Beatles Research Paper 6-1-10

Ames 1

Max Ames

AP US History

Ms. Rizzo

June 4, 2010

The Beatles: How Four British Lads Shaped America

A musical group of four young British Liverpool natives arrived in the United States in the 1960s to begin their long career of shaping American culture; they were the Beatles. John

Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, like the many predecessors before them who had come from Britain such as Thomas Paine and Andrew Carnegie, became an integral part of the history of the United States, even though they were not true American-born citizens. Beginning with their momentous arrival in the United States in 1964, the Beatles greatly influenced American culture in the 1960s, and left an enduring legacy. The Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show , controversy with Christianity in 1966, precedents and influences in music, impact and development of the album as an art form, creation of a variety of movies, and influences in the counterculture as well as the pop culture helped to make American culture what it is today.

On February 7, 1964, the Beatles landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New

York, where a crowd of thousands of fans and reporters were waiting. There was such pandemonium, chaos, and screaming that, “One policeman who has worked at the airport for ten years said: ‘I think the world has gone mad.’” 1

Two days after their frenzied arrival, the Beatles made a famous appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show

. “The broadcast broke all viewing records that held for several years as more than 73 million Americans – teenagers and adults – watched the show. It was reported that crime was almost nonexistent during the ten minutes the Beatles

1 “Yeah! Yeah! U.S.A.!,” Daily Mirror , February 8, 1964.

Ames 2 were performing.” 2

Beatlemania, a term given to the fanatic hysteria that the Beatles generated, had officially spread to the United States. Many historians have considered the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show as an important even in American pop culture because it led the way for what would be deemed “The British Invasion.” The British Invasion is an era in

Rock and pop culture in which dozens of bands from England started making it big in the United

States, including: The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, and many others. A few weeks after they left the United States the Beatles broke another record; on April 4, 1964, the Beatles had twelve songs on the top 100 music chart as well as the top five which were

“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Twist and Shout,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” Do You Want to Know

A Secret,” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” 3

This was a feat in American music history that has never been surpassed, let alone matched. The Beatles, with one performance broadcasted on television, undoubtedly made a mark on American history.

In 1966, the Beatles’ fame came back to bite them. The Beatles had, up to this point, presented an image that clearly differed from traditional American values; their outrageously long hair and their ear-wrenching music did not make them especially appealing to the older, more conservative citizens of the United States. John Lennon inadvertently challenged the foundation of American conservatism: Christianity. Newspaper reporter Maureen Cleave interviewed John Lennon for the British Newspaper The London Evening Standard and published the article on March 4, 1966. It was not until four months later that the contents of that article were published overseas in America in the teen magazine DATEbook .

4

On July 29, many

Americans became exposed to one of John Lennon’s most infamous quotes: "Christianity will

2 Z. Lalani, Teenagers Guide to The Beatles (AverStream Press, 2005), 71.

3 Z. Lalani, Teenagers Guide to The Beatles (AverStream Press, 2005), 73.

4 Maureen Cleave, “How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This,” London Evening Standard , March 4,

1966.

Ames 3 go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity.” 5

This statement spread like wild fire across the bible belt; many religious parents and grandparents were outraged that their children had been exposed to such blasphemers as the

Beatles. Thousands of record burnings were held in which piles of Beatles records were collected and then burned to the ground in protest of their sacrilegious ways. One person who partook in the record burnings was a young Mark David Chapman, who would grow up to kill John Lennon on December 8, 1980. It may be that John’s statement planted early roots for his own assassination. Either way, John’s statement, while not making much of a splash in England, created a tidal-wave-like reaction in the United States when it was published. “It remains one of the biggest pop music scandals of all time, but even that dubious honor can't really convey the impact the statement had in those bygone days.” 6

There may be no area of history as influenced by the Beatles as the history of music in the 20 th

century. They had so many countless firsts that would serve as precedents for future bands and musicians and the music industry in general. The Beatles were one of the first bands to make self composition (writing their own music as opposed to covering classic tunes of others) a standard for rock bands. The Beatles were also writing songs for other musicians in their time and having their songs be covered by musicians. When the Rolling Stones were a rising sensation, the Beatles wrote “I Wanna Be Your Man” for them and within days of the Beatles’ release of Sgt. Peppers , the album, Jimi Hendrix covered the title track.

