cover of "From Me To You" to help the Beatles attract attention. Here is "I'll Be Back".
We are through two full segments and are still only halfway through the year 1964, the year of their debut on the world scene. As remarkable as that is, there is much more to come. Stay tuned for Part Three!
"Never to be seen again, the planets aligned and brought these 4 together and they made history! Amazing never seen before or since! I remember Beatlemania, it was infectious and exhilarating! Can't imagine how these four working class lads from Liverpool felt as they made that history!"
"It is not hyperbole to say they were like Mozart and Beethoven. Except unlike those two, they also included words to the songs...amazing words."
"I will NEVER get over these boys. Their music is so magical, it has truly changed my life. Paul, John, George, Ringo... THANK YOU."
"The two greatest songwriters of all-time together in the same group."
"The big bang of Rock & Roll."
"They are in a class of their own."
"On any rock radio station, an hour should never go by without a Beatles song being played."
"Just simply brilliant. No one will ever come close to them."
"In under a decade, the Beatles went from making catchy songs to complex, thought-provoking masterpieces. Every member’s contribution to the Beatles made them the most powerful force in music, and no other music group in history comes close."
"GREAT music never dies."
"The masters at work. They invented it all. Awesome songs. The best band ever. Period."
"It was impossible for the Beatles to turn off the magic and creativity; they had an endless well of musical genius."
"Best band of all-time even if you cut their catalogue in half."
"The best musical group and song-writing geniuses EVER in the history of music."
"Their songs are like a beautiful painting, a work of art."
"The songwriting is stunning."
"The four boys from Liverpool revolutionized the world of music and left us a legacy of excellent pop sound. May John and George rest in peace."
"Timeless music. Play it in another 30 years and it will still sound as good."
"In their 20's making an impact on the entire world for generations. I don't even want to know what the world would have been like without the Beatles."
"With every record, they just kept being better than everybody else."
"They just get better over time. I was there almost right from the beginning (Spring of '63 I was in a band in U.K., playing Shadows covers, and at the end of a gig our bass guitarist asked me, as we cleared our stuff up, 'have you heard this new group, the Beatles?' -'No' - 'you should listen to them, they're good.'). Yes, they were fantastic then, but I get even more impressed now by the feeling, the meaning, the extraordinary timing, the incredible harmonies, etc."
"The Beatles are simply the greatest of all-time. It's almost hard to comprehend just how incredibly talented they were."
"Unless you grew up with these guys it's almost impossible to understand the extent to which they could do no wrong. Everything they put out was perfect."
"The greatest phenomenon in music history."
"They will never be replaced, the songwriting is just light years ahead of anything, we were blessed to ever have them at all. Truly, the greatest band without any doubt."
"Insanely genius."
"The more years that go by, the more I realize how truly incredible they were."
"The children of the 21st century will be listening to the Beatles." Brian Epstein
"I remember waiting for the next release.....hit after hit after hit, loved every one. What they did in their career is beyond belief. Stupendous."
"Four young men changed the very fabric of music. Sublime."
"The Beatles. Pure Magic. They were a Gift from God. I am convinced of that."
"They had genius in spades."
"It's just unbelievable, that in the 21st century, almost 50 years since they first appeared on Ed Sullivan, that the Beatles music still sounds fresh, great, excellent!"
"Magic, absolutely Magic. There’s simply no other words. 👍"
"So jealous of people who hear their music for the first time. Nothing can compare to that feeling."
"I’ve loved the Beatles all my life. I’m 15 now and I wish I could’ve seen them or have been around when they were together but I am so thankful that we’ll always have the music and that it’s been passed down from generation to generation. I think that we are all so lucky that those four men met each other and made the greatest music of all time together."
"The Beatles are the greatest and most influential band that ever was and will ever be."
"These guys had a recording career that lasted all of 7 years! Bands that have been recording for 3 and 4 times longer just wish they had half of the quality stuff that these guys produced. That's greatness. Hands down. People will be singing and playing these tunes a thousand years from now."
"I'm a millennial and you wouldn't believe that for many of us, the Beatles are our favorite group."
"Yes, I do agree: the Beatles are the greatest in the world."
