Meet the Beatles
Author:
David Galassie
The
oldies radio I listen to today is a very good reflection
of what I grew up with, and having a brother and sister 10
and 9 years older than me meant that, at a very young age, I
was exposed to good old sixties' rock and roll, to include
the defining moment of a generation.
Though
I must have heard rock and roll when I was very young,
my first distinct rock memory was watching The Beatles make
their first American appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in
February 1964.
For days in advance, I'd heard my sister Mary and
cousin Chrissy Reimer talking about this great new British
group that everybody just had to see. Chrissy, a couple of
years younger than my sister, lived upstairs in the
apartment of our big corner house.
We
gathered in Chrissy's living room that fateful Sunday
night to watch the show that night. We didn't know it at
the time, but we were about to witness a seminal event in
pop culture, one that would spawn scores of books and
memories forever after.
As expected, The Beatles were an instant hit. I've
since obtained the DVD of their appearance that night and
subsequent shows and I am amazed that we could hear anything
of the Fab Four, what with all the hysterical girls
screaming their heads off! Needless to say, we had never
heard anything like them before, not to mention their smart
fashion sense and those haircuts. Later that week, "Meet
the Beatles," was a staple in the two households and that
famous photograph of their four heads on the album cover was
burned into our collective memory banks.
Being an only child, Chrissy had more Beatles stuff
than we could ever imagine. Jealousy was never an issue; we
just reveled in it. Mary liked Paul, Chrissy liked Ringo,
and I wavered between Paul and John. Beatles bobblehead
dolls, posters, bubble-gum cards, 16 Magazine, and even
Beatles comic books soon entered our world. When "A Hard
Days' Night" premiered locally at the Neenah Theater that
summer, the three of us spent an entire Saturday watching it
over and over, I think, six or eight times in a row. We
were all caught up in Beatlemania in a very serious way that
magical year.
But though The Beatles would be a force forever
after, the bloom was off the rose by the time 1965 rolled
around for me. Oh, I still loved The Beatles, but the fever
had subsided somewhat and I don't even remember even seeing
"Help!", their second film. The Beatles' arrival had spawned
the so-called British Invasion and the dilution of talent
across the entertainment spectrum meant instant fame for
many other groups, British and American. Each week without
fail, Ed Sullivan had a new group on- Herman's Hermits,
Freddie and the Dreamers, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, the
Dave Clark Five. And new shows sprouted like wildflowers to
push this talent at us- Shindig, Hullabaloo, Where the
Action Is, joining that perennial favorite, American
Bandstand. It was a great time to be a teenager or, for me,
a wannabe teenager.
In 1965, I was introduced to comic books and my life
was never the same after that. And 1966! Batman premiered
in January and I was an instant fan. Even if I hadn't grown
to love Batman from the comics, I would have succumbed
nonetheless. Soon my extra money was spent on Batman cards
(the big hobby of my third grade class) and more Detective
and Batman comics. And the coup de gras came when The
Monkees showed up on NBC later that year; The Beatles were
sadly pushed out of my daily consciousness. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I'd still hear them on the radio but their music was
evolving in ways I couldn't relate to. For a kid of my age,
The Monkees, with their weekly mayhem and bubble-gum sound,
echoed my memories of the early Fab Four and it was no
wonder it was a more comfortable fit than the seriousness of
"Eleanor Rigby" or "Nowhere Man."
From my view today, having The Beatles come to
America in 1964, gave us all a chance to get over the JFK
assassination just four months before. Much has been written
about The Beatles' influence in the Sixties, their message
of love, their hair, their hidden messages. But I don't
believe they get enough credit for making such a profound
noise, for getting a nation on its feet again to get a kick
out of four guys in their early twenties who could make
young girls swoon and become comic fodder for the likes of
old show-biz stalwarts like Bob Hope and Jack Benny. That's
the real beauty of The Beatles- when they sang and shook
their hair and went "wo-o-o-o-oh!", we were all kids again.
If nothing else, it was plain fun. And what kid wouldn't
want that?