7

The Beatles have inspired and influenced many American musicians and bands of many different styles and genres

5 Maureen Cleave, “How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This,” London Evening Standard , March 4,

1966.

6 Robert Fontenot, “The Beatles and the ‘Bigger Than Jesus’ Scandal,” About.com, http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshistory/a/beatlesjesus.htm.

7 “The Beatles’ Influence,” Musicophile, http://www.musicophile.com/index.php?itemid=98.

Ames 4 of music including Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello, Brian Wilson, Neil Diamond, Jimi Hendrix,

Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Nirvana. The Beatles’ experimentation and techniques with recording have been used by many musicians and studios such as “flanging,” a term nicknamed by John

Lennon that refers to the overlapping of two identical sounds with one time-shifted slightly. The

Beatles also popularized many ideas about rock bands that are taken for granted today. “The popularity of the individual Beatles combined with their considerable instrumental skills let to better knowledge in the general public of the musical contributions made by lead guitar, rhythm guitar, drums and particularly bass guitar.” 8

Some certain brands of instruments have even been popularized by the Beatles. Since John Lennon’s common use of the Rickenbacker guitar,

Rickenbackers have been widely used in bands since the 1960s. Many up and coming bands use the violin-like Hofner bass because of Paul McCartney’s famous affiliation with it. The Beatles’ long hair was also a trend setter. Long hair became a standard fashion for men and rock bands.

Even the collarless suits worn by the Beatles were imitated by other bands in the mid 1960s; some bands went on the Ed Sullivan Show dressed just as the Beatles had been during their appearance. The Beatles set a new standard for what it meant to be a rock band, and musicians and bands have followed that standard ever since.

One of the most important aspects of the Beatles’ influence on music is their impact on the album. The Beatles’ individual albums are iconic and, “The Beatles were so popular that their album covers were bound to become some of the most recognizable in the history of pop music.” 9

Many famous album covers include Help!

, which has the four band members standing aside each other in the shapes of semaphores, Sgt. Pepper with its collage of celebrities, and

Abbey Road with the famous photograph of the Beatles crossing a cross walk. The Abbey Road


9 Jay Gabler, “Meet the Beatles (Again – The Beatles’ Impact On Art,” The Current, http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/music_blog.

Ames 5 cover has caused thousands of tourists to attempt to recreate the album cover by crossing the street in front of the Beatles’ recording studio. Many of the Beatles album covers have been

“republished, repurposed, and reimagined ad infinitum

.” 10

One artist who copied the style of a

Beatles album cover was Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam) who used a cover that closely resembled the Beatles Revolver album cover (see Exhibit A and B). The Beatles also significantly developed a new standard for the album, a new way of viewing it as an art. Before them, albums were not as important as were individual songs. Album, very often, were more or less only documentations of live performances. “Prior to the Beatles, record albums were of secondary consideration to 45s [records of a much smaller size only able to fit a song or two per side]…” 11

In 1966, the Beatles made the decision to stop touring and because of this, they began to craft intricate albums that could not be performed live like their earlier material had been.

“…The Beatles were popularizing the idea of the album as a standalone object only distantly derived from live performance.” 12

The album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was an extraordinary leap forward in the music world and in the world of albums. To this day, it remains one of the most famous albums of all time and was listed as the number one album out of the five-hundred greatest albums of all time listed by RollingStone Magazine .

13

“ Sgt. Pepper’s was the single most important turning point in the split between recordings and live performances.” 14

When it came out, it won four Grammy Awards and has since had 11 million U.S. sales.

15

In today’s world, the line between object and performance is often crossed because of the Beatles’




13 “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” RollingStone, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists.


15 Stephen Thomas Erlewine, “Album Review: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” Answers.com, http://www.answers.com/topic/sgt-pepper-s-lonely-hearts-club-band.

pioneering endeavors and artistic liberties they took with making some of the world’s best

Ames 6 known albums.

The Beatles, on top of making music, news, and hysteria, also made a total of five motion picture films. They made their first movie

A Hard Day’s Night

in 1964, Help!

in ’65, Magical

Mystery Tour in ’67,

Yellow Submarine in ’68 and

Let It Be in ’69. The Beatles’ movies were met with huge success, especially in America and “…are, on several counts, probably the most

‘deviant’ series of British films to attain mainstream commercial success on an international level.”