"Legends in every way. Incredible songwriting, great vocals and harmonies, great music, incredible performers. And good people."
"Creative genius doesn't get any better than this."
"Imagine living and being there during this historic moment. The biggest regret I will ever have is not being born earlier and seeing them live together."
"Pure magic!"
"Their harmonies are awesome."
"Four guys with so much talent!!!! Thanks so much for their big contributions to the music. Their legacy is so important! So really thankful with the life for allow me meet them through their wonderful albums! My eternal love to each one."
"These four guys changed music forever...pretty amazing."
"This was the soundtrack of my life...and for millions & millions of others!"
"These guys are the greatest force popular music has ever known."
"The Beatles went from Beatlemania to being the most artistic, influential band in the history of music in just 6 short years."
"Greatest band in history. Consistently making hit after hit and classic after classic."
"The Beatles were very special to me. I've been listening to them since 1963 and it's no mystery to me why they were so popular. The best damn group in my time or any other time. Their songs take you on a journey."
"The Beatles didn't put their hit singles on their albums and still sold more albums than anyone! That is how good they were! and are!"
"The raw power of their melody and harmonization is just so so incredible. Not a single second is wasted, every lyric hooks you in and delivers the message so succinctly."
"No lasers, no pyrotechnics, no inflatable devils, no dancers. Total value of stage equipment... maybe $10,000 yet the 4 of them could create more excitement than anyone ever has. That's how you know they were extraordinary!"
"Absolute musically geniuses. I know it's stating the obvious but boy could they write songs."
"There's way more going on in the song than meets the eye or ear. Just watch what they do in videos of their live performances. Simple but sophisticated at the same time! Brilliant singers, songwriters and musicians."
"I love the Beatles! They were so fresh and funny, and their music make people feel happy."
"That’s what you call perfection in a group."
"I was not born in the time when the Beatles were famous. But I can say that they deserved their fame because their songs are absolute masterpieces. I listen to different genres and it really is amazing when you hear a song, find it to be beautiful, and then find out it's from the Beatles."
"Fifty-seven years later..be still, my heart! LOVE them."
"Love from India and utmost salute and heartiest tribute to the eternal Beatles."
"Imagine the whole world mourning the loss of a US President and four young musicians from England step in and change the vibes of the entire world. Wow!!!"
"They were wonderful and no one can replace them!"
"No matter how long this Earth revolves, there will never be another band like this."
"Every time I listen to the Beatles, it never ceases to amaze me how one band could have created so many classic, amazing songs. One after another just hit after hit, each one more unique than the last. Truly a once-in-a-million collection of creative minds."
"The Beatles are the best band on planet Earth. Every time I hear the Beatles, I think about how lucky I am to experience this wonderful music. Bach, Mozart, the Beatles."
"I am 66 years old. I went through it all from the beginning. Can you imagine the Karmic gift these four had to meet and do what they did? Can you imagine the head space that anyone of them was in to create this and do what they did together? These guys were shaping the emotional well-being of the Western World at one point with their music. What a trip they lived!"
"The best band in the world by zillions of light years!"
"Insanely perfect. Genius."
"Of all the qualities in their music, it was their high harmony vocals that rocked the world."
"What a time to be alive to experience this in the moment..."
"The Beatles...incomparable."
"The coolness of the Beatles is impossible to quantify."
"The most influential band ever to grace this planet."
"I grew up with this fantastic music; It was magical. The Beatles have always been my favorite group."
"Aren't they beautiful and talented? I love them so much... forever. 🙏"
"People don't realize how advanced their music was. Everything you hear now--everything--is a direct result of what these guys did."
"5,000 years will pass and the Beatles will still be the greatest and the best of all time!!!"
"Incredible pure talent."
"The fact that these guys put out so many varieties of music in such a short amount of time compared to other bands just blows my mind."
"I will forever be happy that the Beatles formed and I grew up listening to them."
"Four men, four instruments and....just perfect."
"It blows my mind that this band even existed. We are all so lucky."
"So energizing and awesome! Greatest band ever!"
"The Beatles sound like no other band. Every song is different. You just can't place their music into a neat category. Iconic."
