On Feb. 9, 1964, exactly 40 years ago yesterday, The Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The show, recorded live at Studio 50 on West 53rd Street in New York, forever changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll music-of all music-forever.
Surreal even for The Beatles themselves, that night marked a turning point in music history. A reported 73 million viewers tuned in to witness the long-haired British chaps, barely out of their teens, smiling and bobbing their heads in time to tunes like “All My Loving,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.”
On that night, the crime rate in this country was lower than it had been at any point in the previous 50 years. Police testified that not a single hubcap was stolen in New York City that night. And so America’s fascination with the Fab Four began.
People love The Beatles for many reasons. Although their early music, like the songs played that night on the Ed Sullivan Show, was often very simple, some fell in love with their lyrics.
Dr. Michael Brown, head of the department of music education at Mississippi State University, relayed a story he heard detailing The Beatles’ lack of musical knowledge.
As the story goes, John and Paul were arguing about a chord formation in the early stages of The Beatles’ fame, Brown said. John was claiming to be playing a D chord, and Paul was telling him that it wasn’t a D chord.
“When they looked at John’s fingers, they saw that he had his fingers on the fret board in the shape of the letter D,” Brown continued. “That’s how little they knew about music.”
Although Brown “wasn’t old enough to be a fan,” he said their lyrics were what drew him in.
“They were very strong, even early on, in their lyrics,” Brown said. “I think it was the lyrics, even more than the music, that attracted me.”
Dr. Brad Vice, Beatles fan and English professor, was born nearly 10 years too late to witness The Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan appearance, but he said he believes the continuing obsession with the moptops stems from a couple of factors.
“One, they never made a bad album,” Vice said. “And two, I think it was the first time that the idea of being able to really learn about a band’s different personalities had occurred. They not only sold records, they sold their individuality. It was the first time you really got to know Paul, the cute one; John, the angry one; George, the quiet one; and Ringo, the funny one.
“I think America’s still not done being fascinated with that creation,” Vice added.
In today’s music society, where fleeting fame and cookie-cutter pop icons have become the norm, The Beatles continue to attract new listeners from younger and younger generations.
MSU senior Juliana Kyle is a prime example. She said she got addicted when The Beatles released their anthology.
“When the anthology came out I really just got enthralled in it,” Kyle said. “After that I started listening to my mom’s old records and got her to tell me more about them.”
Brown said he believes The Beatles continue to draw people in because of the way they married music with words.
“I think they were about the business of combining words and music as meaningful instead of looking for the next way to make themselves famous,” Brown said. “I never sensed that they were good self-promoters. They were just trying to have fun.
“I think the meaningful combination of music and words is the timelessness of any music that’s going to be sung,” Brown added. “One of the best things about Beatle music is it does tend to have a generation-to-generation timelessness, and we need more of that than we do flash-in-the-pan music success.”
Vice said he contributes a large part of the band’s timeless success to that initial appearance in New York 40 years ago.
“One of the reasons that The Beatles were who they were was because of Ed Sullivan, the new medium of television,” Vice said. “And although there will never be anything like The Beatles again, there will be other things that America becomes just as fascinated with, some other musical event or musical experience, and technology will probably play a part in that as well.”
Regardless of what happens in the future of music, one fact remains: The Beatles are and will remain one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all rock ‘n’ roll bands in history.
“They changed the world of music so much,” Kyle said. “If you’re not brought in first of all by the music, you’ll be brought in by the story of them. It just never gets old to me.”
So may I introduce to you, the act you’ve known for all these years, The Beatles. Forty years later, they remain the manifestation of all things good in life, love and great music.