16

The Beatles films each differed from each other.

A Hard Day’s Night

was a worriless, witty prime example of British Humor as was Help!

. “…The success of

A Hard Day's Night contributed greatly to the influx of American capital into British film production throughout the decade; by 1967, 90 per cent of the funding for British movies was culled from the American majors.” 17 Even early on in their movie making, the Beatles generated a great deal of interest from the United States for their movies. The Beatles had not had any experience in movie making but, as John Lennon said in an interview, they could tell if something was “crap” so they tried to act like themselves and chive in spontaneously with bouts of their famous wit.

18

The

Magical Mystery Tour lacked a coherent story and had a psychedelic composition that exemplified the Beatles as of 1967 and influenced future American films such as Easy Rider

(1969).

19

Yellow Submarine also had a psychedelic atmosphere and made giant leaps in animation as it, “…taught a generation of aspiring animators that doing things on the cheap can

16 “Revolution: The Impact of the Beatles Movies,” The Beatles Movies, http://www.beatlesmovies.co.uk/impact.asp.


18 “A Hard Day’s Night 1965,” Beatles Ultimate Experience, http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbmovies.html.


Ames 7 be made to look like a deliberate effect.”

20

Let It Be was a documentary that showed both the frivolity and frustration involved with the Beatles’ song writing and recording. The Beatles’ movies had a direct impact on visual culture through their films and posters. Posters made for

Yellow Submarine “…helped land psychedelic pop art in suburban rec. rooms around the world.” 21

A Hard Day’s Night is also deemed one of the definitive and first music videos, a precursor to the thousands of MTV music videos around today. “The Beatles’ films anticipated the music video, the essential promotional tool of later popular musicians.” 22 The Beatles’ movies, while holding their own as individual, well crafted artistic pieces, helped to shape different movie genres, set a precedent for videos being used as a promotional tool for musicians, and generated a great deal of interest from the United States and even influenced American films.

The Beatles were hugely influential towards both pop culture and the counterculture of the 1960s. From fashion to narcotics, the Beatles represented the image of the counterculture.

“The cultural influences of the Beatles were far-ranging. They popularized long hair and Middle

Eastern philosophy among other things.” 23

The Beatles also experimented with drugs like many others affiliated with the counterculture hippies. First introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in

America, the Beatles soon moved on to more psychedelic drugs. John Lennon and George

Harrison were first administered a dose of LSD by their dentist unknowingly after he dropped a dose into their drinks at a get together. After their first experience, they introduced the drug to

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney and became avid users. Albums such as Revolver , Sgt. Peppers ,




23 Weekly Reader Corp, “The Beatles,” GaleGroup, http://find.galegroup.com/gps.

Ames 8 and The Beatles (more commonly known as The White Album ) are heavily influenced by LSD.

John Lennon even moved on to drugs like heroin, which he was addicted to but later quit. The

Beatles acted as role models for many of the screaming fans that had followed their every move, and the use of drugs by the Beatles was followed by the use of drugs in much of America’s youth. After the Beatles began producing LSD influenced music, other bands in America emerged as prominent acid-influenced, counterculture-affiliated artists such as the Grateful

Dead and The Doors. Also, John Lennon represented many of the counterculture ideals such as peace and anti-war sentiments. Lennon was constantly preaching peace and having demonstrations such as his two-week long bed-in during Vietnam in which he stayed bed-bound with his wife, Yoko Ono, in protest of the war. One song that demonstrated counterculture ideals was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” by George Harrison. In the song, Harrison shows a generational gap between the youth and the narrow-minded elders. Harrison sang about the elders’ unawareness and foolishness with his words: “I don’t know you were diverted/ You were perverted too/ I don’t know how you were inverted/ No one alerted you.” 24

Another counterculture song was John Lennon’s “Revolution” which called fore peaceful social change.

The Beatles with their styles, drug use, and music helped to shape the many motifs of the 1960s counterculture.

The Beatles were extremely influential in their time, but their legacy still lives on.

Today’s world sees a reemergence of the Beatles over and over again. Always, there are movies about or concerning the Beatles coming out in theatres. Their music is repeatedly being rereleased, sometimes with a twist on it. 1

, a collection of the Beatles’ greatest hits, is the best

24 Wes Hatch, “The Beatles and Counterculture,” Schulich School of Music, http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~wes/docs/counterculture.pdf.