"It is beyond my comprehension just how great these guys were and still are. There is not one single entertainment act who can approach their level of greatness. Sorry to go on about them but that’s how great they were."
"I feel blessed to have lived in that extraordinary period."
"There will NEVER be another Beatles. Take notes kids..."
"Greatness like this may never be seen again."
"The Beatles didn't make music. They made magic that sounded like music."
"To think about how many signature riffs The Beatles have created.....well it's astounding."
"I can't imagine what it must've been like for these dudes during all this. I mean, a phenomenon all over the entire world. Just insane."
"Long live the Beatles and their music forevermore."
"There have been many great bands, but nothing compares to the sheer brilliance and talent of the Beatles."
"No band will ever match what you guys did. You changed the world. You are the best band ever.❤"
"One of my favorite memories is listening to the Beatles with my family. 😄💖"
"They weren’t just ahead of their time … they created in a higher dimension … hard to imagine their art losing relevance … same as Beethoven."
#1 and not even close. Innovators in songwriting, musical composition and recording techniques, their importance and stature cannot be overstated. The Rock Era is split into two parts because of them--pre-1964 and everything after. Though we likely will never see another phenomenon like them, they provided inspiration for tens of thousands of groups and made everything we hear today possible. Listening to the Beatles as they progressed through the years is literally like listening to the evolution of Rock itself.
It all began in March of 1957 when 16-year-old John Lennon formed a skiffle group with some friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, England. They began as the Blackjacks before changing to the Quarry Men.
That summer, Paul McCartney and Ivan Vaughan went to the Woolton Village Fête at St. Peter's Church. Vaughan, knowing that both Paul and John were obsessed with rock & roll, introduced Paul to another friend of his, John Lennon, who was playing at the church with the Quarry Men. You can call it fate, destiny, happenstance, whatever, but without that chance meeting, the world may never have had the Beatles, as Paul pondered in his October 18, 2021 article in the New Yorker magazine:
Would John and I have met some
other way, if Ivan and I hadn't gone to
that fête? I'd actually gone along to try
and pick up a girl. I'd seen John
around--in the chip shop, on the bus,
that sort of thing--and thought he
looked quite cool, but would we have
ever talked? I don't know. As it
happened, though, I had a school
friend who knew John. And then I
also happened to share a bus journey
with George to school. All these small
coincidences had to happen to make
the Beatles happen, and it does feel
like some kind of magic. It's one of
the wonderful lessons about saying
yes when life presents these
opportunities to you. You never know
where they might lead.
In July, 15-year-old McCartney joined them on rhythm guitar. In February of the following year, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band practice. Harrison, who was 15 at the time, auditioned to join the Quarrymen. Lennon was impressed but thought him too young to be in the band. Harrison persisted, and during a second meeting on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, Harrison played the lead guitar part of the instrumental "Raunchy" and George had the job.
(From left: Sutcliffe, Lennon, McCartney, Tommy Moore and Harrison)
By 1959, Lennon was studying at the Liverpool College of Art and his friends had left the group. The band changed their name to Johnny and the Moondogs and played whenever they could find a drummer. Stuart Sutcliffe, a classmate of Lennon's, sold one of his paintings, bought a bass guitar and joined the group in January of 1960.
The rest of the group liked Sutcliffe's suggestion to change the name to the Beatals as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. They kept this name until May when they became the Silver Beetles. Their first big gig was opening for Johnny Gentle on a short tour of Scotland. The next month, the band changed their name to the Silver Beatles and by the middle of August simply the Beatles.
(The Early Beatles: Lennon, Harrison, Best, McCartney and Sutcliffe)
Alan Williams was their acting manager at this point, and he booked a 3 1/2-month residency for the group in Hamburg, Germany. The group's performances there played a pivotal role in their future as they honed their skills and came together as a group in Hamburg. As they now had regular shows, the Beatles had to have a drummer, and they hired Pete Best in August of 1960.
The band played first at the Indra Club but due to noise complaints, they moved to the Kaiserkeller. The Beatles played exhausting six-hour sets featuring a repertoire of their Rock & Roll and R&B favorites, performing virtually every song they could remember. Remember this hard, hard work night after night if you are tempted to think their eventual success happened overnight. The Beatles were one of the hardest-working groups ever. That is how they did it.
The group began sporting fringed haircuts, or as they were later called, "mop-tops", which were the creation of Sutcliffe's fiancée, Astrid Kirchherr.
But when they performed at the Top Ten Club in violation of their contract, they were given a one month termination notice and left before then. Sutcliffe stayed in Hamburg with Kirchherr.
The Beatles continued to perform in Hamburg over the next two years, but dismissed Williams as their manager. It was during the Hamburg apprenticeship that the group developed the chemistry and showmanship that would make them famous.
Sutcliffe wanted to resume his art studies and when he quit, McCartney became the bassist. The Hamburg gig, with its four to six-hour sets, seven days a week, sharpened the mettle and largely formed the basis of what the world would soon hear. It is because of the Hamburg experience that when the four remaining Beatles returned to their hometown of Liverpool, they were able to excite crowds at The Cavern Club with their talent and enthusiasm.
Producer Bert Kaempfert arranged for the group to back up Tony Sheridan on several of his recordings for Polydor Records. As part of their contract, the Beatles earned a one-year contract with Polydor and released the single "My Bonnie", a song for which they had also backed Sheridan on.
The Merseybeat movement in Liverpool was catching on and the Beatles were perfectly positioned for it. In November of 1961, Brian Epstein, manager of the North End Music Store (a record shop in Liverpool), became aware of the Beatles through dozens of requests from his customers for the Sheridan song "My Bonnie".
On November 9, Epstein saw the group at one of their performances at The Cavern Club. "I immediately liked what I heard," Epstein said later to Mark Lewishohn for Mark's book The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide to the Beatles' Entire Career. "They were fresh, and they were honest, and they had what I thought was a sort of presence...[a] star quality."
The Beatles hired Epstein to be their manager in January of 1962. Brian worked to free the group from their contract with Kaempfert and as part of that negotiation, arranged for a recording session in Hamburg. But when the group arrived in April, Kirchherr met them at the airport with news that Sutcliffe had died the previous day from a brain hemorrhage. The Beatles also performed at the Star Club in Hamburg in a seven-week engagement.
Epstein also worked to get the group a better deal than the one with Polydor, but several major companies passed. Decca Records rejected the Beatles saying, "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein." Three months later (June 4, 1962), however, producer George Martin signed the band to Parlophone Records, a division of EMI.
The band headed to EMI Studios in London on June 6 for this first recording session with Martin. When Martin complained to Epstein about Best's drumming, a session drummer took his place. The Beatles promptly fired Best and brought in Ringo Starr, who was a popular drummer with Rory and the Hurricanes. After three months of rehearsing with their new lineup, the group returned to London, their airfare paid for by Epstein.
After the members first checked into their hotel in Chelsea on September 4, they arrived at EMI early in the afternoon and carted their equipment into Studio 3. They began rehearsing six songs, including "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "How Do You Do It?", a song written by Mitch Murray which in the absence of better material (in Martin's view), would be the first single.
"It wasn't a question of what they could do [as] they hadn't written anything great at that time," Martin said to author Bob Spitz for the book Beatles: The Biography. "But what impressed me most was their personalities. Sparks flew off them when you talked to them."
In the evening session (7-10 p.m. in Studio 2), the Beatles recorded "Love Me Do" and "How Do You Do It?". They attempted to record "Please Please Me" but at that point it was quite a bit different from what it finally sounded like and Martin dropped it. The group was disappointed as they hoped it would be the B-side to "Love Me Do".
It is to Martin's credit that he allowed the members of the Beatles to "float their ideas". But he insisted that unless the group could write something as good as "How Do You Do It?" that the industry-accepted practice of having Tin Pan Alley songwriters write for recording artists would take place. Martin's instinct in "How Do You Do It?" was eventually validated when Gerry and the Pacemakers turned it into a hit.