Ames 9 selling album in the United States from 2000 to 2009 with over 31 million sales in total.

25

One re-imagined Beatles release was Love , which came out in 2006. It contained many Beatles classics that were remixed and edited by the Beatles’ producer George Martin. In 2007, the movie Across The Universe was released. The movie followed a character named Jude (whose name came from the Beatles song “Hey Jude”).The movie shows Beatles era America through the perspective of people living in the middle of a musical and counterculture society. The movie’s soundtrack is comprised completely of covers of Beatles songs. The movie attempts to show what life was like back in the late ‘60s to younger generations and it uses Beatles music to demonstrate the emotions and feelings of the era. The Beatles, as was mentioned earlier, set many precedents in the music industry such as the use of the music video, the use of certain instruments such as the Hofner bass, and the album as an art form. American culture today is still heavily influenced by the Beatles: their world, their music, their ideals, and their legacy.

The Beatles may not have been American-born citizens, but they did have a tremendous impact on American culture. The Beatles showed that the history of the United States is not defined by only native born citizens but by outside influences from far away places such as

England as well. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were an integral part of American history in the 1960s. The Beatles shaped many aspects of American culture. They broke television records, stirred up trouble with Christian fundamentalists, had numerous “firsts” in the music industry that set a precedent for and influenced future American musicians, transformed the album with experimentation and innovation into an art form, made numerous movies that exemplified their diversity in style and creativity as well as drawing a huge American audience, greatly influenced the counterculture and pop culture in America, and left an enduring legacy. In the 1960s, the Beatles stomped on the fabric of American culture;

25 “The Beatles 1,” JPGR, http://www.jpgr.co.uk/a5299702.html.

Ames 10 today, their foot print is still visible. Their music is still best selling material and movies still revolve around them. Forty-four years after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show , the

Beatles remain one of the most famous and most influential musical groups ever to cross the history of the United States.

Exhibit A: The original 1966 Beatles album artwork for Revolver

Exhibit B: Yusuf Islam’s album cover that resemble Revolver

Ames 11

Ames 12

Primary Sources

Cleave, Maureen. "How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This." London Evening

Standard [London, UK] 4 Mar. 1966. Print.

Hatch, Wes. "The Beatles and the Counterculture." Schulich School of Music . McGill, Spring

2002. Web. <http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~wes/docs/counterculture.pdf>.

Lennon, John W. "JOHN 1980 (Regarding the Inspiration to Make Movies)." Interview. Beatles

Ultimate Experience . Web. 20 May 2010.

<http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbmovies.html>.

"Yeah! Yeah! U.S.A!" Daily Mirror [London, UK] 8 Feb. 1964. Print.

Ames 13

Secondary Sources

"500 Greatest Albums of All Time." RollingStone . Wenner Media Websites, 5 Apr. 2010. Web.

<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/%3Bkw=%5B4175,12757%5D>.

"The Beatles." GaleNet . Weekly Reader Corp. Web. 20 May 2010.

<http://find.galegroup.com/gps/infomark.

"The Beatles' Influence." Musicophile.com All Time Great and New Music . Web. 21 May 2010.

<http://www.musicophile.com/index.php?itemid=98>.

Erlewine, Stephen T. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Answers.com

. Answers

Corporation. Web. <http://www.answers.com/topic/sgt-pepper-s-lonely-hearts-clubband>.

Fontenot, Robert. "The Beatles and the "Bigger Than Jesus" Scandal." About.com

. New York

Times Company. Web. <http://oldies.about.com/od/oldieshistory/a/beatlesjesus.htm>.

Gabler, Jay. "Meet the Beatles (Again) - The Beatles' Impact on Art." The Current . Minnesota

Public Radio, 9 Sept. 2009. Web.

<http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/music_blog/archive/2009/

09/meet_the_beatles_impact_on_art.shtml>.

Lalani, Zane. Teenagers Guide to the Beatles . Tampa, FL: AverStream, 2005. Print.

Neaverson, Bob. "Revolution:The Impact of the Beatles Movies." The Beatles Movies . Bob

Neaverson. Web. <http://www.beatlesmovies.co.uk/impact.asp>.

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