"Love Me Do" was a song written four years before by a then-16-year-old McCartney when he played hooky from school, with Lennon adding the middle section. The aspiring songwriting pair would scribble songs in a school notebook, and, in their dreams of being respected as professional songwriters, always wrote "Another Lennon-McCartney Original" at the top of the page. Paul recalled the song's origins to biographer Barry Miles in the book Many Years From Now:
"Love Me Do" was completely co-written.
It might have been my original idea but
some of them really were 50-50's, and I
think that one was. It was just Lennon
and McCartney sitting down without either
of us having a particularly original idea.
We loved doing it, it was a very
interesting thing to try and learn to do, to
become songwriters. I think why we
eventually got so strong was we wrote so
much through our formative period.
"Love Me Do" was our first hit, which
ironically is one of the two songs that we
control, because when we first signed to
EMI they had a publishing company
called Ardmore and Beechwood which
took the two songs, "Love Me Do" and
"P.S. I Love You", and in doing a deal
somewhere along the way we were
able to get them back.
Lennon began the song by playing the harmonica, which he had learned to play as a child from his Uncle George. John and Paul alternated on lead vocals.
The group recorded "Love Me Do" but Martin wasn't satisfied then either, and very nearly released "How Do You Do It?" as the single. Again to his credit, and against his initial thoughts, George decided to give the lads the benefit of the doubt with "Love Me Do".
Martin hired drummer Andy White for another session on September 11, relegating Starr to the tambourine. The original version with Starr on drums was ultimately chosen for the single, but re-pressings featured the White version with Starr playing tambourine. As the tambourine wasn't included on the September 4 session, that is the easiest way to distinguish between the two recordings.
On October 5, 1962, the Beatles released the single "Love Me Do" and on that night, Radio Luxembourg, with its powerful broadcast signal, played a new song, simple, but raw and sexy. Martin said that on that date, the world changed, and in retrospect, we now know that it most certainly did.
The thing we most want to stress is that success, even Beatles success, was anything but overnight. There was no grueling tour on the horizon where they were met with thousands of excited fans. They had to build that audience.
Instead, the day after the release, the group traveled 15 miles to Dawson's Music Shop in Widnes, Cheshire for a signing session and then played at the Horticultural Dance at Hulme Hall in Birkenhead. The following day, the Beatles performed at The Cavern Club and then recorded a special for Radio Luxembourg before a live audience of 100.
The band made their television debut later in the month on the regional show People and Places. They also paid a visit to the offices of the Record Mirror in hopes that someone there might review their new release. The Beatles finished the week by a return to Liverpool and the usual lunchtime and evening shows at The Cavern.
The Beatles returned to Hamburg for 14 nights at the Star Club for their fifth and final residency, sharing a bill with Little Richard. Epstein sharpened the band's image too, telling Lennon, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change - stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking." The group continued to make small radio and television appearances and performances in Liverpool over the next two months.
Work was hard and money was tight, but their efforts began to pay off when airplay of the single began to increase and eventually, on December 27,1962, "Love Me Do" peaked at #17 in the U.K.
"In Hamburg we clicked. At the Cavern we clicked," McCartney said. "But if you want to know when we 'knew' we'd arrived, it was getting in the charts with 'Love Me Do'. That was the one. It gave us somewhere to go."
It was a tough year for the group, but they felt like they finally had their foot in the door. Unbeknownst to the world, the Beatles already had a follow-up single recorded and ready to be released (recorded on November 26). That single would elevate them to the top soon, but for now, they could relax and enjoy their last few moments of privacy before bedlam hit.
As for that second single already in the can, Martin has said the original version was "rather dreary" and too slow and thus had little chance of being the big hit the Beatles were looking for. Lennon first wrote the song as a bluesy song:
I remember the day I wrote it, I heard Roy
Orbison doing "Only The Lonely" or
something. And I was also always intrigued
by the words to a Bing Crosby song that went,
"Please lend a little ear to my pleas." The
double use of the word "please". So it was a
combination of Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby.
The original did not include the harmonies or responses, nor did it call for the harmonica intro. "It was obvious to me that it badly needed pepping up," Martin said for the 1992 book by Mark Lewisohn--The Complete Beatles Chronicle: The Definitive Day-By-Day Guide To the Beatles' Entire Career. When it became time to record the song on November 26, 1962, the arrangement had been radically changed and it took 18 takes to record what Martin immediately predicted would be their first major hit, according to the John Gilliland radio program "The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming! The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers".
"We sang it and George Martin said, 'Can we change the tempo?', McCartney said in the 2000 book Anthology. "We said, 'What's that?' He said, 'Make it a bit faster. Let me try it.' And he did. We thought, 'Oh, that's all right, yes.' Actually, we were a bit embarrassed that he had found a better tempo than we had."
The Beatles released the single "Please Please Me" on January 11 in the U.K. and February 25 in the United States. This one was primarily Lennon's, though as mentioned above, Martin had a significant influence on the final sound. "Please Please Me" did in fact turn out to be a big hit, reaching #2 in the U.K. As it was part of Beatlemania in 1964, we will feature the song in that segment.
The group recorded 10 songs on February 11, 1963 which, along with their two singles, made up their album Please Please Me, which has been certified Platinum. Meanwhile, Epstein signed a contract with music publisher Dick James, which led to the creation of Northern Songs.
McCartney wrote this next song while the Beatles were the house band at The Star Club in 1962. It was an early favorite of patrons and it was one of the songs the band performed at their audition for Parlophone Records on June 6, 1962.
The Beatles recorded several takes of the song at their first session at EMI on June 6 with Pete Best on drums. They remade the song in 10 takes in the September 11 session without Starr on drums. Producer Ron Richards didn't feel Ringo was good enough on that day and session player Andy White replaced him. Starr's only contribution to the song was playing maracas.
"P.S. I Love You", the flip side of "Love Me Do", became a #10 hit in its own right when it was released as a single on April 27, 1964 in the United States.
The Beatles appeared on the television show Thank Your Lucky Stars on February 17 to promote the single "Please Please Me", a performance seen by over six million viewers.
The Beatles released their debut album in March, beginning an amazing streak of reaching #1 in the U.K. with 11 of their 12 studio albums. They released the single "Twist And Shout" on March 22 in the U.K.
The band released the single "From Me To You" in April in the U.K. and May in the United States. Like its predecessors, "From Me To You" was largely ignored in the U.S. but topped the U.K. chart for seven weeks.
(The Beatles at the London Palladium on October 13, 1963)
The group toured the U.K. three times in the first six months of the year. With each single came more frenzied fans, to the point where the media called the phenomenon "Beatlemania". The group started these tours opening for Tommy Roe and Roy Orbison, but were the headliners by the time the tours were over.
In July, the Beatles released the single "All My Loving". The following month, they released the single "She Loves You", which became the fastest-selling song in history to that point with over one million advance orders. "She Loves You" rocketed to #1 in the U.K., dropped a bit, then returned to #1 seven weeks later as the sensation known as "Beatlemania" gripped the country. "She Loves You" remained as the biggest-selling single in the U.K. until 1978.
The band toured Sweden and were greeted by hundreds of screaming fans upon their return to Heathrow Airport. This continued with each successive foreign tour and homecoming. The Beatles then toured Great Britain again.
This constant promotion and steady release of singles kept the group in the limelight and Please Please Me at #1 on the Album chart for a phenomenal 30 weeks in the U.K., overtaken only by the Beatles' follow-up, With the Beatles, released in November. In a shrewd move, EMI released the album ahead of the single "I Want To Hold Your Hand", which was left off the album to maximize its sales.
With the Beatles reached 500,000 sales within one week. Unlike their debut album, in which Epstein and others chose the tracks, things were different for their sophomore album.
At the time the group walked into EMI Studios in London, their first release was #1 for a sixth week on the British Album charts with another 24 more to go. "From Me To You" had spent seven weeks at #1 and the Beatles were excited about their newly recorded "She Loves You". The Beatles were now headliners, even topping Roy Orbison on their nationwide tour.
So this time, it was the Beatles who picked the tracks. Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" was a favorite song of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, and the Beatles recorded it for the album.
Here is a song that Berry Gordy, Jr. wrote with Janie Bradford that they gave to Barrett Strong to record. The Beatles first recorded "Money (That's What I Want)" January 1, 1962 for their audition with Decca Records. They had performed it often live, but still it was very raw.
While they were recording their second album, the group recorded it again on July 18, 1963. Martin played piano and the Beatles recorded six takes. Martin added several overdubs before the finished product was included on the album.
Lennon and McCartney wrote "I Wanna' Be Your Man" for Ringo to sing lead. They met Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on the streets of London and by the end of that ride, John and Paul gave permission for the Stones to record a single of the song.
With the Beatles topped the U.K. Album chart for 21 weeks, and after Please Please Me was just the third album in history to sell one million copies in the U.K. (the other being the "South Pacific" Soundtrack).
Press officer Tony Barrow wrote in the sleeve notes for the album that the group was "the fabulous foursome", which the media quickly shortened to the Fab Four.
As awesome as they had done in the U.K., the Beatles were not able to break through in the world's biggest music market, the United States. In part, this was due to the refusal of Capitol Records (EMI's American subsidiary) to release their music. Epstein was able to arrange for independent Vee-Jay to release some of the group's music in the U.S., but Vee-Jay was far too small to do what was needed.
Vee-Jay was prepared to release the album Introducing...The Beatles, which included most of the songs on the album Please Please Me, but when management at Vee-Jay changed, the album was not released. EMI granted a new license to Swan Records to release the single "She Loves You". The song was featured on American Bandstand and got some airplay but did not catch on nationally.
It is important for all of us to understand at this juncture that tens of thousands of bands yearning for airplay are not successful. For the Beatles to be wildly successful in the U.K. in and of itself is a great achievement. Receiving sufficient airplay on radio stations across the United States to make the Hot 100 and especially the Top 40 once in a career is extremely tough, much harder than it may seem.
Every week, radio stations get 50-100 new songs on their desk and from that stack, they typically add 3-4 new songs a week. The ones they add depend largely on 1) their skill in knowing which of those songs is going to be popular with their audience, 2) the songs being heavily promoted by record companies (many quality songs are never heard simply because they are not properly promoted and radio music directors are not bold enough and independent enough to add the song without other "heavyweight" stations on board as well.)
So much of a song's success depends on the quality and amount of record company support as well as the quality of an artist's manager in monitoring and ensuring that the company promotes the music of their client properly. The Beatles were extremely fortunate to have an honest manager and true believer in Brian Epstein. The group, as talented as it was, would not have been the phenomenon they turned out to be without Epstein. Their success is his success.
The Beatles released the single "All My Loving" in November, but it suffered from being out before the phenomenon had hit. It stalled at #45, and is one of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.
Determined to help the group reach their potential, Epstein hand-delivered a demo of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" to Brown Meggs at Capitol, who finally signed the Beatles to a recording contract and budgeted $40,000 to promote them in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Carroll James of radio station WWDC in Washington, D.C. secured a copy of the Parlophone single and began playing it. Taped copies of the song began to circulate and receive airplay at other radio stations. The increased demand forced Capitol to release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" three weeks sooner than scheduled.
On December 26, 1963, the Beatles released the single on Capitol, which rapidly sold over one million copies and catapulted to #1 in less than three weeks. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" didn't relinquish that position for seven weeks, making it not only The #1 Song of 1964 but The #6 Song of the Rock Era*.
"I Saw Her Standing There" was overshadowed by the classic A-side ("I Want To Hold Your Hand"), and when it stalled at #14, that made it another of The Top Unknown/Underrated Songs of the Rock Era*.
This success, though we now know was certainly not "immediate", led Vee-Jay to finally release the album Introducing...The Beatles when Capitol released the album Meet the Beatles! and Swan restarted production of the single "She Loves You".
Introducing...The Beatles reached #2 in the U.S. and has been certified Platinum. Lennon and McCartney wrote "She Loves You" on June 26, 1963 in their room at Turk's Hotel in Newcastle before the Beatles' second performance at the Majestic Ballroom. Rather than than "I" or "You" pronouns, Paul suggested the write the song using a third party.
The pair finished writing the song at McCartney's family home on Forthlin Road in Liverpool. Paul recalled to Barry Miles about the song's conclusion:
We sat in there one evening, just beavering
away while my dad was watching TV and
smoking his Players cigarettes, and we
wrote "She Loves You". We actually
finished it there because we'd started it in
the hotel room. We went into the living
room--"Dad, listen to this. What do you
think?" So we played it to my dad and he
said, "That's very nice, son, but there's
enough of these Americanisms around.
Couldn't you sing, "She loves you. Yes!
Yes! Yes!?" At which point we collapsed
in a heap and said, "No, Dad, you don't
quite get it!"
The Beatles spent five hours recording the song at EMI Studios in London (later renamed Abbey Road), less than a week after writing was completed. When it was re-released in the U.S., "She Loves You" finally skyrocketed to #1 for five weeks and is The #41 Song of the Rock Era*.
Introducing...The Beatles was a slightly abridged version of Please Please Me, which had been released in the U.K. four months before. Two songs, including "Please Please Me", were deleted for the American release. As the Please Please Me album was finally released in the U.S. in 1987, there is no reason to get Introducing...The Beatles, but at the time, it was the only way a starving American public could hear some of the initial recordings by the group.
Meet the Beatles! was not the first album by the group released in the U.S.--that distinction belonged to Introducing...The Beatles, described above. However, Meet the Beatles!, distributed by Capitol, was the first album heard by millions. Vee Jay, being a much smaller label, didn't have the capacity, neither to produce mass quantities of albums nor to promote it properly.
Meet the Beatles! exploded to #1 in the U.S. and Canada and has sold over five million copies. Several singles which were hits in the U.K. were lost in the United States, which can be much slower to recognize a good song when they hear it. But after "I Want To Hold Your Hand" opened the door, befuddled radio station music directors opened re-released 45's by the Beatles and realized they were great as well. "Please Please Me" is one such example, ignored when it was released in February of 1963 but a huge hit (#3) when re-released in January of 1964.
On February 7, the Beatles departed Heathrow Airport in London with an estimated 4,000 fans gathered to send them off. Across the ocean, 3,000 roaring fans greeted the group when they arrived at New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport.
The band performed live in an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show two days later that Epstein had booked for them, an historic show that drew 73 million viewers and 34% of the American population. It was to that point the largest audience ever recorded for an American television program, according to the Nielsen rating service.
Two days later at their concert at the Washington Coliseum, it was evident that Beatlemania was highly contagious, as screaming fans hung on the group's every word and note. Two shows back in New York at Carnegie Hall the next day drew similar reactions. The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show again the following week before another 70 million viewers and returned to the U.K. on February 22.
The Beatles achieved their wildly successful and unprecedented debut engineered by Epstein at a time when America was still grieving the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the previous November. For many, especially the young, the Beatles reignited excitement in them when they felt so empty.
The Beatles' success also sparked interest in other groups from the U.K. and over the next three years, countless groups debuted in the United States as well in what would come to be known as the British Invasion. Acts such as the Rolling Stones, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, Petula Clark, the Kinks, and many others of the era owe all of their success to the Beatles.
This next song was first a hit by the Isley Brothers in 1962. Engineer Norman Smith remembered the moment in the studio:
Someone suggested they do "Twist And Shout"
with John taking the lead vocal. But by this
time all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours
since we had started working. John's, in
particular, was almost completely gone so we
really had to get it right the first time. The
Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control
room. John sucked a couple more Zubes (a
brand of throat lozenges), had a bit of a gargle
with milk and away we went.
Lennon was sick as a dog, in fact, and actually did two takes of the song before they decided that the first was the best. You can hear John pouring all he had into the song, his voice hoarse and strained as he wrestled with the song. "Twist And Shout", released in the U.K. as part of an EP of the same name, was finally released in the United States on March 2, 1964. It was a #2 smash for four weeks, kept from the top spot only by the Beatles' "She Loves You", and has sold over two million singles. The group's version of "Twist And Shout" ranks as The #270 Song of the Rock Era*.
The group had finally become a transcontinental success. Would they be able to build on that success, though? Don't miss Part Two of the Beatles, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!
